Merging Dates into a Multi-Page InDesign Planner Template | Kendra Bork

[@MFJLabs]

Hands down, the best video on multi-page data merges in InDesign ... bar NONE! Explanation is clear, concise, and includes what works (and what doesn't) ... and WHY! What a beautiful brain. lol Thank you ma'am. 😄

[@keggss27]

Extremely helpful information Kendra. This has been much more informative than most tutorials with similar subjects. Very much appreciate you and your expertise!

[@jenhare7142]

Thank you! I have been searching for this for a while and as soon as you said you don't need to change the days, there are static, it all clicked. With the data merge I can then setup the excel file and change the year start and never change another date by hand again. Such a time saver!

[@KendraBork]

Learning how to use the merge feature is seriously a game changer!

[@rosev.4463]

Geez! Kendra, you've opened up a whole new world for me. I have struck gold with your channel! I'm gonna start letting my friends know ;)

[@KendraBork]

Check the other comments in a moment. I have an update coming!

[@markfchapmani]

At last! I've been trying to figure this out for ages! Thanks Kendra

[@lisaphillipps8736]

Awesome! I appreciate the time you must have put into this to figure out. This is a game changer!

[@dreamviver]

Thank you so much Kendra. This video is a huge time saver.

[@polyrhythmstudio1451]

Thank you!!! This is exactly what I was looking for. You just saved me *so much time*.

[@tracyeldridge7887]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. This is a tremendous help to me as I make planners!!! Blessings!

[@LiliTaylorJB]

Still Soooooo HELPFUL THANK YOU

[@narelleworks8448]

Very helpful information, particularly setting up the Excel spreadsheet. Thank you for sharing.

[@lizziesimpson8813]

This video is amazing. Thanks so much, :D I never knew how much InDesign could really do! I am having real trouble with setting up the Excel document for this purpose, would love to see a run through of this. o:) Just simple things like formatting the dates on every column. There must be some nifty shortcuts I don't know, but also don't know how to even ask Google for them!

[@KendraBork]

I wish I knew shortcuts for Excel! Generally for formatting, I use the format box and just select the date style I want. Once I get everything set up, when I need to update it, I can just save the existing spreadsheet as a new one and then update the information inside the columns. That way the format stays the same and I only have to set it once.

[@almaseed1413]

Extremely helpful! Thank you so much for sharing!

[@deeaden2025]

Amazing, I learned so much. Thank you so much .

[@annasincini6407]

OMG! So useful! Thank you very much!

[@KendraBork]

I've uploaded an updated file on my website. It is the excel version of the file that contains formulas, so all you have to do is update one cell and it will auto-update the rest of the dates for the year. :) Just remember when you merge to pick just the range that you want if you don't want to merge the whole year at once.

[@BoredAtWork2000]

The weeks don't line up right with the dates. January 1st, 2019 shows up as a Monday

[@KendraBork]

The dates uploaded were for 2018, actually. I didn’t update for a 2019 file. 😊 Everything should be able to be shifted to update for 2019 fairly easily.

[@ikigaidesignandprint9553]

Hi Kendra, I have been looking for this kind of video forever and am so glad I found it! Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I am currently working on a planner and am trying to use your technique. I have am trying to put seven days (a whole week from M-S) on one page and then have it continue to autofill every week in the following pages. I am using your template, but it keeps repeating the first week. What am I doing wrong? Thank you!

[@KendraBork]

Your template only needs to have one “repeat” of pages. Let’s say you have 7 days on the left and a blank grid on the right. Those would be the only two pages you would need. InDesign fills in the information from the first row of your excel sheet, then generates a second set of two pages for row two, etc. If you are wanting to generate a document where every page has the 7 dates on it, you would only need a 1 page template. Hopefully that makes sense? Usually that’s the issue - thinking that you need to put all the pages in the template. Let me know if that doesn’t help. 😊

[@LadyLePert]

@@KendraBork How do you get it to "repeat" the spread?

[@KendraBork]

The spread repeats for each row you have in your spreadsheet (or for the range that you set it to look for in the spreadsheet).

