Affinity Publisher - Data Merge; text only with tagging?

[Dean Reardon]

I've been looking around but unable to find the answer. Can 'Data Merge' in Publisher read a text document with field names (title of the field) set as a tag (like <tagged field name>) with the underlying text on the next line(s) being the actual field data? Such that different people/business department/etc can all send in the same information (in multiple field) as a text only document. Sort of like (a complete hypothetical example):

<Persons name>

John Smith

<Previous year overview>

Paragraph(s) with information

<Current year goals as a list>

goal1

goal2

goal3

<Description of your favorite hobby>

Paragraph of hobby and description

_________________________-

And then just have people send that in as a text document I can append to each other as one long text doc that Publisher Data Merge can understand. Or would I have to develop something like a Google Form or Microsoft Form which they have to fill out and which automatically saves the info into a spreadsheet which I can then download as a CVS file

[h_d]

Publisher's data merge needs a structured/delimited data file such as .csv, .tsv, .xsxl. It doesn't read tagged text. You would need to construct a structured data file from the documents that people send to you before you can import it as a data merge into Affinity Publisher.

[Dean Reardon]

6 minutes ago, h_d said:

Publisher's data merge needs a structured/delimited data file such as .csv, .tsv, .xsxl. It doesn't read tagged text. You would need to construct a structured data file from the documents that people send to you before you can import it as a data merge into Affinity Publisher.

Thanks!

Well, I guess it's not that hard. Like I said, a simple Google Form or MS Form would work. People can enter the info into  the form which then automatically saves it to an online spreadsheet which can then be saved/downloaded as a CSV file.

Nonetheless, I think the addition of Data Merge is a fantastic addition.  It makes simple things like a fancy mailing list a breeze. But also allows almost complete automation of a product catalog if you have all that info in a database already. Plus, you can actually do collaboration documents like magazines, newpapers, newsletters, cookbooks, etc with multiple authors from all over the world if you wish....they just enter their byline, their story into a database or form and an editor can put it all together with basically the click of a button!