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.

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.

Go to Export > Extras > Record filter and set up one or more filters to filter your submitted datasource. This will not change the datasource itself but provide a filtered datasource to the merge process. You can see how many records are removed in the overview on the left side, written in red.

Go to Export > Extras > Record sorting and select the data column to sort records after. Currently theres no multi-sort possible. You may then also choose to sort the records ascending or descending. This will not change the datasource itself but provide a sorted datasource to the merge process.