[@dr.shamelascott1799]

This have been very helpful and time saving for me. How can I add days to be able to use it to number the monthly view? I have been able to update it for daily, but can't figure out the month. Thank you again for sharing!!! :)

[@KendraBork]

You can use the same spreadsheet - I think in my example, I used the names Monday1, Tuesday1…Monday2, Tuesday2...etc. So the first week of your monthly page, you would put "Monday1" in the Monday box, "Tuesday1" in the Tuesday box. The next row of boxes on your monthly page would be "Monday2", "Tuesday2", etc. Looking at your csv spreadsheet where it pulls the numbers from, if the cell under Monday1 for that row (month) is blank, then it won't put anything there. If there's a number, it will fill that number in. That being said - you'll have to have your month pages in a separate InDesign file from your daily pages because you'll need to run the merge function for each of them separately. Short version: I did a lot of trial and error and found that was the simplest/best way to do it. (Longer version: the month page will have an entire row of data on one page, while the daily pages will have each row of data spread across multiple pages, and that doesn't mix well during the merge process.) In the month file, you can select which rows you want to merge out of the csv file if you don't want all the months. (Or, let it do its thing if you want all 12 months to generate.) Hopefully that makes sense and helps!

[@dr.shamelascott1799]

@@KendraBork Thank you!! I think I'm close! Do you have to make adjustments after you run the merge? I have some months where the dates are off on specific day and will have to either shift the dates up or down. Just trying to see if this a norm or if I still have some adjustments to make to the spreadsheet ( although at the point, I'm not sure what I would change).

[@KendraBork]

If it's only happening on some of the months, I would make sure that you have the 1st of that month starting on the correct day of the week in the spreadsheet. (Check and see if everything needs to be shifted x days earlier?)

[@dr.shamelascott1799]

@KendraBork Thank you for help, but I can't figure it out. I will have to make sure I check the dates, but this is still better than having to type each month by hand! I have caught several mistakes which is why I have been so afraid to put my planners for sale.

[@caroltrimble2738]

Thank you

[@arhalia]

fue muy muy muy muy muy util muchas gracias

[@zohirulislam6956]

Informative Video Thanks, But i have one question how could we add Barcode like UPC and EAN?? Pls advice.

[@KendraBork]

You can merge in images as well. The column would contain the file path and file name to the image file on your hard drive.

[@josieparsley6962]

Hi Kendra =- great tutorial! Do you know if it's possible in InDesign to do a week to view planner (so left page has Monday - Thursday and right page has Friday-Sunday) and then do a data merge for a whole year? Thank you SO much!

[@KendraBork]

It's definitely possible. It would be set up the same as if you were creating a full week of individual pages - each row in your Excel file would need to have the full week's data in it, with each column having the information that needs to be filled in. For a week, you could have columns for each day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) and in each cell would be the corresponding date. You would then have a row for each week of the year. The template file would just be the one week on 2 page view - each time InDesign goes to a new row, it generates a new 2-page spread with that week's info on it. Hopefully that makes sense!

[@ohmyads3d]

Thanks for the great video. Do you have tutorial about the update of data after user type in something in the pdf file ?

[@KendraBork]

I don't, unfortunately. I haven't done too much with editable PDFs.

[@brianandingrid]

Hi, Thanks for the comprehensive tut. A question. Why does the 1st excel sheet not work but the 2nd does? As you said, the and > just repeats the 1st row in indesign, but I didnt catch why in your tut. I have been trying to acheive a basic calendar simply with date and day of the week but encounter the repeated row 1 across all my pages. :( Do you have any guidance why? Thanks.

[@KendraBork]

I'm sorry for the delay in responding! :) When you use the merge function, InDesign inserts each row throughout all the pages in your document, then moves to the next row and does the same thing until it's run through all the rows. If you're hoping to make (for example) a two-page monthly calendar, you would only need the two monthly pages in your InDesign document. In your excel file, you would want all of your days of the month in a single row. That way it would insert the January row across the two pages, then move down to the next row, create two new pages, and then insert the February row, etc until it reaches the end of the rows. If you were to put each date in a separate row, it would repeat all 1s across your 2 pages, then all 2s in the next set of 2 pages, etc. To try to summarize, your Excel file row should contain all the information that you want to repeat in your first iteration of the InDesign pages - each row in Excel will fill one set/iteration of InDesign pages. Hopefully that makes sense. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[@elevateyourexposure]

QUESTION: Is there any way to datamerge page links? Thank you for this video btw, it's the ONLY one i found to be helpful !

