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#Adobe indesign data merge how to
#Adobe indesign data merge pdf

If a colon appears at the start or end (or both) of a field name, the data will import without any issues, but if a colon is within the field, the “Generic extended parser error” occurs. See also: Traps when Packaging Data Merge files Other data merge odditiesĬolons used in field names can have some strange behaviors. This can occur when attempting to select an HTML file as a data source.

#Adobe indesign data merge pdf

This can occur when trying to select a PDF or an AI file as a data source, or: Generic extended parser error This can lead to unusual alert dialogs appearing if you’re importing files that weren’t intended to be used as Data Merge databases, such as: Content contains characters which cannot be encoded. Interestingly, the select data source dialog box does let users select any format using the dropdown field located at the bottom center of the dialog.

When attempting to import a text file that is either completely blank or has text on the first line only.

It often happens because the suffix of the file may be TXT or CSV, but during the saving process was still saved as an Excel file – with the file extension being changed manually instead of using the format dropdown in the save dialog box.

When attempting to import an Excel file as a data source rather than the CSV or TXT file that needs to be exported first.

The data source file you selected either has no records or is not a supported file format. An example is placing a Unicode file as an ASCII file using the “show import options” feature.

Can also happen through a field name becoming corrupt.

A wrong database has been selected as a data source or.

The data merge field names that are already placed in the InDesign file can’t be found in the database that has just been linked to. This typically appears when updating a data source, rather than starting a new data merge project from scratch. There is a least one data placeholder that cannot be found in the data source. Make sure that the file isn’t open in Excel, and if it is still open then close the file and try again. It tends to fool users as it refers to “rights” and can often have users scrambling for their IT expert or administrator asking all sorts of “permissions” questions, when the likelihood is that this isn’t the cause. This error tends to happen if the file has been exported from Excel as a CSV or TXT file, but has not been closed from Excel. See also: Using Data Merge to Create a Table for a Directory The data source cannot be opened. In that situation, those extra tabs at the end of the lines must be removed. This is shown by opening the text file in an application such as TextWrangler (the tabs show up as triangles): Unfortunately, when exported from Microsoft Excel as a tab delimited text file, Excel still treated the columns as if they did contain information. Lastly, columns F and G look like they are not in use, but at one stage they did contain data but the information was removed manually. In this instance, column B should be removed.

Similarly, column B is completely blank, but so far as InDesign is concerned, it is a field that has no field name, and just has blank records. The Surname field (D1) is missing its field name.

When creating a database for a Data Merge, all of the fields in the header row MUST be named.

This relates to a field name in the header row being missing. The following errors can occur when selecting (or updating) a data source: The selected data source has one or more empty field names. It’s not an exhaustive list and doesn’t go into issues that can arise when dealing across languages and alphabets, but should be enough for most users to identify the fault and prepare a solution.

#Adobe indesign data merge how to

So today’s post covers the common error dialog boxes one might expect to find during a Data Merge and how to fix the faults. What I have noticed is the lack of resources when things do NOT go according to plan, namely troubleshooting the error dialog boxes that can pop up and leave users bewildered. See also: New Data Merge and Database Publishing Title at For those who do not use Data Merge as frequently, the help page on the Adobe website offers enough information to get started with Data Merge, and there are plenty of video tutorials online to create a basic Data Merge. Working with the Data Merge feature of Adobe InDesign is something I do often.