How to import trivia content from Excel to indesign

FButler

New Member
Hi all,

So I have an excel doc with hundreds of trivia questions and answers.

I then have an indesign doc, where I have set up 400 or so pages, even numbers are question cards, with space for 5 questions on each card, odd numbers are answer cards with space for the 5 corresponding answers.

I'm sure there is a way to automate the layout of the questions and answers from my excel doc to indesign, or I've got a lot of copy and pasting to do!

I tried Merge Data, but you can only merge multiple records (q's or a's or cells) in a 1 page doc. I have to keep each card as a separate page though as that's how I've been asked to provide it for print.

I also couldn't get it to do one cell or record and then the next, I just had the same cell being repeated for q1, q2, q3 etc so I had the same question 5 times on the card. I could switch between questions but it would still change all the questions to the same one.

Any suggestions or another way or doing this? Preferably without downloading any extra plug ins or scripts.

Thanks!
 
Hi hankscorpio, thanks for the link! I couldn't find parts 2 or 3, kept running into pages I'd already read or 404 errors.

Unfortunately I still have the same issue of needing each card to be it's own page. As far as I can see, Data Merge would only allow me to have 1 page with all the cards tiled up on it. I think I would also need to alter my excel doc so that it had 5 answers per cell rather than 1 answer. After doing that I may as well have copy and pasted it into indesign! It's certainly something to remember moving forwards though as I need to do this frequently.

Thanks =)
 
You can do what you need to do with InDesign as you describe it.

Take a look at data merge videos from around the web.
 
Ah okay, so I figured out the separate pages thing but I still can't get it to do 5 different questions per card. It's giving me the 1st question 5 times on the 1st card, the 2nd question 5 times on the next card and so on. I tried the multiple data options when merging but it didn't make any difference.

How do I get questions 1-5 on the first card, questions 6 - 10 on the ext card etc? I can't see any videos that have multiple cells from the same column on the same page, it's always rows of info per page such as name, tel no., address etc.

Ideally I need a way to layout the questions as described without having to make separate columns or putting them in rows. Is this possible?
 
It's far too complicated to explain in written form.

However if your excel sheet has

Questions
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
Q7
Q8
Q9
Q10
etc.


In InDesign

Import the data file

In the layout
Insert
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>

That would be 5.

So it should make 5 questions per page.
 
Thanks for all your help, I'm still not getting what I need though through indeisgn.

So just to be clear, I've got:

Excel Sheet with:
Questions
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
Q7
Q8
Q9
Q10
etc.

and Indeisgn file with the layout:
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>
<<Questions>>


Which is resulting in the first page having:
Q1
Q1
Q1
Q1
Q1

The second page having:
Q2
Q2
Q2
Q2
Q2
and so on


But I need it to be first page:
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5


2nd Page:
Q6
Q7
Q8
Q9
Q10
and so on


I'm looking everywhere for some sort of tick box or option that I'm missing and I can't see one.
 
To get in line by line it needs to go

Question 1 - Question 2 - Question 3 - etc.
Q1 - Q2 - Q3 etc.

It does bring in the text by column, not by row.

Sorry for misleading.
 
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