Linking text from a database

[afragassi]

Hello-
I just posted on the thread regarding the creation of a catalog in InDesign.. but decided to make my own thread because my situation deals with editing an existing catalog and *hoping* to utilize datamerge in doing this.

The company I am working for recently acquired an already existing product catalog and the rights to alter it and essentially "make it their own." I have the InDesign files, which includes all 500+ pages, images, descriptions of products, etc.

What we want to do is change the item order numbers and prices to sync with those in our database. But considering this is a 500+pg catalog, going through and doing it all by hand - including looking each item up individually could be quite time consuming.

So does anyone know of a way to take text such as "ORDER NUMBER" and link it up to "PRICE" so when we use the datamerge function, all we have to do is link them up and it will pull the information from the database? I am not sure I am explaining that correctly, but hopefully someone can pick up what I'm going for here.

Starting from scratch really isn't an option here, although that is looking a lot easier at this point that editing.

Any help would be appreciated!

We're really racking our brains with this!

 

[MarcusStringer]

I don't think you can change a pre-existing File to link with a totally new excel file.

If you were starting from scratch then yeah, it would work.

I Think for the short term pain it would take someone to redo then it would be worth it for the long term gain.

Unless some else has had more luck then I have

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[afragassi]

So I've downloaded EasyCatalogLite (trial version) to try this out. It works, but it's tedious. Not to mention the program costs $249. I've also discovered that you can file > place an excel file which automatically links the data in the file. I'm sure most of you knew that was possible but I just thought I would share. Has anyone used easycatalog?

 

[MarcusStringer]

Yes we knew that, Although you were asking from an existing File already populated with data and hence not linked to any Excel file.

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[eugenetyson]

Plus when you update an external file it loses it's formatting in InDesign.