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Dynamic Excel content failing to display when linked to

Community Beginner ,
Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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Hi all,

We are looking to link some financial tables from an Excel (.xlsx) file into InDesign but are finding that any Dynamic table content in Excel fails to appear. The cells will display but InDesign seems to not be able to pull the content through. The static content comes through fine.

Does anyone know why this is the case?

From testing, i can see that InDesign could see Dynamic Excel content from .xls files but as this is a clients file i'd rather not be changing it's format (especially as when i've done this for my test some of the applied formatting appears to change).

Also, we are using named ranges and when importing the .xls file, these seem to not come through.

Has anyone else come across this problem and found a solution?

At the moment i'm being forced to look at a workaround where we make the source content static but it's not ideal, as i wanted to keep manipulation of the supplied Excel file to a minimum.

Any help or insights are appreciated.

Cheers

Rich

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Beginner , Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

The Master Excel file has named ranges.

These named ranges are placed into InDesign and a link is created.

We are using 'Wordsflow' to retain styling when updating the link.

I had been using the 'Unformatted table' option as we were just applying our formatting over the top once the file was in InDesign and i didn't think that would be the problem but after you asked the question i thought i should doublecheck that and hey presto, the content came through.

I styled it up and updated the link with a

...

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Community Expert ,
Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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What version of InDesign? What version of Excel? What operating system?

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply.

Sorry, showing my lack of forum experience there.

I'm working on a mac.

Mac OS: Yosemite 10.10.5

I've tried it in both InDesign CC 2015 and CC 2017. Using InDesign CS6 is not an option we can use either.

Not completely sure what version of Excel it's been created in as it's been supplied to us but we have both here: 15:34 for Mac and 2016 for PC if i need to work on the Excel file itself.

Cheers

Rich

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Community Expert ,
Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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How are you placing the files? Named range? Actual range? Formatted Table? Unformatted table? Are you creating a link to the Excel file?

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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The Master Excel file has named ranges.

These named ranges are placed into InDesign and a link is created.

We are using 'Wordsflow' to retain styling when updating the link.

I had been using the 'Unformatted table' option as we were just applying our formatting over the top once the file was in InDesign and i didn't think that would be the problem but after you asked the question i thought i should doublecheck that and hey presto, the content came through.

I styled it up and updated the link with a modified version just to make sure the formatting didn't blow out and it didn't.

I definitely need to test this further but i think it looks like it's solved the problem. Still don't know why 'Unformatted table' would blow out the dynamic content but if this proves then answer then i guess it doesn't matter.

Fantastic Bob, you are a superstar!

Always helps to bounce stuff off of someone else

Thank you for your help!

Cheers

Rich

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Community Expert ,
Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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Could easily be a bug but I would try it without Wordsflow involved to be sure it’s only related to InDesign. If it is, you might want to report it here: http://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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Hi Bob,

I think i tried that early on, when i first encountered the problem but thanks for the link and i'll doublecheck just to be sure and post on there.

Thanks again for your help. Much appreciated.

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Jun 12, 2017 Jun 12, 2017

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Hi Rich,

Thanks for the details. I've marked your answer as correct so that others with similar issues can get benefited from this post.

Regards,

Om

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