I use this linking to make technical datasheets in Indesign :). I have several scripts that update excel tables with the latest values and these tables are then linked in Indesign. I've used this tutorial to finetune this and was very happy that I didn't make huge mistakes. The only thing that I haven't been able to understand is why Indesign sometimes applies overwrites to tables that haven't been touched :/
That sounds awesome, wish I could script more. Yeah I've noticed this happening with styles in general and don't really know why this happens sometimes unfortunatelly.
Great video. Maybe a little late but the reason why you don't get the first row as a header automatically is that i you didn't define it as a Table Head. After importing, select the top row and right click and select "convert to table head". Then the Table style will apply your header
Great vids - I am currently stuck and unsure what is wrong. Using Google Sheets. 'Cannot place this file. No filter found for requested operation.' - indesign won't let me place the .xlsx file.
Hi, you might have solved this already but I tested using google sheets and downloading as .xlsx. I got the same error but solved it by using "save as" with Excel. Then it worked fine, so I guess files directly from google sheets aren't recognised by InDesign's import.
Thanks for another amazing video! is there any tutorial where you show how to create the paragraph styles and colors you use in your templates? Thanks!
Glad you liked it. I've always thought that there has to be so many paragraph style videos already out there, but people seem interested so maybe I should make one.
Is there away to import columns C, M, N without importing all columns from A to S? The way I did it was import the entire sheet A to S then deleted those columns I didn't want. I'm just looking for a way to eliminate the step of deleting. If you can help would be greatly appreciated. Previously I would use the place which as you have pointed out not he way to do so. Thanks for the excellent tutorial.
Hi, take a look at this post from indesign secrets, haven't had time to test it myself but seemed promising. Glad you liked the tutorial :) creativepro.com/easier-import-of-complex-excel-spreadsheets/
I do have another question, and can't really find a safe procedure. I'd love to import graphs made in excel. I do have around 200 of them, so what I do is simply edit them in excel with colours and styles, and then (sorry to say this..) copy and paste them one by one in indesign. I know it sounds terrible, but it's fast and works. But I wish I had some kind of live link like the one you made with the tables. Excellent channel
Hi, I do not know of a way of doing this. But several people have asked about it so I think I will perhaps try and look into this. I use illustrator's graph tools. There are also opentype fonts that can generate graphs and charts. One I've used is called chartwell. Glad you like the channel.
@ccpipe thanks, it's one of those things that bugged me since I started making reports. The problem is that graphs are usually given by the client, and it's really not best practice to recreate them, as if something goes wrong it's just my fault. Also, consider that a report usually contains 200 or so graphs, so it gets extremely easy to forget or lose something in the process. Always trust the source, I say.
@@onione980 yeah I totally understand that, I have colleagues who do yearly company reports and it's a lot of work if you have to rebuild all the graphs and charts. Would be great if they built some kind of integration with MS office graphs. The way I mostly work is that when the client approves the final PDF proofs it's on them to make sure the information is correct. Kind of how a printing company does with print proofs as well.
1. Importing the Chart from Excel to InDesign: - Open your InDesign file. - Go to the "File" menu and then "Place" (or use the shortcut Ctrl + D on Windows or Command + D on macOS). - Locate the Excel file containing the chart you want to import and select it. - Choose "Show Import Options" before clicking "Open". - In the "Import Options" window, make sure to select "Link" to create a link between Excel and the chart in InDesign, then click "Open". **2. Selecting Layer Options for the Chart:** - Select the imported chart in InDesign. - Go to the "Object" menu and then "Object Layer Options". - Choose "Create Links When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files" to allow linking the chart to the Excel file. **3. Updating the Chart Automatically:** - When data changes in the Excel file, save the file. - In InDesign, close the chart linked to the Excel file. - Reopen the InDesign file. - The chart will be automatically updated to reflect the new changes in Excel. By following these steps, you'll be able to link charts from Excel to InDesign so they update automatically when data changes in Excel.
Hi Pipe! When I'm trying to place the excel file Indesign give me this error message: "Cannot place this file. No filter found for requested operation." How can I fix this? Thank you!
