Need Help Merging Variable Data in Illlustrator

[ColorCrest]

I export 100 variables onto 1 4x8 setup.

So, for your plate number text block(s), are those individually named (75 in this case) for data set to find and link?

 

[ikarasu]

Yup. "Variable1, Variable2, Variable3, Etc". Pretty much the easiest way to do it is to create an action that will bind the text to a Variable#... Hotkey it... then you just press each textbox with the hotkey and it'll number them sequentially.


There is a script I used to use for CS6 that did that at the press of a button, but to hotkey 75 takes about 1 minute, so I havent used it in forever. heres some photos of the "Variable" tab in illustrator with them named, and how the .csv file look with 5 different datasets (of 75 numbers).

Again, it sounds very complicated explaining it when you havent done a setup yourself! but it's super easy to do once you understand the concept... once you're done setting up your first "Template/Variable setup" your next 100 different setups will go so quicker.

 

[ikarasu]

And Illustrator can do images as variables as well.(Not sure if indesign can?)

heres a good video showing an example of all the different imports it can do. It takes her 10 minutes to explain and setup how to do it... in reality it takes a few clicks and a couple of minutes for something so simple.

I use variables for everything I can, it cuts down so much manual work. We just did 100 different realtor signs... So it did 130 full setups of names/numbers/photos. Of course we had to do some tweaks to the final files for people who wanted setups differently... but the customer supplied an excel file of every realtors info... It took us 5 minutes to format the excel file how we wanted it, and it popped out 130 Proofs in a matter of 5 minutes. From there we had about a dozen agents wanting extra info or a unique setup... but we did 100+ proofs / Production files all at the click of a button in minutes rather than having our designers spend hours setting up 100 different files...so still a huge time saver, even with the edits we had to do.

 

[ColorCrest]

"Variable1, Variable2, Variable3, Etc".

This is the same as I recall. This will help explain to the OP the earlier trouble of getting identical data on all fields. Each field needs to be uniquely named.

Using a database, just one layout for a single sign and data field needs to be created in the case for the OP. The database print features the option to gang the qty needed to size.

 

[rossmosh]

Kind of amazed this thread is still alive. As ikarasu pointed out, you can do it in Illustrator. Personally, I'd do it differently than he is (just setup one dimension and then copy from a "variable file" into a "production file"), but it's really not that complicated.

Big picture, if you want this to be easy and efficient, you need a different software package. Go buy a cheap copy of Corel Draw. It's probably the cheapest software that allows this. The next cheapest I can think of is Vectric 2D cut.

 

[iPrintStuff]

I can still definitely do this about two different ways in indesign and each would be very quick and efficient. Can also include cut layers, flex layers etc too with no issue. I’ll have a look and upload some pics later

 

[iPrintStuff]

And someone else asked, yes you can data merge images in indesign also, you just need to name the column “‘@image” in the spreadsheet and then put the path to the image in the cell.

path to the image would be something like user - desktop - data merge pics - file name.jpg and it’ll work fine, though I’m pretty sure you can’t link it into sub folders or it gets a bit weird. So you couldn’t do users - desktop - data merge pics - pics - file name.jpg. Took me ages to find that out lol

 

[iPrintStuff]

Ok here we go;

step 1. create indesign file that's 8' by 4' (i work in mm so 1220x2440)

step 2. draw a box that is your artwork size, (this step is important as when indesign steps the artwork up, it'll need this to know how big your artwork is (this is generally a cut contour line for me but if you assign an object style to the square before merging you can change them all easily later which ideal, means you can make the line blank or do whatever you want with it).

Place your placeholder in (pic attached) of what it should look like so far

Step 3, open up the data merge part of indesign, then hit the three lines top right and go to "create merged document"

In the first page of the popup go to "multiple record layout" instead of single and turn the preview on (you should get something like the below)

After that just go to the next tab and you can choose spacing etc (another pic attached)

I merged this and clocked it at 8.3 seconds so it should be pretty quick. Exporting to the 5 page PDF was just as quick.

 

[Vinyl slayer]

I would like to thank everyone and especially Ikarasu for their input. This has been a tremendous help. Now that I've seen a proper spreadsheet set-up, turns out that is where I went wrong.

I think I've got this now.