Once you open a placeholders editor you will see that you can select a replacement type to show MyDataMerge what kind of data you want to inject [1] to that placeholder and you can select a setup [2]. Initially there’s a setup called “Initial setup” you can work with. But you can add as many others as you like.

In the center area (“Add item to ‘Initial setup'”) you can configure the output to be injected in the merge process dynamically. Each setup can have custom style settings (brush icon) and a custom hyperlink setting (chain icon).

By default, only the selected setup is used for the merge process. But setups become really powerful once you add them in a row (if first fails use second then third …) (path icon) or use them based on conditions (“If ‘First Name’ is ‘John’ then use this, otherwise use that).

For every placeholder you can add more than one setup.

If you have a well formed database with no missing data, usually one setup is enough. More than one setup will come in handy in situations where this isn’t the case or where you want to apply different styles.

Example:

You have a subject line in a letter where you want to output a salutation and last name e.g. “Dear Forrest” where “Forrest” is the first name and comes from the database and “Dear” is a static text. You can do this easily with a simple setup of your placeholder:

In the below image you can see the setup to output “Dear [First Name]”, a static text for “Dear ” [1] and a dynamic datasource element for the first name [2]. The output can be checked in the preview [3]:

Now imagine you don’t have a first name, then you’d like to output “To whom it may concern” which you can do with a second setup. So we add another setup here and give it an appropriate name [1]:

Then we configure it to output the static text “To whom it may concern”.

Right now, MyDataMerge would output “To whom it may concern” for every data record, because it’s the currently selected setup. To allow multiple setups to be processed you need to enable the process chain [1 + 2] as shown in the image below. Then all setups in the right table [3] will be processed from top down. If first setup fails (e.g. because first name is missing) then use second one and so on.

You can move unused setups to the left table, they will have no effect there. If the last setup in the right table fails, the “Action if last setup fails” will be executed which you can select at the bottom.

Note: You can add more control by adding conditions (on when it should be executed) to each setup.

You can add Hyperlinks dynamically to your placeholders, no matter if its a text, image or QR-Code placeholder. After applying hyperlinks, a reader can click on the element to open the hyperlink.

Note: Hyperlinks will only work if you export to InDesign files or interactive PDF files.

How to add Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are part of a setup – this gives you the full advantage of a setups flexibility (e.g. to apply different hyperlinks to the same placeholder based on conditions). To add a hyperlink, open the placeholder in the editor and click the hyperlink icon [1] to open the hyperlink panel. Then enable the hyperlink [2] and start with your configuration:

Shared Hyperlink destination
This is only useful if you have multiple hyperlinks with the same target and need to continue working with your InDesign layout. With this option turned on, only one hyperlink target will be created in your layout document and be shared for multiple hyperlinks. With this option turned off, a new target will be created for each hyperlink.

Highlight
Selects the highlight effect of the hyperlink

PDF Display
Selects the kind of frame around the hyperlink. Selecting “Visible Rectangle” will unlock the options below to further style the frame.

Width
The width of the rectangle (thin, medium or thick)

Format
The format of the rectangle (solid or dashed)

Color
The RGB color of the rectangle. All RGB swatches (and only RGB) from your document are imported automatically and will be selectable next to “Document default”.

Configuration

The configuration button opens another editor to configure the hyperlinks content. You can select a hyperlink type and edit every item like a text placeholder to inject data into a hyperlink.

If you want to export to Adobe InDesign files go to export > filetype and select the preferred filetype from the dropdown.

To configure dynamic file names go to Export > Filetype and make sure “One document per record” [1] is activated. Then a button “Filenames setup” [2] appears. Click it to configure your filenames.

If you click the “Filenames setup” button you can then select the filetype to setup custom naming. If you e. g. export to PDF files and keep a copy of your InDesign files you can define both the names for the PDF files and the InDesign files. Double click a row and enable it. Then you can configure it like a placeholder.

GREP text actions allow you to search and replace specific strings matching custom search patterns with other strings or patterns AFTER the merge process is completed. They are applied to all documents generated.

Go to Export > Extras > GREP text

Here you can activate or deactivate your configured GREP text replacements. To edit them click on the pen icon of each row, to add new ones click on the gear icon in the bottom right. This will take you to the preferences where you can add new actions or delete existing ones (Note: Predefined actions cannot be deleted. They are flagged with [System] at the end of the name):

GREP text actions are stored locally on your machine. Only activated actions will be added to project files.