I am very much a newbie when it comes to working with scripts. About all I have ever done was use a script that converted a ID book file over to a single document PDF. I will need to know how to use scipts to change the size and position of the different elements on the badge and then make it apply to all the different badges.

Yes, all the other badges are the set up the same way. I just used a template to drop in the different emlployee photos and names. I am running MacOS 10.5.8. I don't know how to use AppleScipt or JavaScript.  I wonder if someone has some premade scripts that would allow me to do this? It seems like the kind of thing that people have no doubt had to do in the past.

I still do not quite understand how the data merge would work in this situation. My understanding of using data merge with images is that you tell InDesign what folder to go into and it imports all those images in that folder with the corresponding text that was on the same line in that spreadsheet. In this case the barcodes are made entirely in the InDesign plugin  panel. There are no linked images it's just a vector image built straight into the document. Below is the panel where I enter in the barcodes. The software is Barcodemaker from Teacup Software.

@Rob There are 5 items that need repositioning actually. The photo, person’s name, logo, barcode, and background image. For the page size I think it would be best to go with 13” x 19” portrait since I think the size of the badges fits best on that size of paper. I hope that is not too hard. It might be easiest to send you the files via Google Drive. If you want to give me your email I can send you the badges.

@Mohamed I am actually still using InDesign 6.0.6. which would be CS4. I put this at the end of the subject line to this post so that people would know that I am not on the current version of ID.

Rob, I ran into some problems running the script. It mainly seems to just changes the size of the page and position the barcodes correctly but doesn't change much else. When I created the badges initially I would duplicate a previous badge and then change all the contents for the next employee. I could have created an InDesign template file but then I would be dealing with a new InDesign doc for every employee which would have been a pretty excessive amount of work. I decided against doing it this way since I was planning on printing several employee badges per page rather then printing out one badge at a time. I don't know if there is anything that can be done about changing the format when it is set up this way. What do you think?

When I tried to open the plug-in I got the following messages. Do you know which plug-ins it is referring to?

Actually I am on CS4. Adobe decided that they didn't want to support PowerPC Macs so CS4 is as high as I can go.

The image didn't rotate, all I got to change was the page size. There also seem to be pound signs on each side of the badge.

Yes I did and AppleScript Editor tells me:

AppleScript Error

Adobe InDesign CS4 got an error: Invalid object for this request.

It also highlights this line of code for some reason:

set geometric bounds of item 1 of all page items of barcode to {6, 31, 36, 143}

I sent you about eight badges via Google Drive like you asked. Also I had a question regarding the record feature in AppleScript Editor. Can I click record and then just resize the badge and then use the recorded script on the other badges? I read somewhere that the record feature doesn't work between AppleSript and InDesign. Do you know if that is true?

No, they were not set up in individual files. I was talking about my reseasoning behind doing it this way on comment 22. Basically it was easier this way when I initially printed them out.

If I were to build the badges via a master page would that make it easier to resize them later with a script? I don't know if I will have to resize the badges again somewhere down the line but if I do I will like to set them up so that they are easy to script or automate in some way. Or could that be done entirely with master pages with no involvment using scripts?

Ok, I'll try out the masterpages.