InDesign & Excel... Table importing question.

[creativecenter]

Hi there, I'm responsible for publishing a monthly newsletter that uses data from a table in excel as a part of the content. I have to copy and paste the information from each cell into a new table in InDesign every month. This doesn't seem to be the best way to go about getting the data into a formatted table (some bold text, some big, some small, various BG colors, etc.) there are quite a few cells...

Is there any way to work around this? Perhaps though a script? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much. /emoticons/ibf-iamstupid.gif

[~Digital_E.V.O~]

I know an excellent technique in QUARRRKKKK.. But you are using ID. I could possibly do it using a similar technique. Can you post a small sample, and I will see if I can figure out a method in ID. The one drawback is that I am working (Quark environment), but when I go home to watch my new Futurama® DVD Vol.4, I could possibly... I am sure there is an easier way, but I learned this technique years ago. I used to format thousands of records in 2 hours with little editing, while others took 2 days or more. I need to see what you are working with to write the steps....

stefanTHOMASisaia

[creativecenter]

Thanks for your help!! Here is a sample pdf of the Indesign table and the Excel file. I want to keep the style/format of the InDesign table, but just import the next month's data.



Thanks!

[creativecenter]

oops, I guess you cant attach an Excel file, so here is a pdf of the excel file...

[~Digital_E.V.O~]

Right now I am in the Quark environment, others call it work. But I will tonight if I can come up with a system.

stefanTHOMASisaia

[Tyger]

I just finished a catalogue based on info on an excel spread sheet and ran into the same problem. However I found a way! I'm not sure right now 'cause i don't have ID here at work but i'll double check when i get home. I think what i did was 'place' the actual file in ID. So try to go under file, choose place, then adjust the table accordingly. I know you can import excel files in ID cause i've done it. But as i said i have to check later but try this. It's either import or place.

Let me know if that helps.

http://www.geocities.com/angelvex/tygsig.jpg

[uncle carbunkle]

i'm currently having the same problem. client seems to think that it's a version incompatibility between id & excel. any thoughts?

::just a feeling::</font>

[~Digital_E.V.O~]

lol.. show's you how much I know.
Tyger is correct. Placement is possible.
And you can format the cells accordingly by highlighting multiple cells.

If {you can do it, that is keep the formatting,}
then {I am obsolete.}
else
I have a way to do it.
End If

Or make a PDF of the sheet, especially since I don't see any graphics.

stefanTHOMASisaia

Post Edited (~Digital_E.V.O~) : 2/4/2005 12:20:49 AM GMT

[Tyger]

just confirming that it works. This will save you loads of time. It also copies over the cells so you could modify it as desired.

http://www.geocities.com/angelvex/tygsig.jpg

[Foxsake]

Creative Centre Designer, Id be interested to hear of your progress on you Indesign / Excel job.. im about to undertake a similar job and found this forum helpful through almighty Google. My job involves removing a lot of the columns from excel to merge the rows into one or two Indesign table cells.. any thoughts??

[uncle carbunkle]

oh for foxsake. hahaha.

::just a feeling::</font>

[Tyger]

lol@unc!

Foxsake (i luv that name!), what exactly do you want to do? if anything i think your safest bet is to 'import' or i should 'place' the the Excel Document in Indesign. There you could manipulate the tables in any way you want. I'm not sure at this point if there's a way to import rows and columns. I'm still kinda learning the ins and outs of ID.

anyone else?

http://img237.exs.cx/img237/6410/sig1sy.jpg

Post Edited (_Tyger_) : 2/8/2005 4:23:19 AM GMT

[Tom-D-Signs]

I have a similar question

I have been workin on a form off and on for about a week now.

I had the trouble first of having a pdf but not the file it was created from. So i decided i would recreate the file in indesign. My question though is most of the data is in table format, and i was sent an excel file which to me looks like it is what thr original was made from.

When i try to import it however it either imports just the cells and headers and what not...basically the outline of what the table looks like (this is when i choose "formatted")....... or just the text comes through but the table is set up wrong and doesnt look right (this is when i choose to import the "unformatted") I havent found a way to get both to show. I will include a copy of one page from the pdf file i have, which is basically what im trying to get to from importing tables from excel

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/Tom-D-Signs/RoughDraft.gif

Windows XP Pro
Adobe Creative Suite
Freehand 9
QuarkXpress 4.0

[robloud]

i'm having a similiar problem. i can not import the table data, just headers and outlines.

[Macnewbie]

If you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat (I have 7.0 Standard), you can save your Excel chart/table as a PDF, then Place it into an InDesign file. Just learned this today -- works great, so far!