Hi, it's hard to say. I googled the error and it might be worth trying to resave the file and or remove special characters from the filename... source here: community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/cannot-place-this-file-no-filter-found-for-requested-operation/td-p/10757315
very informative video, and looking to learn more from you. Could i merge a set of hyperlinks specifically over a set of image icons with indesign. I have an icon of (buy online) at every page of my garments catalogue, and i need to merge every unique hyperlink(page of specified garment) with its respective "buy online" icon catalogue Thanks for taking care.
Thank you. I'm not entirely sure if I understand this correctly but you can easily add a hyperlink to any image in InDesign just by right-clicking and choosing hyperlinks > new hyperlinks. You can also use the hyperlinks panel under window > interactive to manage them better. Cheers
Do you also know how to import an excel table into an indesign object / figure? Let’s say you have built a nice object for a popup window and you want to show the excel data in it. Based on the amount of rows the popup menu is smaller / larger.
So, a table in InDesign is already in a graphics frame, so you can also simply paste the whole thing in another frame. It will get grouped under it in the layers panel. However I doubt there is native support for making any kind of responsive design depending on the content. Once again it's somewhat challenging grasping what you're trying to do, in a YT comment. Cheers, very glad you like my videos.
Thanks, at least to my knowledge I don't think you can directly import charts from excel. But you could look into plugins or even open type fonts that can make creating charts a lot easier in InDesign or Illustrator. (Illustrator also has a chart tool.) Cheers
Is there any way to simply select all Excel cells, Copy and then go to the table already created in InDesign and then paste the data?! When I do this, it only pastes in one column
Hi sorry for the late response. I believe when you copy-paste from excel it comes in as tabbed text. That,s why it doesn't flow in to your table. However under the top menu and table you have the option to convert text to table. Then you might be able to paste that in the original table.
I have a problem with the header in the table:/ I want only 1 row to be red. I can't set it up, when I set the header type in table styles nothing changes, as if it didn't automatically detect that 1 row is a header
Hi, not sure if it will solve your issue but sounds like this great comment from a viewer could be helpful: "After importing, select the top row and right click and select "convert to table head". Then the Table style will apply your header"
How are you exporting your file? I’ve tried every version and my images are not all coming in or the in design itself tells me i don’t have access to it?
Hi, it's hard to tell without seeing your file, but if the images aren't showing up there's most likely something wrong with your image path in excel. 🙂
This was super helpful, thank you! But I have one major problem. I use this method to import a nutrition table into various labels of the same product but with different designs for different companies. Some of the nutritional values have to be bold, because they can cause allergic reactions (dairy, wheat, etc.) I have not found a way to make words bold within a paragraph and keep that bold formatting when updating the excel table. If I have to manually make these words bold every time it would completely defy the purpose of this. If I use word, I can bring word's styles over and keep bold words within the text ... but in that case I can't edit the table styles without them reverting every update. Do you have an idea for this? It's very frustrating.
Hi, one thing you can try is applying a bold character style by specifying the targeted words in a grep style in your paragraph style. I have a video on this. It's called "Auto format everything (almost) in InDesign" Cheers
Brilliant! Thank you! Exactly what I was looking for.
Awesome, happy to hear that
Same here. Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you, mate! 👍👍
Excellent training - to the point and efficient. Sharing with my team!
Thank you Rob, very glad to hear that.
I use this linking to make technical datasheets in Indesign :). I have several scripts that update excel tables with the latest values and these tables are then linked in Indesign. I've used this tutorial to finetune this and was very happy that I didn't make huge mistakes. The only thing that I haven't been able to understand is why Indesign sometimes applies overwrites to tables that haven't been touched :/
That sounds awesome, wish I could script more. Yeah I've noticed this happening with styles in general and don't really know why this happens sometimes unfortunatelly.
Excellent video! Very informative and well presented. The audio was a bit low but manageable. Thank you!
Thanks, I appreciate it. Yeah the audio isn't quite ideal with my setup, been trying to work on it. Cheers
Super helpful, thank you!
