Working With Data Merge

[srmousse]

I have created a database using MS Access to store various information about businesses. My team uses InDesign for our newspaper publication, so I am tying to use InDesign to generate reports that will be in a native format. (instead of generating the reports and saving it as a PDF (I want them to be able to manipulate it and make last minute changes on the fly.

Soooo, to make a long story short, I am interested in the functionality and capabilities of InDesign when it comes to creating dynamic reports based on underlying tables.

I have searched through the included InDesign documentation and have found nothing helpful. I can create a file and perform a data merge, however it acts more like a "Mail Merge". ANY help on this at all would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[Lessa]

Nope, sorry. Indesign is not that type of program. It would be cool though. I heard the new Quark does that, but I don't think it's from a database. I think it can take changes made to one Quark doc and apply it to linked documents

 

[philward]

I am also new to InDesign--from Pagemaker 6.5 in Classic. (I think this is better.)

And I picked up this thread because I also need to do a similar job: making a book from text fields in Filemaker. I've done it before by dragging and dropping into Pagemaker, but had to format each new piece of text. Yuck.

Is anyone aware of a way to make this happen?

 

[srmousse]

When it comes to books, I have seen in my research utilities/add-ons that make it possiable, however they all cost $$$$... check out adobe's web site, the have a list of plug-ins...

 

[RoystonMarshall]

I am not sure what level of Mail merging is needed, but it may be possible using InDesigns inbuilt JavaScript interpreter. I have made a very simple mail merge using this method.

If you want to give me some more details, I may be able to help.

Roy