Inconsistent placement of anchored text frame in data merge document

Just writing up this bug so that anyone else who encounters it can find out what's going on with less head-scratching.
It seems that InDesign's data merge feature gets confused when there are anchored objects in a text frame that's anchored inside another text frame, which can result in:
exported PDFs that don't match the InDesign preview when viewed in Acrobat (so, nasty surprises on some pages after exporting)
InDesign previews that - bizarrely - show differently depending on whether you navigated to the preview by hitting the arrow keys in the Data Merge box or by entering a number.
(sadly I can't provide a file for confidentiality reasons - but the problem point had multi-line data merge entries, a text frame that was anchored in another text frame of equal width, and anchored images and text frames in this anchored text frame)
There were certain entires where, if I navigate to them in the preview using the 'next' and 'previous' keys, there was 4mm less space between the nested text frame and the previous line than if I navigate to it by entering the number. Exporting as a PDF through data merge used the variant with more space.
Re-working the area in question so that the nested text frame wasn't needed seems to have removed the problem (but loses the ability to vertically align these elements in a fixed size frame that is in the text flow).

You didn't say what version of ID, or whter a single or multiple record per page merge, but the Preview is known to be buggy for multiple records since CS5 and might be for single records as well.
I have an annual directory that is built by data merge with one section in each listing as an anchored frame, and I've never had a problem, but it's not as complex as your description, nor do I ever merge to PDF (though I've heard here from several users that it's more reliable).
One thing you might want to try is merging without the preview step, but do it from a "fresh" file by copying and pasting your placeholders into a new document. If the problem is with the preview it seems that it "infects" the file and even merging without touching the preview button may not work.

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Make anchored text frame after it is move in to story

Hi,
In my document have 4 stories. and one text frame
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It is possible ?
please help me...
my coding is shown in below
tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2014"
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            set text column count of text frame preferences of text frame 1 to 1
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thanks in advance.
by, John Peter.

I copied text & paisted it and then draged the 3 photos from the file...then clicked on the photo then clicked the inline boxon tool bar nexed to floating one and that is how I did it
I do not know what you mean "cut & paist" how do I get the photo in from my picter folder if I do not drag it to the page in Pages?
I went to my photo folder and copied a photo and paisted the photo on the top left part of the page and it went there but there was no text to the right of photo...I could crop the photo to what ever size but no text to the right of photo...
This is just too big of a mess of a program as it should be easier then this,,,I hav e 300 photos in this project and would have to re-paist them all...that is nuts...
I see the button to the right of inline and floating that has 6 [lace to have the photo but the text does not float around the photo...
If this is what your talking about this very little freedom in my page layout as I need it to let me place it where I need it to be and the wrap the text...
There has to be an easier way to get my books ready for other formats other that Apple's iPad...iBooks Author was way eisier to make ready for iTunes...Love that program!!!
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I must be be out to lunch or the designers at Apple are ???

IDCS3 When adding a document to a book, the text frame of the subsequent documents in the book moves

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I've been working on a 700 or so book containing about 115 documents. These book's documents consist of a main text frame and I've been adding them gradually to the book document. The problem is whenever I add a document to the book or change the order of the documents, the main text frame of the subsequent documents in the book moves on its x axis even when it is locked. To correct the problem I've been moving them to their original place manually but this is a real chaos. Moreover I've noticed that not every text frame in a document moves but most of them does. I don't know what is causing the problem so either don't know how to solve it. I would like to prevent this from happening again cause I've got to add more documents to the book. Can anybody help?

truncated mail continuation...
(getDocument is exactly the same as in XML Database
Developer's Guide - Oracle XML DB Release 2 (9.2))
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Create data merged document with data on every second page?

Is it possible to create a data merged document with the variable data only on every second page?
I have set up the pages with the variable data as a master page (on every odd page) with the text box and paragraph style all set up, and I have set 'override master page items' so the data can be placed, but InDesign seems to freeze up when I try to create the merged document?

