• Avoid „combining cells“ – each data content has to be in its own data cell. Otherwise this WILL  cause unintended behaviour
• Format cells as text
• If you like to use MyDataMerge’s number formatting, format the cells as „number“ – other formats may cause unintended behaviour
• Colors, font size and other styling information will not be imported
• Formulas and other logic operations will not be imported – just the text content
• Line breaks will be imported/replaced as space character by default (you can change this in the import preferences)

To import Excel files, Microsoft Excel is required!

If you didn’t start it before running MyDataMerge, you will be presented this screen:

Click the “Detect Microsoft Excel” button to start the detection of Microsoft Excel. Once detected (or if you started it before running MyDataMerge) you will see this screen:

Drop your .xlsx file (note: .xls are not supported!) on the excel area [1] or load the file by clicking the folder button [2]. This will open the settings:

Here you can select the worksheet from which to import the data from [1]. MyDataMerge tries to detect the amount of records by scanning the file. Sometimes – even if cells look empty – they might contain space characters which causes the resulting amount of records [2] to be incorrect. Then (and only then) you can overwrite the total amount of records to import [3]. Note: The first row (with column labels) is NOT taken into account so record 1 starts in Excels row 2.

Once done, add a layout file, then you can import both files.

• Always expect long data. When preparing layouts for MyDataMerge, you have to add placeholders to text frames. Please make sure that text frames which contain placeholders are big enough to provide enough room for the data you want to merge in.
• Move unneeded stuff to master pages. Instead of keeping all items on the regular pages, move everything that’s does not need to be merged (like decoration, background images…) to the master page. For large databases, this will speed up the process a lot.
• Do not use styling options if every data record has the same styling. Apply styling in your layout document instead.
• Use locally installed fonts instead of auto downloading them from Adobe Cloud. Adobe Fonts can be installed locally as well in your Adobe Creative Cloud app. When loading them online, this can massively slow down the merge process or lead to errors.
• Scale images down. When merging thousands of data records its necessary to scale images down before the merge. No matter if the images are merged or part of the layout. This can save a lot of processing time.

Requirements

• The placeholder text must be located in a single text frame (not linked with any other)
• The text frame must be a square (same height and width)
• The placeholder text including tags must be the only content of the text frame (be careful with spaces)
• You can choose any text you like (a-z, 0-9, _-)
• If you want to use Autolink you can add # to identify the placeholder as QR-Code, e.g. <<#qrcode>>
• For a black QR-Code you should choose a black font color

Note: For better performance also give the textframe a background color, even if it is the same then the underlying content. This allows MyDataMerge to choose a more efficient process of generating QR-Codes.

Requirements

• The placeholder text must be located in a single text frame (not linked with any other)
• The frame can have any proportions
• You can choose any text you like (a-z, 0-9, _-)
• The placeholder text including tags must be the only content of the text frame (be careful with spaces)
• If you want to use Autolink you can add @ to identify the placeholder as image, e.g. <<@image>> (for using Autolink you also have to make sure that the label of the placeholder and the title of your datasource colum must match (in the example above, the datasource column title must be “image”)

Note: The position/alignment of the text inside the frame is not taken into account. You can control the alignment and fitting in the configuration.

Requirements

• The placeholder text can be located in any text frame, along any other text
• You can choose any text you like (a-z, 0-9, _-)

Make sure that even the longest text from your datasource will have enough room in the text frame provided, or overset text will be produced.

Importing your layout is easy:

Open MyDataMerge, start a new project and drag and drop your .indd file on the INDD area [1] or select the file by clicking the folder button [2]

After adding a datasource you can import both files.

Most common issues that may arise

• If you have missing links or fonts, MyDataMerge will throw an error and ask you to fix this
• If you have no placeholders defined (surrounded by << >>), MyDataMerge will throw an error
• If you have auto-download fonts from Adobe Cloud enabled, MyDataMerge will throw an error – this is because InDesign loads these fonts asynchronously and doesn’t let developers (like us) check the loaded state of these fonts. You can bypass this issue by activating the fonts directly in the cloud (so they are always active)

A text placeholder will inject text from various sources into your layout in the merge process.

These sources can be one or a combination of:

• Datasource content (Changes for each record)
• Static text (Always the same)
• Sequence (Different types of counting numbers)
• Automator workflow (for editing outside of MyDataMerge – learn more here)
• Custom (java-)script (learn more here)

To add an element, open the placeholder by double clicking it (or click the pen icon), then add an element by clicking the plus icon:

Add the element and the appropriate editor will open (e.g. datasource element):

Once you selected or entered the required data, the element becomes valid (green check)

Once every placeholder is valid, you are able to export.

Notes:

• You can combine different elements here by adding them (plus icon above the eye icon) and drag & drop them up or down. The result will always be shown in the preview on the right.
• Additionally every element has some settings (gear icon) which will provide a wide range of tools to transform your data (e.g. strip whitespaces, add space before or after and so on)

An image placeholder will inject images based on file paths from various sources into your layout in the merge process.

These sources can be one or a combination of:

• Datasource content (Changes for each record)
• Static text (Always the same)
• Sequence (Different types of counting numbers)
• Automator workflow (for editing outside of MyDataMerge – learn more here)
• Custom (java-)script (learn more here)

Open the placeholder by double clicking it (or click the pen icon), then the editor will open. First of all, make sure that “Replace with image” is selected [1]. Then add one or more elements to get file paths to your images. In the below example [2] a datasource element is added, where column “Image” is selected (as this column contains paths to the image files). If the element is valid (green check) and a valid image path is given, you will see a preview on the right [3]. If the preview doesn’t appear, you might need to grant access to the image folder for MyDataMerge – click the “Grant access” button in this case. By deactivating the switch “Show image”, MyDataMerge will output the file path in the preview instead.

After access is granted, you will see the image appear in the preview on the right:

To advice MyDataMerge to download images please follow these instructions

1. Make sure your image placeholder has the right type “Replace with image” [1]
2. Add a datasource element and select the column with the image URLs [2]
3. Open the settings (gear icon), and activate “Download image” [3]. You may additionally select a folder where to download the images to

Issues that may arise

• By default, MyDataMerge checks for file name extensions of images. e.g. “https://www.myserver/path/to/myimage.jpg” -> .jpg – If it doesn’t find any, an error will be thrown. You can disable this behaviour in the preferences > editor > Disable file extension check for downloaded images
• If images change online, MyDataMerge doesn’t know that. At the first time an image is downloaded, it will be cached and not re-downloaded by default (for a better performance). You can force a download everytime by activating “Force download on each export” in the image settings (check the image above).

With CSV selected in Export > Filetype, MyDataMerge will export a Adobe® Indesign®’s data merge compatible CSV file. Use this option if you don’t want to merge with MyDataMerge but want to use MyDataMerges ability to customise the data.

Please note: Both CSV options …

• CSV (export only) – Exports a CSV file
• CSV (export and link) – Exports a CSV file and links it with your data in InDesign so you can continue with the data merge there

… cannot handle MyDataMerge specific actions like:

• Applying styles
• Applying the last action if a setup fails
• Applying GREP actions
• Applying Hyperlinks
• Use Automator workflows after export

If you need any of these please use MyDataMerge for merging your data.