Import Excel Data for Business Cards - Auto Formatting 3

[apepp]

Hello People!

I am new to the forum, so hoping all who read this post had a great xmas and new year.

I am hoping that someone can point me in the right direction with excel to quark import. We have an excel data spreadsheet with a number of columns, name, position, address line 1, 2, 3 etc, postcode, tel, fax etc. The database totals about 250 individuals.

Does anybody have experience of being able to flow this data into linked text boxes within quark so it will automatically format the data?

Many thanks in advance for any advice received.

Kind regards,
Andrew

 

[dougal77]

Xdata –

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

 

[duncdude]

Hi Andrew

I would think XPress Tags is the way to go

1. set a Quark master page with the boxes set up in the right position and link them together

2. set 1 business card as a dummy and press 'Enter' (bottom right-most key) to force next block to the next text box

3. export the data as XPress tags and have a look at it in a text editor

4. create Calculated fields in Excel to mimic the XPress Tags functionality

5. get the data out of Excel as ASCII data

6. import the ASCII file into page 1 of your Quark document

This should, if you have made no mistakes, populate 250 text boxes (e.g. 30+ pages with 8 boxes per page) automatically

Good luck & let me know if you need any more help (should you go with this method)

Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[apepp]

...thanks guys for the help, am now investigating the solutions offered...

kind regards
andrew

 

[digame]

duncdude;

I, too, have a somewhat similar situation: Creating authentication documents for a client, containing an area for "user name" and "password": We're supplying them with 20,000 of each to start, and they'd like a program or procedure to auto-populate those fields and preprint the cards for guest distribution.

I've created a PDF file to send them, as we'd anticipated their staff would simple hand-write that data as guests arrived.

Document was created in QuarkXpress 6.5, and now in Acrobat 7.X... Any recommendations for automating the population of these two fields, drawing data from the Excel file format the authentication data is presently being created in?

FYI - "creative" end (QX/Acrobat) docs are created on a Mac, the .xls data on "the dark side"... in case you needed to know that, to find a common platform solution?

Leaving for LAX next Tuesday, and hope to have this resolved prior to that time (like, tomorrow?!)...

Many thanks for all assistance offered!

Steve
(digame)

 

[blueark]

Check Quark's website for a free XTension called QuarkXClusive. It is designed primarily for HP Indigo digital presses, but you can also output as a PDF. You simply save the Excel file as a delimited text file (I find tabs work best), then you're ready to merge the text into a Quark document. It's easy enough once you get the hang of it, but you might want to read through the instructions first.

 

[digame]

Thanks, "blueark" - sounds like exactly what I'm looking for... Unfortunately, I can no longer locate this program (purportedly a free download?!) anywhere on Quark's site! Any idea where else I might come by a copy?

Steve
(digame)

 

[blueark]

Ah yes, they seem to have moved things around a bit (there used to be a link on their home page). Try this link:

http://download.quark.com.edgesuite.net/xpress/xtensions/mac/60xt/quarkxclusive60.sit