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.

Inline merge is a powerful tool if you want to merge inside a textframe and take advantage of flowing content. You cannot use this on an existing layout but on an empty textframe (Check requirements). After the merge is done you may copy the whole content of the textframe and insert it into your final layout.

Requirements

• Make sure you only have one page in your document, spreads turned off
• Make sure you only have one unique text frame on that page and nothing else

Inline merge content groups

• Prepare your document like mentioned above in „Setup layout for inline merge“
• Prepare a group with every placeholder you need, e.g. a business card:

Group everything and copy/paste it as anchored object into the single unique text frame:

If you want to export to PDF files go to export > filetype and select the preferred filetype from the dropdown [1]. Note that you have to select a PDF preset [2]. They are directly imported form Adobe InDesign and can be updated with the circled arrow icon.

You can set a static filename in Export > Filetype > “Static filename” field.

With static filenames, every file will get the same name and a counting number will be attached. For example if you define static filename to be “mydatamerge” then files will be named like this:

• mydatamerge_1
• mydatamerge_2
• mydatamerge_3
• and so on

Please note that static filenames only allow a-z, 0-9, – and _ characters. Other characters will be removed or replaced.

Go to Export > Multiple Records and activate “MR in one text frame (inline merge)” [1]. If you cannot select it, please check again if your layout meets the requirements (in step “Setup layout for inline merge”).

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.