There should be no problem doing the merge with a two-page master and a two-page template document with fields only on one page (and off the top of my head there's no reason to move them off the master page if that's where you put them). I think the problem here is that rachrachm already has a file of 500 pages (based on another thread asking how to apply masters to every other page).
It's potentially possible to simply place the data file (without the header row) as a text file and auto-flow through the master page frames (can't say for sure without seeing the files), or if the pages without the merge fields are the same just, remove all but the first two pages from the template and do the merge.
As I metioned earlier, though, this is a very inefficient method of producing that sort of document. A true variable data print flow would be better (you'd need to find a commercial printer who can do it with your data file), or the home version would be to make one single page file for the static content, print 250 copies (plus a few extras, just in case), then make a single page merge template, do the merge, and print that on the back of the already printed pages, or as a separate page. It is immeasurably faster to print multiple copies of a document than it is to print a document that has multiple identical pages.

Automation of text when doing data merge

I have a job to do every three weeks and it involves using data merge which is no problem. The problem comes as the amount of text to fit into boxes varies with each entry which cause a major headache sizing type as what is correct for one window will not be correct for the next one. So here is the challenge is there any way i can tell the various text boxes with their "fields" in to resize the text to fit if there is overmatter in them??
I am using CS3 on a Mac just so you know

with the "out of the box" indesign, sadly no. AFAIK data merge will place the text where the placeholder is, but can't tell the text what point size to be based on the amount of text being put in.
with a third party plugin like emdata... not sure as i don't use it, but there are many third party plugins which behave similarly to data merge but do much more. check out the third party plug-ins for indesign on the adobe main website.
with a scripted solution... not sure, something that the scripters in the indesign scripting forum might be able to answer.
harbs from intools has a solution but will only do one textbox at a time: http://in-tools.com/article/scripts-blog/fun-with-text-fitting-in-indesign/
in one of the last posts in his article, another poster has asked exactly what the OP has asked for, but at the moment it remains a one at a time solution.

How to build conditional text from a data merge

Hi there
I'm hoping this is not a long shot but I do have a rather large ask (I think).
I cannot figure out how to create conditions on values.
We have two areas that require conditional text. See these areas on the attached image.
Features offered - up to 6. These are identified by defining each feature with a letter, eg 'n' stands for tent site and 'L' stands for seasonal work, and
Room type offered - four colour codes with this. These range from "not made up", "made up", "ensuite/madeup" and "ensuite".
The tab delimited file contains numerous columns for each room type - single, double, twin, share and dorm rooms that offer the 4 room type categories - see point 2 above.
I cannot figure out how to clarify the conditions I require for the conditional text.
Do I start with making 4 conditions for each room type colour and so-on for the rest of the room types ie single not madeup, single madeup, single madeup ensuite and single ensuite?
And if so, how do I create these using the correct conditional code?   Does GREP have anything to do with this and do I need to use its metacharacters like \?
Can someone perhaps start me off?
The same goes for the features. The features are displayed in the spreadsheet per column with either a 'yes' or a 'no' displayed.
I hope I have provided enough information to get some assistance.
Thanks so much.

