Creating Cards & Assets for Board Games?

[vogelap]

I am exploring the Affinity suite for the purpose of creating cards and assets (boards, rule books, etc.) for our design & development of Board Games. Many of the card use a standard design with spaces for data elements, so I think a data merge would be useful for us.

I see the Data Merge capability within Publisher and am exploring it, but I keep encountering an issue. I've got an existing data source in XLSX and CSV formats (EDITED TO ADD: with header row). Here's the steps I'm following:

1. Launch Affinity Publisher 1.9.2.1035 (purchased from the Affinity store) on my Windows 10 (64-bit) machine.
2. Create a New document (Letter format).
3. EDITED TO ADD: Using the Data Merge Layout Tool, drag out a 2x2 Data Merge Layout.
4. EDITED TO ADD: Add Text Frame area(s) where the merged data will be displayed.
5. Go to Document->Data Merge Manager...
6. Add Data Merge Source, selecting the existing XLSX (or CSV) file.
7. Click 'Generate'.
8. A dialog appears that says 'The Data Merge Source has been updated since you imported it. Would you like to update before outputting?'. I click 'Yes'.

The Data Merge panel remains, but the data source is not added (ie: the left side of the pane is blank). Additionally, under Fields, it's entirely blank. I read & followed the included help file, but don't know what I'm doing wrong. Can someone direct me, please? Thanks!

EDITED TO ADD: If you follow the 8 steps as indicated above, it works!

Edited June 28, 2021 by vogelap

[Old Bruce]

You are missing the zero step. Make sure you have a header row at the top of your spreadsheet. Name, People, Places. These will then show up in the Data Merge section.

You also need to use the Data Merge Layout tool

This will allow you to draw a frame which lets you set columns and rows for the repeats I have a 6 x 4 layout for proof sheets. The upper left is the one I place things in.

then things are repeated.

Here is how I have set up my Data merge for it

[Old Bruce]

Forgot to include how I organize my spreadsheets. The top row is the fields once imported into Publisher.

 

[vogelap]

Thanks, Bruce! My spreadsheet does contain the header row, so I was on-target with that.

I tried it again with the Data Merge Tool (and modified the steps in order that I followed, above). I was still not having success, but once I added a Text Frame area, it worked as expected!

I really appreciate your assistance!

Edited June 28, 2021 by vogelap

[Old Bruce]

Glad to be of assistance, more glad that you got it working.

[vogelap]

Well, crud... I guess I've forgotten some things!

I am able to follow steps 1-8, above, and get to that point. But I don't see how to add the actual merge fields to my document... For example, my spreadsheet has these in the Header:

Once I've followed steps 1-8, above, how do I define where, for example, the "Name" field appears on my document?

[Wosven]

Did you add some text frame or table to insert the fields inside?

[vogelap]

Yes, I added 4 separate text frames. 

[Old Bruce]

Just now, vogelap said:

Yes, I added 4 separate text frames. 

Now you need to open the Fields panel. View > Studio > Fields. Double click on the Field to have it inserted in the Text Frame that has the text caret in it. 

[vogelap]

I must still be doing something wrong.

I follow the 8 steps above in order, and the Data Merge panel remains, but the data source is not added (ie: the left side of the pane is blank). Additionally, under the Fields panel, it's entirely blank. I read & followed the included help file, but don't know what I'm doing wrong. The below picture is AFTER I used the Data Merge Layout Tool to create a 2x2, then I added four text frames to the top-left Merge Layout, then I went to Document->Data Merge Manager and added my source (XLSX), and clicked "Generate". When I look at the Fields panel, I don't see where to add the fields to text frames, even if I select a text frame.

After I click "Generate", I see this message...

I'm confused and would love to make this work!

[vogelap]

Making a bit of progress, I think... I'm able to add the Data Fields (see the screenshot below).

But how to I display the data from the spreadsheet -- perform the merge?

[Old Bruce]

You need to set up the Preview and have the Merge Enabled checked.

[vogelap]

Thanks again for your assistance. I really appreciate it.

With holidays and such, I've fallen away from this a bit but am trying to get back to it.

