#Mail merge indesign from excel how to

#Mail merge indesign from excel how to

I find it helpful to create guides to help me figure out how to position the 4-up layout. This is an imaginary examination certificate which will be printed 4-up on a page. Now let’s show you an example of a Multiple Record layout. As you can see in the illustration below, there was no overset text, and seven pages was generated in my simple example. Finally, it generates a new document containing the records you selected. For a large data merge, this can take quite a while. InDesign starts thinking about what to do. (I prefer to presize my images to exact size ahead of time by running an action on the images in Photoshop.) You can also remove blank lines for empty fields or set a maximum number of records in a document. Here you have choices for how to fit images in your graphic placeholder frames. You also want to click on the Options tab. We’ll show you a Multiple Record layout next.) There are also options to generate a report if text gets overset in the process, or to generate an alert when images are missing. (Remember, from our first posting, that a record is the complete set of fields that extend across the row of data.

That is, it creates exactly one physical page for each record in the merged document. The layout we’re creating is a Single Record. (This choice has tripped many people up.) But equally important, you need to choose the number of records per document page. The most important panel?Records?is where you select which records you want to include in your merged document. This opens a three-tabbed-panel dialog box. Click the Create Merged Document button (circled above), or choose Create Merged Document from the palette menu. Now, it’s time to create the new data merge document. I selected the data source and linked the data fields with the placeholder frames. When I left you, I had created a reminder card layout in InDesign CS2, and created text and graphic frame placeholders. You’ll find part 1 here, and part 2 here.

For more info, see Data sources you can use for a mail merge.įor more info, see Mail merge: Edit recipients.įor more info on sorting and filtering, see Sort the data for a mail merge or Filter the data for a mail merge.It’s been much longer than I expected finishing this three-part tutorial on InDesign’s Data Merge feature, but it’s been a very busy period for me. Connect and edit the mailing listĬonnect to your data source. The Excel spreadsheet to be used in the mail merge is stored on your local machine.Ĭhanges or additions to your spreadsheet are completed before it's connected to your mail merge document in Word.įor more information, see Prepare your Excel data source for mail merge in Word. For example, to address readers by their first name in your document, you'll need separate columns for first and last names.Īll data to be merged is present in the first sheet of your spreadsheet.ĭata entries with percentages, currencies, and postal codes are correctly formatted in the spreadsheet so that Word can properly read their values. Make sure:Ĭolumn names in your spreadsheet match the field names you want to insert in your mail merge. Here are some tips to prepare your Excel spreadsheet for a mail merge.