Tag Design wrote:
Hi there
I'm hoping this is not a long shot but I do have a rather large ask (I think).
I cannot figure out how to create conditions on values.
We have two areas that require conditional text. See these areas on the attached image.
Features offered - up to 6. These are identified by defining each feature with a letter, eg 'n' stands for tent site and 'L' stands for seasonal work, and
Room type offered - four colour codes with this. These range from "not made up", "made up", "ensuite/madeup" and "ensuite".
The tab delimited file contains numerous columns for each room type - single, double, twin, share and dorm rooms that offer the 4 room type categories - see point 2 above.
I cannot figure out how to clarify the conditions I require for the conditional text.
Do I start with making 4 conditions for each room type colour and so-on for the rest of the room types ie single not madeup, single madeup, single madeup ensuite and single ensuite?
And if so, how do I create these using the correct conditional code?   Does GREP have anything to do with this and do I need to use its metacharacters like \?
Can someone perhaps start me off?
The same goes for the features. The features are displayed in the spreadsheet per column with either a 'yes' or a 'no' displayed.
I hope I have provided enough information to get some assistance.
Thanks so much.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see why you need conditional text. I can see that you may want to color each property in each category differently, to stand out for quick visual communication.
If each feature (attribute) of each property or venue is represented in one spreadsheet row (record,) you can use data merge to create the whole entry for each property. For example, a property may offer two types of rooms - single and double, and the single may be available as "not made up" only, while the double is available as "ensuite/madeup" and "ensuite."
In the spreadsheet, in the row for the Acme Inn property, which only offers single not-made-up and single ensuite/madeup rooms, and for the Ajax Hotel property which offers single made-up, single ensuite/madeup, and single ensuite rooms, the cells that contain the data for the merge fields would look like this:
Property ID
single not-made-up
single made-up
single ensuite/madeup
single ensuite
Acme Inn
$50
empty cell
$75
empty cell
Ajax Hotel
empty cell
$65
$75
$85
On the data-merge layout, each room type's label would be followed by all four data-merge field placeholders, with colors applied, so the single would look like:
Sgle: <<single not-made-up>> (red) <<made-up>> (yellow) <<ensuite/madeup>> (green) <<ensuite>> (blue)
NOTE: The colors are applied with named character styles to the data-merge layout in InDesign.
[EDIT] BAH! I applied colors to the text when composing this post, but they were removed when I posted. [/EDIT]
When you set up the merge with Remove Blank Lines for Empty Fields enabled (checked) so the empty cells are ignored, the result resembles this:
For the Acme Inn:      Sgl: $50 (red) $75 (green) $85 (blue)
For the Ajax Hotel:    Sgl: $65 (yellow) $75 (green) $85 (blue)
The separator character between the prices in your example is a special issue. It could be solved in the spreadsheet by creating calculated columns between the price columns, with "IF" formulas that test for values or empty cells and display the separator or nothing. If you choose this method, you'd need to insert fields between the placeholder fields, to hold the calculated fields' contents.
Another approach here would be to follow the data-merge process with a GREP script that inserts separators where they're needed.
Search Google for terms like "InDesign data-merge tutorial," "InDesign data-merge remove blank lines," "InDesign multiple records per page," and similar phrases without quotes.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro

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Hello, hopefully someone can help. I am pretty new to InDesign but learning a lot. I am creating a member directory of about 200 pages (about 2800 records merged from .csv to InDesign 6). Everything is working fine with the merge, except generating the page numbers. I tried adding page number at the bottom of the page to the master BEFORE merging. But if I do that, it greys out the "multiple records per page" option when trying to perform the Data Merge (using "Create merged Document"). So, I tried adding the page number to the A-master AFTER creating the merged document, but the page number is not appearing on any of the pages. There must be a way to do this, can anyone help?
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Here is a screen shot. I have placed it on the A-Master. See Screenshot#1. Screenshot #2 shows Page 70 with no page number (and no other pages have page numbers that I can see. Thanks for your advice on fixing....
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From Post 4:
//EN_UntagAllXMLElements_ACTIVE_DOCUMENT.jsx
//Authors:
//Hans Haesler
//Gregor Fellenz
//Comments by Uwe Laubender
* @@@BUILDINFO@@@ EN_UntagAllXMLElements_ACTIVE_DOCUMENT.jsx !Version! Sun Dec 01 2013 09:38:21 GMT+0100
//See: http://www.hilfdirselbst.ch/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=506568#506568
//Data for testing: http://www.hilfdirselbst.ch/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=6654;
//Posted the links to this thread in InDesign Scripting forum:
//http://forums.adobe.com/message/4983121#4983121
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//The active document:
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//Hans Haesler:
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Export data merge document records as seperate files

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I'd like to export a data merge project (in my case 600 books of 50 pages with photo's and text) to seperate pdf's. I could generate new documents or make a single pdf and breake these up, but I'm afraid this will be either buggy or very time consuming (having to save 600 files manually). So I'd hope Indesign could get a native feature to automatically save 600 seperate files. A plus would be if the file name could be defined by a data set variable from the same document.

This forum is actually for discussing the merits of new feature requests rather than an official channel to submit a request to the team. For that, use Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form and make as strong a case as you can for why this will benefit a large user segment.

"ghost" links in altered data-merged document

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Thanks, Peter
When I tried that, InDesign chocked on the resulting INX file. But that did give me the idea of using the "move pages" feature to move all 68 pages to a new document, and that got rid of the non-existant links.

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LarryHN wrote:
1 - remember the rule - never make any changes to the contents of the iPhoto library or its structure using any program except iPhoto
Good rule. But I changed the file, not the structure of the Library, so I would have thought iPhoto '09 would have found the data in the file.
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How can I do a multiple record data merge, but specify that a specific text frame with variable data only merges on the first record?

