Adding month/day to each page

[1721media]

I'm working on a freelance project. There are 366 pages. The client wants each page to have the month and day, using the Gregorian calendar.

I've tried data merge but I'm not sure I'm doing it correctly. I've also found a calendar script on Sourceforge but I don't want a full calendar on the page, I only want a month and day on the page. See my screenshot. The month/day shown was placed manually. I want to avoid having to manually place all of them.

[Ian Blogs]

I'm sorry but I am not sure what you are trying to do. Is it as simple as just putting the date on a Master page?

[Willi Adelberger]

No, on maste page must not be any part of the content. Imagine if you would make an EPUB, it would be omitted.

[1721media]

No I don't want to the date variable on the master. That will just put the same date on each page.

What I need is a unique date on each page. Not just "July 27" or whatever current date is on each of the 366 pages.

[Willi Adelberger]

This is not a dynamic date as you make a book with dates as part of the sub title. In such a case I recommend to use normal text. Make EVERYTHING als Paragraph Style. I don't see any reason, why you make the das in its own frame, keep it part of the text story in the same frame.

And an opening apostrophe should not be followed by a space, neither a closing precided by an other space.

You don't need your guide abe the title. Set up baseline grid, Object style and Paragraph Styles and it will fall automatically on the correct position.

[vinny38]

Hi

If I had to do it, I would do it this way:

- first, create your date list in Excel. Format your date using Custom format cell, for example [$-409]mmmm j

- save it as Text file (i.e. Unicode in order to use paragraphs as separators, instead of tabs or semicolons)

- open it in Word. Select all and assign a paragraph style (i.e. "Normal")

- save it as Word or RTF document.

- in Indesign, create a paragraph style for your date (let's call it "Calendar"), set Keep options to start in next frame.

- in your Master pages, create threaded frames where you want to place your dates

- go to page 1. File > Import, check "Import options", select your Doc or RTF file

- click Style Mapping and map "Normal" to your "Calendar" INDD style

- now hold Shift in order to Autoflow your text and click on your date frame

- that's it

[1721media]

vinny38​, thanks. My French is really rusty though. Sorry. I think something got lost in the translation. Your written explanation helped ... when I held shift + clicked to add in the imported text, I did not get the same result. My RTF file has all the dates but I just get January 1 and January 2, alternately on EACH page in the document.

As you can see, the text frame around January 2 has overset text so the text is there, but for some reason it does not flow through the document. Not sure what I did wrong here?

Also, I'm using Indesign CC and I don't have simple "Import" option. I have 'Import XML' and 'Place'. So I had to use Place. Could that render a different result?

[vinny38]

This is where you got it wrong:

You placed* rtf file IN your master pages. 

You must place it in your normal page, where it should start (page 4 I assume, although I'm not sure why master A is applied to page 3)

* yeah right Place, not Import. My translating mistake

[1721media]

Thanks for clarifying. So I placed the rtf on the normal page where I want the dates to start, and I get a text frame with all the dates running like a list down the page. It's not in the text frame I defined on the master.

Is this a glitch in ID? I'm holding shift as I click in the text frame area I want to populate.

[vinny38]

Hi again

I see two issues here :

1. You didn't set your "Calendar" paragraph style as follow: Keep Options : start in next frame or you didn't properly map the styles
   No way it could result as per your screenshot all dates in the same frame, it should be one per frame.
2. You didn't click in the frame where your date should stand.
   
   Holding Shift, you should see this icon: when placing the cursor over the text frame
   
   

Come on, you're almost there... ^^

[JonathanArias]

Make a variable that is linked to the style of the copy that is unique on each page?

[1721media]

JonathanArias​, so does this mean I'm adding a unique variable on each page? Or defining a variable for Month/Day (for instance) and applying that on the master? If the latter, I'm not that familiar with defining new variables. Where can I learn more?

[JonathanArias]

You can make a text variable like this:

Text Variables - YouTube

1. give a unique paraphaph or character style to the copy/ text you want the variable to pull from

2. make/define your text variable and link it to that style 

3. insert the variable in the master page(s) you want it in and location (the running header can be linked to a paragraph or character style).

done.

