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:

Whenever you have complete image paths in your datasource they do not always fit to your local environment (e. g. if you have received the datasource from your client and the full paths only match their environment). In these cases the client often delivers all images in a folder you put somewhere next to the layout.

For local paths you have to crop the clients paths from the datasource and replace them with your local paths. E. g.

/client/path/to/image.jpg

becomes

/your-path/to/image.jpg

Unfortunately you have to redo this everytime the client sends you an updated datasource. But with MyDataMerge you can update the paths on the fly:

1. Make sure your placeholder has the right type selected “Replace with image” [1]
2. Add a datasource entry and select the column with the image paths [2]
3. Open the settings (gear icon) and activate “Trim pathes from datasource elements” [3]. This will make “/path/to/your/image.pg” to “image.jpg”
4. Then choose the folder where the images are located. This will add the new path “/your-path/to/image.jpg” [4]

By now you should see the image in the preview (you might grant read access for MyDataMerge to the selected folder).

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”).