I'm doing a multiple record data merge, I have 2 frames both with variable data placed inside.
I would like to specify that one of the text frames only merges once(first record) and the other frame multiple times for each record in the data file.
Is it possible?
I thought that perhaps if I place the text frame that must merge once on the master page, it would work. But you are not allowed to place variable text on the master and on the document page.
I'm going to try it through scripting next, but thought that perhaps there is an easier way that I'm not aware of.
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Suzanne

Suzanne,
If you were trying to post a screen shot, you would need to return to the forum and post it using the "camera" icon at the top of the post editing windows.
I use a plug-in from Em Software called InData. One of the benefits for what I do is there are no individual frames on a page to deal with post-merge. Individual frames are great for simple merges (address labels, post cards, etc.). But I typically do more other types of merges.
That said, there is a drawback--one needs to come to an understanding of writing expressions that actually parse the incoming data. So in the spice price list example, that looks like:
It's reasonably easy once one does it a few times. And it can be far more complicated. The above is from Em Software's samples that has been tweaked. The best thing I can recommend would be to download the trial and see for yourself. They are good at responding to specific questions if you get stumped.
I imagine this all could be scripted somehow in ID. But I have no idea how and the plug-in just lets me keep working.
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How to fit frame to content when content contains anchored text box?

Hi there
I am creating a series of inline text frames within a text frame. Each of these inline frames contains text which includes an anchored text frame. If I tell my inline frames to fit to content they seem to ignore the anchored frames contained therein. Is there any way I can get them to consider the anchored frames they contain when they fit to content?
I tried checking the geometric bounds of my anchored frame before and after its parent frame has fitted to content. Even when there has been no change in position the bounds after fitting to content seem to give numbers way off. I thought I might be able to reset the geometric bounds of the containing frame manually if the anchored frame therein had moved with the fit frame to content.
Here is a snippet of my code:
var anchoredBounds = anchoredFrame.geometricBounds;
mainFrame.fit(FitOptions.FRAME_TO_CONTENT);
mainFrame.texts.item(0).recompose;
var newAnchoredBounds = anchoredFrame.geometricBounds;
alert(anchoredBounds[0] + "; " + newAnchoredBounds[0]);
So “mainFrame” is the text frame containing text and the anchored frame, “anchoredFrame”. “anchoredBounds[0]” seems to correlate with the top edge of the frame when I check it manually after the script has finished (when it hasn’t move with the fit to content). “newAnchorBounds[0]”, however, always gives numbers that are way off every time. Any ideas why this would be the case?
And most importantly, can anyone suggest how I can get my “mainFrame” to consider the “anchoredFrame” contained in it when it fits to content?
I’m using CS4 on a PC. Let me know if it would help to post more code, or if I haven’t explained myself clearly enough.

Is there any way I can get them to consider the anchored frames they contain when they fit to content?
@Graham – as long as ALL the anchored text frames are "inline" text frames,
mainFrame.fit(FitOptions.FRAME_TO_CONTENT);
should work as expected or at least sort of *.
Without calculating anything at all.
Just tested in InDesign CS5.5 (v7.5.3).
Could it be that CS4 will fail on that?
Of course, you can only rely on this, if the main text frame contains any "real" text at all. Not only the special characters representations of the "inline" text frames. In that case the fit() method will do nothing at all.
* it's debatable, if the fit() method yields desirable output.
It depends on your expectations.
See the following examples:
1. Case 1:
Text frame before fitting:
2. Case 1:
After fitting with the UI command, context menu: "fit frame to contents"
(note the gap between the last baseline of the text and the text frame; note also the new width)
Is that the result you would expect? I guess not.
3. Case 1:
After fitting programmatically with myTextframe.fit(FitOptions.FRAME_TO_CONTENT);
4. Case 2:
Before fitting
same text frame as in #1, but different height
5. Case 2:
After fitting with the UI command, context menu: "fit frame to contents"
A different width than in #2 and a gap at the bottom of the text frame!
Not the desired result, I'd say…
6. Case 2:
After fitting programmatically with myTextframe.fit(FitOptions.FRAME_TO_CONTENT);
Same result as in #3
So with scripting we could, at least, get consistent results.
Of course, you could get the same results in the UI, if you double-click on the bottom center control point…
Maybe it helps, if you are showing us some screen grabs:
1. Your starting point
2. The desired result
Uwe

Inconsistent placement of anchored text frame in data merge document

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