Hope this helps you with what you want to accomplish.

[vinny38]

Unless I'm missing something obvious, I really don't see what's the point of using variables here...

Are you sure you answered the right question?

[JonathanArias]

where is your excell sheet with the dates? do you have that?

[1721media]

Hi, Jonathan. Below is the link to the RTF sheet. I created it using instructions from vinny38​.

calendar.rtf - Google Drive

[JonathanArias]

great. i will help you see whats happening. yes, the variable suggestion i made would not work for your request. Let me open teh files and set up the same data merge. i will help you figure out whats happening.

[JonathanArias]

you need to clean the file. it has a too much code the data merge will never pull correclty, see attached

cleaning it now. i will give you a new file and you load that

[JonathanArias]

ok, i cleaned up the first 60 entries for you, there needs to be comma separated values on a nice cleaned .csv file the data merge to work right. there was a ton of junk on that file. Use text wrangler and follow what i did, clean the file, remove the extra space before the month, and add the comma, like this ( your an change the first entry to whatever you alled your style in your layout):

here is the link to the file i started for you:

https://assets.adobe.com/link/e18c5206-2d95-4039-57a6-3dcf9a4a6fd0?section=activity_public&page=1https://adobe.ly/2vQM2pm

[vinny38]

Jonathan.

It's great you are trying to help!

However, may I suggest you test your method at first? Then please share it if you think it will help the OP.

Excuse me for being honest but I think neither variables, nor data merge, nor cleaning up a RTF file (when you can just save the excel file in csv) does make sense to me in this case.

Of course, I can be wrong, and maybe you can tweak data merging feature in order to merge data into 365 different pages. I don't see how, but maybe... I ain't an Indd guru ^^. In this case, please share your method for the benefits of all.

But as long as you haven't tested it, excuse me again for speaking frankly, you should not share what seems to be just thoughts or ideas.

I kinda feel sorry for the Op who was 2 clicks away to achieve what he wanted and who is probably now very confused and hoping for your data merging based solution...

Here we go, I hope you won't get upset and understand what I mean (not easy to try to be diplomatical in a foreign language :-))

Vinny

[JonathanArias]

I did do 100,000 certificates for a data merge the way I talked about and it works.

there is nothing wrong with the method I showed for a data merge and cleaning the file you would load to indesign file

the file you had was full of stuff that did belong with the file, I took a screenshot to show you. Data merges require a clean files that are comma separate Value, your file was full of junk text.

just exporting from excell is obviously not working for you. So I pointed out the issued I found with the file you are trying to use to load in your data merge.

i did say the variable suggestion would not work and I offer to look at your file.

Did you finished cleaning the file and load it? I understand there is a language barrier with you and I am happy to help you but I don't know if you are in fact following the steps I suggested for cleaning your file.

i don't know what you are doing from your end, we can only go with what you describe to us.

[vinny38]

Hi Jonathan.

I suggest you read the question carefully again, as well as given answers. Since you have made hundreds of thousands documents, I'm sure you'll understand why data merging is irrelevant here.

Tip: there are 365 pages with different text.

And please stop asking to clean the RTF. This is nonsense. There is a good reason for what you call junk. Please read the solution I suggested.

This discussion isn't going anywhere.

But I know where I'm going! On holidays :-))

So... Experienced users... Please help OP finishing his document...

Cya all

[JonathanArias]

I will read it over and follow your steps In order to learn the way you say to do it. Thank you. It is important to give the correct advise.

happy hollydas, enjoy

[1721media · Accepted solution]

Success!!! Many thanks to all who helped (or attempted to help) me along the way, especially to vinny38​. I followed vinny38's instructions, except I did NOT put placeholder text into the text frame in the master and I held down the Shift+Alt keys when I clicked to place the RTF data. It flowed into the text frames perfectly with no additional blank pages at the end like before.

I love ID and the ID community. This took a while to figure out but I hope it helps someone else. This might be a good feature to have in future releases, particularly for people needing similar dated headers like in diaries and such. Just a thought.