My current conundrum is that I'd like to have different pieces of art on each of the cards. I've got a column in my spreadsheet called "Entire File Path" that contains the entire file path and filename for each image. For example:

I cannot figure out how to insert the image variable into the template... Can someone explain like I'm five, please?

[Old Bruce]

55 minutes ago, vogelap said:

I've got a column in my spreadsheet called "Entire File Path" that contains the entire file path and filename for each image. For example:

You'll need a Picture frame. Click on it with the move tool to select it and then Click on the Field Entire File Path.

[vogelap]

Thank you, @Old Bruce! That rattled the cobwebs out of my brain and I accomplished the task of adding a unique image to each card!

[vogelap]

Another question... I've got it working now (thanks, @Old Bruce!), but I get a blank page between each merged page (see bottom left of the attached image). Is there any way to prevent that from happening?

[Old Bruce]

I am just guessing that you have facing pages and have put the fields in/on one page only. I would think the quickest way to solve this is to use a single page setup instead of a double page setup.

[vogelap]

I'm getting up to speed on the Data Merge capabilities inside Affinity Publisher, and that's led me to questions...

The project I'm working on has two different booklets (one book contains Traps, Events, and Side Quests; the second book contains just the Story). Each of those types (Traps, Events, Story, Side Quests) will have a different Publisher template.

* I've been combining all items into a single spreadsheet, with Column A being "Template Type" with a value of "Traps", "Story Moments", "Events", or "Side Quests". Is this best practice, or is it better to have four separate spreadsheets?

* Is it possible to have Publisher select a template based on a value in a column in the spreadsheet? Could I have Column A in the spreadsheet be "Template Type" with a value of "Traps", "Story Moments", "Events", or "Side Quests", then Affinity would select the appropriate template during the merge? Or is it better to have four separate spreadsheets?

* When creating the template inside Publisher, is it possible to make the fields shrink/grow based on the content of the cell in the spreadsheet? For example, I've got a column in the spreadsheet where there is LOTS of text (2 paragraphs) for one cell and only a few lines of text for another in the same column. I'd like the template to auto-size -- if that's possible.

* Is there a comprehensive resource on data merging? I cannot find one (though @Old Bruce is a darned fine resource!).

[Old Bruce]

6 minutes ago, vogelap said:

Is it possible to have Publisher select a template based on a value in a column in the spreadsheet?

No.

9 minutes ago, vogelap said:

is it possible to make the fields shrink/grow based on the content of the cell in the spreadsheet? For example, I've got a column in the spreadsheet where there is LOTS of text (2 paragraphs) for one cell and only a few lines of text for another in the same column. 

No auto resizing for the sizes you are speaking of, a single line of text will expand an Art Text Frame. Sometimes off the page.

Careful use of Paragraph styles and their equally carefully chosen fonts can help, but I fear this may be an editorial responsibility.

 

You mentioned this being two separate booklets and that makes me think that you may be better served by a single long text file instead of a Merged Spreadsheet.

If you want to use the Merge capability of Publisher I would suggest starting very small, a couple of records, chosen for length extremes. Add more columns and add more records as you go. It may be that using several spreadsheets will work but I would think that one would deal with the three different sections. You'll just need more columns.

[vogelap]

Thanks for your wisdom and guidance, @Old Bruce. I really appreciate it -- you've kept me from exploring dead ends!

I don't completely understand what you meant when you suggested that a long text file might be a better approach than Merged Spreadsheet... I don't know of any function inside Affinity Publisher to use a long text file... (But then again, a book could be written about what I DON'T know about Publisher!   ).

The idea of one massive spreadsheet with a bunch of columns (a set of columns for each section) seems logical to me... Then I just run it through the different templates which pick up the necessary cells for that section.

By way of explanation, I am using assets from a game we designed/developed that will be published later this year. This entire effort inside Affinity is so I can learn about data-driven game development (merging from spreadsheets instead of the bass-ackwards way the publisher is doing it now). There's no time limit or expectation for this Affinity effort since the current game is too far into production to make changing directions feasible. It's all for my learning!