MAIL MERGE INDESIGN FROM EXCEL HOW TO
MAIL MERGE INDESIGN FROM EXCEL PLUS

Row one of your spreadsheet should have the labels for each column be sure that each column has a unique label to keep them separate when merging into InDesign. and rows that have the information for each recipient of the form letter and envelope. The data source file is most commonly an Excel spreadsheet set up with columns that have the designated labels for name, salutation, address, etc. Using the same data source file, we can create both the letter and envelope easily. For this example, we will look at an Excel spreadsheet that contains information that needs to be used to create a form letter and envelopes. Data merge is commonly used for form letters, addresses on envelopes, mailing labels and can even be used for numbering.

What Does Data Merge Do?ĭata merge allows you to take an Excel Spreadsheet, with rows and columns of data, and merge those fields into their assigned places in InDesign.

MAIL MERGE INDESIGN FROM EXCEL HOW TO

I love that I can click through each row of data while the Preview checkbox is on to see how it will look in the final merged document.Ĭurrently Chartwell is sold by FontFont for $25 per style (so that’s just $25 if you need to make pie charts), or $129 if you need all the different kinds of charts.In this installment of Learning Adobe InDesign, we take a look at data merge (also known as a mail merge) and how to set up your InDesign document. So for example, here I’ve used the same data to create two different charts and also insert the actual numbers into a table: What’s great is that you can use the same data from the Data Merge panel multiple times in a document. (I used a nested style to apply them automatically.) Of course, it doesn’t look right at all until I turn on the Preview checkbox in the Data Merge panel, which replaces the proxies (like >) with the real data. And finally I assign different colors to each of the variables. Next I select the text and apply the Chartwell font and the Pie style, then increase the size.

MAIL MERGE INDESIGN FROM EXCEL PLUS

I’ll make a text frame and click the first variable in the panel, then type a plus sign, then the second variable, then a plus sign, and so on: Now I can select that as my Data Source in the Data Merge panel.

Here’s the example spreadsheet I’m working with (I just chose A, B, C, D as the column headers so I’d have something to work with in data merge normally you’d use something more descriptive): Colin Flashman wrote up an amazing-but-very-complex-solution for this a while back, but it occurred to me that Colin probably didn’t have the Chartwell font! Chartwell makes this whole thing far easier. As you can see in this earlier article about it, it’s really quite astonishing.īut someone recently asked me about how one might create a lot of different charts based on data in a spreadsheet or database, and it occurred to me that the Data Merge feature could do the trick. That is, you type something like 20+30+50, apply the font, and violà, you have a chart. But one of the coolest ways to make charts in InDesign is with the Chartwell font.Ĭhartwell lets you make a number of different types of charts - pie graphs, bars, lines, etc. Others use a script such as Claquos to do it. Most people try to import charts made in Excel or another program into InDesign. Charts are among the hardest visual effects to create well in InDesign.

Mail merge indesign from excel