Happy to hear that, thank you
Great video. Maybe a little late but the reason why you don't get the first row as a header automatically is that i you didn't define it as a Table Head. After importing, select the top row and right click and select "convert to table head". Then the Table style will apply your header
Oh that makes sense yeah, cheers :)
Great vids - I am currently stuck and unsure what is wrong. Using Google Sheets.
'Cannot place this file. No filter found for requested operation.' - indesign won't let me place the .xlsx file.
Hi, you might have solved this already but I tested using google sheets and downloading as .xlsx. I got the same error but solved it by using "save as" with Excel. Then it worked fine, so I guess files directly from google sheets aren't recognised by InDesign's import.
Thanks for another amazing video! is there any tutorial where you show how to create the paragraph styles and colors you use in your templates? Thanks!
Glad you liked it. I've always thought that there has to be so many paragraph style videos already out there, but people seem interested so maybe I should make one.
Is there away to import columns C, M, N without importing all columns from A to S?
The way I did it was import the entire sheet A to S then deleted those columns I didn't want. I'm just looking for a way to eliminate the step of deleting. If you can help would be greatly appreciated. Previously I would use the place which as you have pointed out not he way to do so. Thanks for the excellent tutorial.
Hi, take a look at this post from indesign secrets, haven't had time to test it myself but seemed promising. Glad you liked the tutorial :)
creativepro.com/easier-import-of-complex-excel-spreadsheets/
Thank you very much. You really save me a lot of time😍
Glad to hear it 😀
I do have another question, and can't really find a safe procedure. I'd love to import graphs made in excel. I do have around 200 of them, so what I do is simply edit them in excel with colours and styles, and then (sorry to say this..) copy and paste them one by one in indesign. I know it sounds terrible, but it's fast and works. But I wish I had some kind of live link like the one you made with the tables. Excellent channel
Hi, I do not know of a way of doing this. But several people have asked about it so I think I will perhaps try and look into this. I use illustrator's graph tools. There are also opentype fonts that can generate graphs and charts. One I've used is called chartwell. Glad you like the channel.
@ccpipe thanks, it's one of those things that bugged me since I started making reports. The problem is that graphs are usually given by the client, and it's really not best practice to recreate them, as if something goes wrong it's just my fault. Also, consider that a report usually contains 200 or so graphs, so it gets extremely easy to forget or lose something in the process. Always trust the source, I say.
@@onione980 yeah I totally understand that, I have colleagues who do yearly company reports and it's a lot of work if you have to rebuild all the graphs and charts. Would be great if they built some kind of integration with MS office graphs. The way I mostly work is that when the client approves the final PDF proofs it's on them to make sure the information is correct. Kind of how a printing company does with print proofs as well.
1. Importing the Chart from Excel to InDesign:
- Open your InDesign file.
- Go to the "File" menu and then "Place" (or use the shortcut Ctrl + D on Windows or Command + D on macOS).
- Locate the Excel file containing the chart you want to import and select it.
- Choose "Show Import Options" before clicking "Open".
- In the "Import Options" window, make sure to select "Link" to create a link between Excel and the chart in InDesign, then click "Open".
**2. Selecting Layer Options for the Chart:**
- Select the imported chart in InDesign.
- Go to the "Object" menu and then "Object Layer Options".
- Choose "Create Links When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files" to allow linking the chart to the Excel file.
**3. Updating the Chart Automatically:**
- When data changes in the Excel file, save the file.
- In InDesign, close the chart linked to the Excel file.
- Reopen the InDesign file.
- The chart will be automatically updated to reflect the new changes in Excel.
By following these steps, you'll be able to link charts from Excel to InDesign so they update automatically when data changes in Excel.
Hi, great video. Can you please tell me how I import just certain cells please. So let say cell range: A4:B4, E4:F4 so skipping C and D???
Hi, I hadn't thought about this earlier but I don''t think this is possible. If anyone else know a way feel free to field this one. Cheers
Hi Pipe! When I'm trying to place the excel file Indesign give me this error message: "Cannot place this file. No filter found for requested operation." How can I fix this? Thank you!