[DeleteYourself]

I wish I head read this thread this morning. Stupid me for not procrastening!

</d'oh>

[Trinity1]

When you import a table in InDesign you can choose to import it both with the original formatting and without.

When you go to File> Place and the Place window shows up, make sure you check the "Show Options" box on the bottom left of the Place window. Once you choose which file to place, InDesign will ask you which part of the original formatting you want to import.

[PrintPharmacist]

What we do is we select the text in Excel, copy it, paste it in illustrator (be sure to only copy the cells you need),ungroup it (delete any extra cells that might have tagged along) and save it as an eps, and it should be fine. A few greyscale colors might tend to convert into CMYK, but all you have to do is select all in Illy and convert the Document into greyscale. This is the best way that I have found so far, as I also do a lot of things in this nature.

[PrintPharmacist]

^^^^ Mind you that everything you copy is fully editable in Illustrator...

[hydropeek]

hi is there a way you can save the alternating fills and strokes as a style so you can reuse the style over again? (like character styles--but for tables)

[janedoe]

You can place excel files, even named ranges in the excel files, into ID.

But to keep all formatting, there is a great plugin from Teacup (TableStyles and CellStyles) that works in conjunction with the Paragraph Styles in ID. It allows you to make changes in your excel file and just update the link in ID.
Perfect for using excel files that get modified on a regular basis.

The cell styles contain all the cell info: fills & strokes (alternating), etc. while the connected Paragraph Styles contain all formatting.

[Mark 2009]

THIS NOVICE NEEDS HELP!

If anyone can help I'll be v. grateful.

I need a quick step by step guide to taking data from a table in excel, and importing it into Indesign, so it matches with tags/styles that are set up in an Indesign file. It is a LOT of data and I need to do it regularly.
Is there some way I tag each column of the table in excel, with the same info as the styles that exist in Indesign, so that they match when I place all of the text into the Indesign file? I have Excel 2000 and Indesign CS3.

I have done a lot of reading up but I am a complete novice so I need someone to spell it out, detail would be appreciated, i.e:
"...go to TOOLS, this and that, then paste in Indesign and hold down shift so it..." etc.

The info in the excel sheet is prepared in columns, each of which will have a different style when they are imported into the Indesign file.

Then... [it gets worse!] I need to know how, if possible, to use the same data, from the excel file, or even from the indesign file after it has been imported, [not sure how this works] to upload the data to a website. Once again, there are existing styles in place.
The site in question displays the data, so you can use a drop down menu to filter it. You can click onto a certain day in the drop down [It's an events diary] and it filters everything for that day to appear.

Do I need to prepare some kind of script in order to get the data ready for the site? If I can tag the info in the excel sheet and then there were a script of some sort which would tell the stuff in the spreadsheet when to appear...? I was told I would need dates to show in my table in the format 2009 02 12.

Sorry I'm so clueless, I am very quick to learn though so if anyone can help I should pick it up quickly.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks v. much!! :D

[garricks]

I find InDesign Secrets to be a valuable resource. Here's some linkage to Indy tables & Excel. http://tinyurl.com/cp92hj

Oh, carp, zombiethread.

[Mark 2009]

Hiya, ok cheers for that, I'll give it a read...

[Mark 2009]

Oh I thought I should add, with the importing of the data from the Excel file, I don't want to display it as a table in Indesign, I just pull it from the table, it's in a table format in Excel so I can segment/tag the info that needs to be styled differently.
[I don't know how to tag or what a tag is by the way, I just picked this up from reading about it!??]

In the Indesign file the info from the Excel table gets displayed as a huge long list, like a classifieds section, with spaces between each entry [what is each line in the table in excel]. The stuff from each column in the original table in Excel, is formatted the same, each column in a different style. So the title of each entry in ID file, [all titles are in one column in the excel sheet] is grey and bold, the next line just grey, the body plain and then the price grey etc.

Hope that helps make it a little clearer.

[urstwile]

Wow, thread resurrection! In this case it seems okay.

I don't have an Excel (shudder) file here at home to test what you want to do, but when you go to the "File" menu in InDesign and select "Place...", the resulting dialog box should offer a choice to "Show Import Options". There might be an option in there for you to import the Excel file the way you want.

In terms of then getting your info onto the web, you're going to need to do some research on exporting as XML. I'm only aware of this feature and haven't put it into practice, so I can't give you much help there, I'm afraid.

[garricks]

OK, I've read the post again about five times. I think I get it now.
All you have to do is make sure the Paragraph Styles in InDesign match the Cell formatting in Excel, ("Title" = "Title"), but I"m not quite sure if you can do that in Excel. You might have to place the table in Word and apply the Paragraph Styles there, then place it in InDesign.

