Auto-text from spreadsheet

[ruivenda]

InDesign has a feature that allows us to pull data from a spreadsheet (a .csv file) and use the rows to populate areas that we set on the layouts, masters or pages.

Do we get something like that in Publisher. This is a killer feature for most people.

 

Best regards.

[walt.farrell]

Publisher does not support .csv files, as far as I know.

However, from Excel (or LibreOffice Calc, etc.) you can copy all or part of a table (highlight the section you want, then Copy), and then in Publisher you can create a table using the Table tool, select at least two cells of the table, and Edit > Paste.

Notes:

1. This works on Windows. It has been reported to have problems on Mac, and I'm not sure of the status of those reports.
2. At this point it is not appropriate to put tables on Master Pages in Publisher. But it works on document pages.

[ruivenda]

Sorry. You get me wrong.

 

The feature I'm looking for is - let me give an example - imagine I have a certificate to do where I need to put information about 1000 different persons. What I want is to develop a layout - like a master layout, with empty text boxes as placeholders, and then import a CSV or XLS, or something, where each column correspond to a field in each page, and each row is one different page.

This way I just need to develop the master page layout, import that file, and the fields function like variables in the layout, and all the pages get created in one step. Not copying and pasting 1000 times.

This is a killer feature for those of us that do certificates, letters and newsletters, numbers for running events, or other sports events, and so on. This automation is a must have in these situations.

Best regards

[walt.farrell]

You're right; that was different than I was thinking

Sounds like you're asking for something like a mail merge function, which has been requested previously.