Is there an easy way to auto populate anchors through a data merge on a master page?

[amyklau]

I am creating a hyperlinked digital planner with a monthly, weekly and daily view. I want to be able to select a particular day on a monthly calendar (ie January 14) and have it redirect me to that corresponding page (ie January 14 daily view). I've figured out how to populate 12 months, 53 weeks, and 365 daily pages with unique anchors, by using the data merge feature on master pages.

The issue I'm running into now is when those anchors populate, they all share the same name as you can see in the image below that I've attached. For example I want to have a unique anchor for the January 1, January 2, January 3 page.... and so on. So I've created a master page with my data merge inputs and added an anchor labeled "January <date> | Daily ".

What I was hoping would happen is that when I select "generate" in the data merge window, that it would fill in each unique date but instead what I'm getting is 31 unique anchors to unique pages that are all titled "January <date> | Daily" .

 

This is what the page looks like on the master page before I generate the data merge. I have an anchor on the master page so that when the dates get pushed through, each individual page has a unique anchor with a unique date.

 

This is what it looks like once I generate the data merge. The date is filled in, the unique anchor appears for that particular page, but I get 31 anchors all titled "January <date> | Daily". But what I want is for it to say "January 1 | Daily, January 2 | Daily, January 3 | Daily, January 4 | Daily, January 5 | Daily, ....and so on" without me having to do it manually.

*BTW the January 12 | Daily , January 13 | Daily , January 14 | Daily , I manually changed. They all read "January <date> | Daily".   

[amyklau]

Update * When I select "export as PDF bookmark" it deletes whatever I might've renamed it to. And only one of the January <date> | Daily anchors appears as an option when I try to hyperlink.

 

 

[v_kyr]

3 hours ago, amyklau said:

What I was hoping would happen is that when I select "generate" in the data merge window, that it would fill in each unique date but instead what I'm getting is 31 unique anchors to unique pages that are all titled "January <date> | Daily" .

I'm no Publisher user, but I think you have to combine a *Field* with the Hyperlinks/Anchors/Bookmarks here, since a data merge wouldn't work/fill on anchors at all here, but should instead for fields.

Quote

Key data merge steps

The key steps for successful data merging are:

• Creating a data source
• Design to a single spread or grid layout
• Adding the external data source
• Filtering the data records
• Inserting fields
• Merging and publishing

 

[amyklau]

Can you explain more what you mean by combine a filed with hyperlink/anchor. 

I've added an anchor to the <date> fields, which returns the correct amount of anchors but they all end up with the same name. And in the hyperlinks I can only identify ONE of those anchors for some reason 

[v_kyr]

Fields can be dynamically filled/replaced with merged data, but anchors/hyperlinks not. IMHO you would have probably to assign every anchor/hyperfield seperately (manually) here. - In other words, if you just placed one and the same anchor/hyperfield there, then you will have x-times the same populated anchor/hyperlink there!

 

See also:

• https://affinityspotlight.com/article/5-things-you-should-know-about-affinity-publisher-19/

... number sections 2 and 4 there.

[Old Bruce]

I think you will have to generate the populated pages then manually add each and every hyperlink in that document. Yes, I do mean 365+ manual added links.

[amyklau]

I was hoping that wouldn't be the case. Thanks for the insight.

 

 

[amyklau]

17 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Fields can be dynamically filled/replaced with merged data, but anchors/hyperlinks not. IMHO you would have probably to assign every anchor/hyperfield seperately (manually) here. - In other words, if you just placed one and the same anchor/hyperfield there, then you will have x-times the same populated anchor/hyperlink there!

 

See also:

• https://affinityspotlight.com/article/5-things-you-should-know-about-affinity-publisher-19/

... number sections 2 and 4 there.

I was hoping that wouldn't be the case. Thanks for the insight.

15 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I think you will have to generate the populated pages then manually add each and every hyperlink in that document. Yes, I do mean 365+ manual added links.

 

[Jason701]

@amyklau  I'm creating something similar. Were you able to add the "day of week" automatically with a data merge? 

[Old Bruce]

18 hours ago, Jason701 said:

@amyklau  I'm creating something similar. Were you able to add the "day of week" automatically with a data merge? 

This is about Anchors, or hyperlinks, as opposed to "day of the week" from a spreadsheet. Are you wanting to add Anchors? Still can't. Add a field from a spreadsheet which is "day of the week" is most likely possible.

[SirCake]

I was also unsuccessful. I found you could highlight some text, then click on Create Anchor, and the Anchor name would match the text. So, I created a data merge field with the date in yyyy-mm-dd format, and created an anchor using the page one sample data. It named itself 2023-01-01, so I thought I was off to the races. I generated the file, and guess what happened? It generated 365 anchors, each to the correct page. Sadly, each one was named "ANCHOR 1".