Publisher -creating a Student Yearbook

[marcdneal]

I have been looking for a solution to import pictures with associated names for up to 1000 students into a yearbook, miscellaneous text, etc. The use of fields and a CSV file is fine for one-offs like sports cards, etc., where the output is a series of individual documents. This is the reverse: I want to import multiple files and export them into one yearbook.  

I guess a conditional import is required, to sort and attach names for a variable number of students.   Adding individual fields to each output location is very time-consuming and impractical for larger schools.

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Oufti]

55 minutes ago, marcdneal said:

I want to import multiple files and export them into one yearbook.  

If you were able to collect in one file all the data needed (for example, name + picture path for each student), you could use data merge like in this tutorial:

(If you want to see quickly how it's done, there is a recap at 15:44.)

The main difficulty I see is that content can be variable (length of text or number of images per student). This can perhaps be sorted before or managed by wrap options or, if not, adjusted after importation?  

[marcdneal]

Yes  this is the typical data merge.  The issue is that I will have variable class sizes and would like to create a script that adds or subtracts additional students so that in the final merged file, only the images and text available are visible.  I can do the final move of stragglers if necessary. 

Every spread will be related to a specific class so is it possible to have conditional merges?

[MikeW]

Affinity Publisher can only do merging as demonstrated. No scripting at this point, no conditional merging. 

If Affinity Publisher needs to be used for this, likely one could do the merge in Word or Libra Office's word processor, the import the .docx into APub.

I use QXP or InDesign with a plugin to do such work. 

[marcdneal]

thank's Mike,