I need to make a spreadsheet based on info from specific table columns and headlines above those tab

Question

Hi all,
A client of mine is requesting that I create a spreadsheet from a huge catalog that I am doing for him (this will also be done for all similar huge catalogs). The spreadsheet needs to pull information from some of the table columns, as well as the headline for each table. (This spreadsheet will then go out to some other people who will be putting this information into an online database/website for the client.) Let me be more specific and show you an example below.
Information from InDesign Catalog:
Tea Set
Part #
MFG #
Description
123-456
654321
Tea Cup
789-010
010987
Saucer
Here is how the Excel Spreadsheet needs to look:
Part #
MFG #
Product Name
Description
Page #
123-456
654321
Tea Set
Tea Cup
2
789-010
010987
Tea Set
Saucer
2
You have no idea how I have been pulling my hair out over this. Doing this manually will be a nightmare each time. My first thought was that I could assign specific cell styles to the columns (cells) and then create a TOC and then finangle with that - well, that didn't quite work, especially because of the headline I needed to pull into the spreadsheet as well. Is there ANY way I can get this information onto a spreadsheet? Knowing how wonderful InDesign is and all the tremendous capability it has, I am sure there IS a way and I just dont know how. Please PLEASE can someone point me in the right direction?
Thank you very much in advance for your assistance:) Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Christine

Answer 1

Sorry for the delay.
I am sure that this can somehow be done by making use of the styles. For example, when creating the TOC InDesign does a GREAT job of pulling in the styles (that are of course associated with the headlines and whatever needs to be included in the TOC) and associating them with the correct page numbers. I had experimented a little with creating specific paragraph styles and working these into the table and cell styles...then applying the Table Style to the table. I was halfway getting to where I wanted to be by creating a TOC that pulled in all of these styles and applied the corresponding page numbers (that I could somehow work into converting back into a table to then flow onto an Excel spreadsheet) but the wrench in the works was of course the Product Name. That said, I am VERY confident that this CAN be done somehow, by making use of the styles, using the same (or similar) methodology that is used to create the TOC. If only I were a pro at scripting...
Well, it's great that you're certain and confident, but I think your confidence is misplaced.
I had sort of hoped that running headers could be convinced to support this, but that doesn't seem to be true.
I think you need to postprocess the data somehow. If I was doing this for real I'd probably export the document to IDML and have a seperate program read the IDML XML, find the product names and page numbers, and insert them in tables. Though...that might mess up the page numbers. And it'd be a lot of work.
An much-faster-to-rapid-prototype solution is to have an indesign script go through the document and add in page numbers and the product names. Here's a rough prototype:
var d,s,story,table,product,page,c2,c3,c5,i,j.k;
d=app.activeDocument;
s=d.stories;
for (i=0; i<s.length; i++) {
    story = s[i];
    for (j=0; j<story.tables.length; j++) {
        table = story.tables[j];
        product = story.chara
cters[table.storyOffset.index-2].paragraphs[0].contents;
        page = table.parent.parentPage.name;
        // $.writeln("This is table "+j+". Product name: "+product+" page "+page);
        c2=table.columns[1];
        c3=table.rows[0].columns.add(LocationOptions.AFTER, c2);
        c3.contents=product;
        c5=table.rows[0].columns.add();
        c5.contents=page;
This doesn't handle the header rows in tables, but hopefully that's ok.
It may get page numbers wrong on multipage tables. Probably it would be better to just use
SpecialCharacters.AUTO_PAGE_NUMBER on the last full line (c5.contents=).
It should also probably not just look back 2 characters from the start of the table to find the paragraph, but it's probably good enough.