[@KendraBork]

Maybe? Are you wanting to merge internal links to other sections of the document? Or links to web pages? I think the challenge for either of those would be getting the correct format so that they links would be click-able (assuming that's what you're hoping for) after the final document is merged together. Unfortunately, I haven't really played with either type of link to have a quick answer for you. 😊

[@elevateyourexposure]

@@KendraBork thank you Kendra! i made a planner for my specific projects on indesign, I used your method to datamerge all the fields but I thought that if i can add additional columns with links to be able to link another page within the same doc, I could then make that as part of the data merge so that each date would go to its respective day plan sheet.

[@KendraBork]

I haven't seen anyone talk about being able to set internal page links inside indesign and then exporting to a PDF - usually with digital planners I think those are set in a program like Keynote or a PowerPoint to create links from one page to another. Unfortunately, I think they also have to be linked one at a time (though I confess I haven't looked too closely into it.)

[@clovismutebi562]

Great stuff, i have tried. Unfortunately my InDesign is only capturing data in the columns not rows so the first page is Jan 1st, second 8th, third 15th instead of going from 1,2,3,4

[@KendraBork]

All of January should be in a row (1-31 straight across, no empty columns). It won’t work if you have your data source formatted like a calendar. I’m not sure if that is the problem?

[@alexhall224]

You said there are videos that show you how to do this a page at a time, (ie a day (& date) at a time), but I can't find them, can you give me a link? But thank you for this, its still very helpful.

[@KendraBork]

Check the website tutorial videos I reference in my description. I believe they had that information. What I meant by "a page at a time" means that you have a one-page template and then merge it with the excel file. Most of the tutorials you'll find when you search for 'indesign excel merge' will be that type of file. My template/situation was different because I wanted to repeat 7+ pages, not just one. Hopefully that helps!

[@alexhall224]

@@KendraBork Thank you for your reply. You have been helpful.

[@nikimorris5692]

Hi! I am running into an issue when the dates need to import from the next row. I select it, save, update the data source, and Saturday keeps importing as 1/1/2022. Can you please help?

[@KendraBork]

If you're wanting to start importing from the next row, when you tell ID to merge the file, there should be a place for you to specify the range of rows to merge from your excel sheet. (It will likely default to "merge all.") Keep in mind that ID doesn't count your column headers as a row: so if Excel shows a row as "3", you're going to want to call it "2" in the ID dialog box. (So what looks like rows 2 to 13 in excel will be entered as 1 to 12 in InDesign.) I'm hoping that answered your question - if not, please let me know.

[@nikimorris5692]

@@KendraBork Thank you for getting back to me. I've tried doing this as well, and it just kept repeating the first row over and over. I ended up making one long row of all of the dates and that seems to be working.

[@KendraBork]

Maybe you have too many pages? You only need as many pages to merge with as will take up one row of data. So if you have one week’s worth of data in a row (and assuming you want one page per day), then you would only have 7 pages, with each page having a column title/merge field on it (e.g. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, etc.) When it reached the end of the row, it should then repeat the pages, starting on the second row. Hopefully that makes sense?

[@nikimorris5692]

@@KendraBork I'm inserting dates onto a daily planner. I was testing out one month only, (before I completed the whole year). The column headers were the days of the week, and then the rows below contained the specific dates. Row one was the first week of January Sat (1/1/2022-Fri1/7/2022). Row 2 is Saturday1/8/2022- Friday1/14/2022. Despite selecting the next row when inserting, the whole month of January was dated 1/1-1/8.

[@nikimorris5692]

Thanks again for your time.

[@Janice54]

Related blog post is coming up 404...

[@KendraBork]

Let me check to see what happened. Both video and blog post were scheduled...and I'm not in my normal time zone. :) I'm sure it's a timing issue.

[@KendraBork]

Should be available now. It was definitely a time zone issue. Thank you for letting me know!

This could have been a 5 minute tutorial, like seriously.

[@jbhavens7933]

i didn't understand anything from this video sorry i will just give it a dislike