Hi, it's hard to say. I googled the error and it might be worth trying to resave the file and or remove special characters from the filename... source here: community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/cannot-place-this-file-no-filter-found-for-requested-operation/td-p/10757315
very informative video, and looking to learn more from you.
Could i merge a set of hyperlinks specifically over a set of image icons with indesign.
I have an icon of (buy online) at every page of my garments catalogue, and i need to merge every unique hyperlink(page of specified garment) with its respective "buy online" icon
catalogue
Thanks for taking care.
Thank you. I'm not entirely sure if I understand this correctly but you can easily add a hyperlink to any image in InDesign just by right-clicking and choosing hyperlinks > new hyperlinks. You can also use the hyperlinks panel under window > interactive to manage them better. Cheers
Do you also know how to import an excel table into an indesign object / figure? Let’s say you have built a nice object for a popup window and you want to show the excel data in it. Based on the amount of rows the popup menu is smaller / larger.
So, a table in InDesign is already in a graphics frame, so you can also simply paste the whole thing in another frame. It will get grouped under it in the layers panel. However I doubt there is native support for making any kind of responsive design depending on the content. Once again it's somewhat challenging grasping what you're trying to do, in a YT comment. Cheers, very glad you like my videos.
Hello, great tuto! Can you import a table and a linked graph as well?
Thanks, at least to my knowledge I don't think you can directly import charts from excel. But you could look into plugins or even open type fonts that can make creating charts a lot easier in InDesign or Illustrator. (Illustrator also has a chart tool.) Cheers
Is there any way to simply select all Excel cells, Copy and then go to the table already created in InDesign and then paste the data?! When I do this, it only pastes in one column
Hi sorry for the late response. I believe when you copy-paste from excel it comes in as tabbed text. That,s why it doesn't flow in to your table. However under the top menu and table you have the option to convert text to table. Then you might be able to paste that in the original table.
I have a problem with the header in the table:/ I want only 1 row to be red. I can't set it up, when I set the header type in table styles nothing changes, as if it didn't automatically detect that 1 row is a header
Hi, not sure if it will solve your issue but sounds like this great comment from a viewer could be helpful: "After importing, select the top row and right click and select "convert to table head". Then the Table style will apply your header"
How are you exporting your file? I’ve tried every version and my images are not all coming in or the in design itself tells me i don’t have access to it?
*importing
Hi, it's hard to tell without seeing your file, but if the images aren't showing up there's most likely something wrong with your image path in excel. 🙂
What font are you using?
Hi, it's called "Nobel", i believe it's an Adobe Font.
This was super helpful, thank you! But I have one major problem. I use this method to import a nutrition table into various labels of the same product but with different designs for different companies. Some of the nutritional values have to be bold, because they can cause allergic reactions (dairy, wheat, etc.) I have not found a way to make words bold within a paragraph and keep that bold formatting when updating the excel table. If I have to manually make these words bold every time it would completely defy the purpose of this. If I use word, I can bring word's styles over and keep bold words within the text ... but in that case I can't edit the table styles without them reverting every update. Do you have an idea for this? It's very frustrating.
Hi, one thing you can try is applying a bold character style by specifying the targeted words in a grep style in your paragraph style. I have a video on this. It's called "Auto format everything (almost) in InDesign"
Cheers
@@ccpipe Aaah, thank you so much! That's exactly what I needed.
Ich have a problem with importing the file every time I import it doesn’t import the data is only does import -1
Hi, it's hard to know what the problem might be without seeing it. Make sure that you have the correct sheet and valid cell range selected. Cheers
Sorry, how did you start the table? It's not clear. File import? Start table?
Hi, when you import as a table it's created automatically. Otherwise you go to the top menu -> table -> create table.
Great tutorial and you’re cute 🥰 😊
Thanks ☺️
Thanks a lot!!!
You are very welcome 🙂
i need a help, can you help me
Help with what?
So helpful thank you!
Glad to hear it 😀
Many thanks for the tutorial, this really helped me to build my brochure solution ua-cam.com/video/VSLtV34ATvI/v-deo.htmlsi=pTmiUyHf-gPio46c
That's awesome, happy to hear it.