Problem is, I don't use Excel enough.

[Pointyhat]

You can import and insert tables and cells into ID. Tables is one of the menu bars, I don't do it often, but it's there.

[garricks]

But Pointyhat, OP doesn't want to do that:

Oh I thought I should add, with the importing of the data from the Excel file, I don't want to display it as a table in Indesign, I just pull it from the table, it's in a table format in Excel so I can segment/tag the info that needs to be styled differently.

I think it's going to require some scripting.

[Pointyhat]

Ahhhh, my bad, thanks Garricks. Still, this thread did get me playing around with the Table menu. I always forget it's there.

[garricks]

Man, I am such an idiot. I was getting tripped up by "table styles" as opposed to "Object styles."

There's an excellent podcast or blogpost out there somewhere about using character, paragraph and object styles to instantly format stuff like event calendars...as long as each item contains the exact same number of paragraphs. You set up the 'graph styles like title, date, time, location, description and use the "format next as." The last 'graph, say description, points back to the first thing, say title. Then, set up the object style Options Paragraph styles settings so the initial paragraph style is (in this example) title, and check the Apply Next Style box.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/garricks/GDF/Picture7-2.jpg

Then you draw your text box in Indy, FILE > PLACE the copy and apply the object style. BOOM! Done.

I don't have time right now to write an entire tute, I've got some errands to run. I am very sure the tutorial was written by one of three people: David Blattner, Anne-Marie Conceptión or Sandee Cohen. You might Googlesearch their blogs (including InDesign secrets).

[seligman]

This is slightly off-topic but it applies to InDesign CS3 tables and Excel. I'm mentioning this to save others from the trouble I've gone through.

If you use the "Split Cells Horizontally" feature in ID CS3, it will choke horribly when you copy data from Excel and paste into InDesign. And it doesn't matter if the split cells are in a different column.

Apparently when you split a cell, ID CS3 does this across the entire table in the same column or row, even though you can't see it. When you paste from Excel, it tries to insert data into that "invisible" cell, but it fails. One of two things happen.

The data in the split rows usually goes poof and will delete itself, shifting the following rows upward for every "deleted" cell, even though no cells have actually been deleted, only the data in them has.

When this doesn't happen, InDesign creates a new column - all by itself - and staggers the data from row to row. Say you pasted a single column with 5 rows into Column A. ID CS3 creates Column B when you paste. Rows 1, 3, 5 are pasted into Column A, but rows 2 and 4 are pasted into Column B.

I can't begin to tell you how much trouble this has caused me (I'm talking dozens of hours).

When I contacted Adobe about it, they just brushed me off.

[garricks]

Here's another piece of the puzzle. If it's a long document and you flow the text in, you'll need to apply the object style to each text frame that's created.

This tutorial by Dave Saunders explains how to do it with Find/Change. Extra cool:
http://tinyurl.com/awaw3t


EDIT: Here's your total solution: http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=585

I can't say enough about Lynda.com training. You can buy the DVD or get a $25/month subscription. Some of the introductory videos are available free online, and there are also lynda tutorials in your CS3 software package.

I still haven't found the exact tute I was looking for. It's out there, I know it, I just can't lay my hands on it.

[Aliput]

Hello All,

I have a solution for importing tables from excel into inDesign.

1. File > Place
2. Choose your Excel file
3. Select the 'Show Import Options' check box at the bottom of the place window
4. Click 'open'
5. Select Formatted Table or Unformatted Table (depending on whether you have a table style set up)
6. Hit ok
7. Enjoy the simplicity of table creation in InDesign :)

That's it folks!

[eugenetyson]

Man, I am such an idiot. I was getting tripped up by "table styles" as opposed to "Object styles."

There's an excellent podcast or blogpost out there somewhere about using character, paragraph and object styles to instantly format stuff like event calendars...as long as each item contains the exact same number of paragraphs. You set up the 'graph styles like title, date, time, location, description and use the "format next as." The last 'graph, say description, points back to the first thing, say title. Then, set up the object style Options Paragraph styles settings so the initial paragraph style is (in this example) title, and check the Apply Next Style box.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/garricks/GDF/Picture7-2.jpg

Then you draw your text box in Indy, FILE > PLACE the copy and apply the object style. BOOM! Done.

I don't have time right now to write an entire tute, I've got some errands to run. I am very sure the tutorial was written by one of three people: David Blattner, Anne-Marie Conceptión or Sandee Cohen. You might Googlesearch their blogs (including InDesign secrets).


To do the Automation thing with Object Styles you have to have Apply to Next Style checked. Otherwise it won't work.