InDesignSecrets presents our InlineMerge script
InDesignSecrets does us the honor once again of introducing a product of ours to its readers : InlineMerge. This script extends datamerge feature by generating all the records inline in a same box. It’s a perfect tool for anyone that wants to create directories without using XML injection or buying plug-ins for for single use only.
Formerly, InDesign Secrets already introduced CSV2TABLE Basic. Later, David Blatner, one of the website contributors, told me he wanted to find a tool able to inject datamerge contents within a same story. As we were achieving our CSV2TABLE Pro prototype, we had all the material at hand to quickly set InlineMerge.
How does it work ? Just set your datamerge tags in a text frame.
You can use either regular text or anchored objects.
Run the script. You can then specify if you want to use a simple space character or a carriage return as a separator between every group of data.
InlineMerge then injects all the records in one continuous flow.
La même avec des objets ancrés :
Et le résultat…
Unlike InDesign standard DataMerge feature that will create a compound of dissociated frames at best, you now get an unique and contiuous flow. It’s now up to you to rearrange your layout stressless as all the merged data will fit.
Thanks again to InDesign Secrets for they playful introduction of InlineMerge ! Read the genuine post here.
Download InlineMerge
Downloads
Illustrations from David Blatner — InDesign Secrets
thnx for this great script and incredible timesaver!!! greetings from belgium!
Glad it helped. If you need more tweaking, you may consider EasyCatalog which is a lot more powerful than this humble utility 😉 Feel free to ask for more details through the contact page.
I am a new indesign user and am just learning but I am unable to download this script. It says i have no program to open it. I have InDesign 2017 . Is there a way to download it?
Hi kristen,
Sorry I miss your comment for so long. Hope you will still get this and mostly that you would have found your way in the meanwhile. Scripts have to be run inside InDesign (or any other scriptable Adobe App) or inside Adobe ExtendScript ToolKit app. The smartest way to place a script inside InDesign is to right click on the user folder inside the indesign scripts palette and choose “Reveal…”. Then copy/paste the script and doucle click on it to execute it.
Hello Loïc,
This script has been a revelation to data merging! Your script is the only reason we’re able to create a catalogue for our client without countless hours of manual page building.
Last year the script worked flawlessly, however this year I’m running into the issue where new pages aren’t being generated beyond the first page. I have a 4-column layout with a continuously-flowing text box running through it (left-right, top-bottom) that should carry through the whole 90+ page document.
Is there a compatibility issue with CC 2017 that you’ve heard about or come across that may explain this issue?
Hopefully this is clear. Thanks for your time and effort.
Hi,
Several users reported this issue and it’s heartbreaking not to be able to bring a quick fix to this. In the meantime, how useful and convenient InlineMerge is, I just can recommend rela production plugins such as EasyCatalog. The simple ability to update is in my humble opinion something really far better than data merging.
Any updates since 4 years? :- ) I haven’t tried this script but it looks very promising.
Hello,
We have used this and find it very useful.
Will it be possible to share the original file with us, so we can adapt it for our needs? Or, if we send you our requirements would you be able to incorporate those into your script.
have a tgood day
Hi,
I’m Maialen and I am working with inline merge script. I have linked a .txt with indesign. There is any way to update the text that we put with this script?
Every help will be wellcome! Thank you!!
Maialen
Hi! Thank you for the very fine script. My data is french and uses accented characters çéàèâ etc; the script seems to replace these with pairs of glyphs… i guess it’s an encoding problem.
Since the file is jsxbin i cant look at it. Any chance i can hire you to review and fix this?
Please let me know,
Ugo
Hi Loic, i know this is 5 years after this post but i have a niche use-case of the inline merge script, however it seems by default the script removes blank lines. In my case in order to weed out certain strings of text i need those blank lines, is there a way to turn that on with the script?