Catalog or publishing plug-in for InDesign 1

[buzfar]

Hello and Happy New Year.

I am at a company with 20k+ inventory and we yearly produce a big book catalog with all our inventory, twice a year we print an 80-100 pg catalog with just new items.

We are wanting the following in our catalogs:
Image of product
Item #
Description
Price
Bar Code

This information (item #, price, description) is in NaVision, an ODBC data management system and can be exported in tab or comma delimited form, or XML.

It is really cumbersome to do, and we are looking to automate this process.

The Question Is.... does anybody out there know of a plug-in that will work with InDesign? The ideal situation would be where we can "pour" the data into a template that will then self populate, images included. We then want to be able to do a price field only update just before we send it to the printers.

Anybody else out there taken this on before or know of a solution?

Thank you so much!!!

Allene

 

[eugenetyson]

Are you using CS2 or CS3?

 

[apepp]

...one here might be worth looking into:

http://www.65bit.com/products/easycatalog/overview/overview.shtm

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...some demo videos here:

http://www.65bit.com/products/easycatalog/videos/videos.shtm

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...others on here too:

http://www.adobe.com/products/plugins/indesign/

Andrew

 

[dougal77]

InData

http://www.emsoftware.com/products/indata/

Not sure about the last-minute update just to one field though

 

[buzfar]

Okay!

I have narrowed it down to EasyCatalog CS3 or SmartCatalog CS3

Does anybody know about either one of these... pros/cons... anywhere to find a comparison article? Anybody have experience with either one?

Thanks

 

[eugenetyson]

You can do it in InDesign dude, tab delimited text

Check it out.

http://www.theindesigner.com/podcasts/tid43_theindesigner_43.mp4

 

[buzfar]

THANK YOU eugenetyson!!!!!

Just saved us a boat load of $$$$. Including the link with video clinched it, and showed me how to do it as well!

You rock!

~ Allene

 

[afragassi]

I too am working on a catalog. It's a bigger project than I thought. I am wondering how to get in touch with the person who started this thread to see if she has started the project and can offer some tips. Anyone know how I can do that?

 

[buzfar]

Afragassi;

That would be me. Do you have an instanst message account with anyone? We could take it off of this post, and into an instant message situation and I could share my email address with you or visa versa.

 

[afragassi]

Hey wow quick response!
I am at work and do not have instant messaging, but you can email me: afragassi@gmail.com

cool!