How to prepare an address file for InDesign

Make an Excel or OpenOffice Spreadsheet file like this:

Be sure to make “clean” columns and throw away empty rows.

Save it as “Text CSV” and when asked choose “Unicode UTF-8″ and “Tab field delimiter”:

Go to Text Editor and open Preferences. Change encoding settings for plain text files like this:

Open the Text CSV file with Text Editor -do not change anything- and save/overwrite the file using plain text Unicode UTF-16 encoding:

Go to InDesign and open the Data Merge palette, which is located under the Window > Automation menu of InDesign CS3. Choose the last saved (UTF-16) file as data source, and set these import options:

Now the field names will appear in the palette. Click or drag the fields to any position you like.

Boom! You’re ready!

What did just happen?
The word “Unicode” makes you believe it’s a standard, unfortunately there are many types and every application imports or exports it differently. The main problem with CSV merging into InDesign (Mac) is that it needs the Unicode format to be UTF-16, and not UTF-8 like word processors and text editors normally export.

This entry was posted Woensdag, mei 25, 2011 at 11:08 and is filed under MacRonald. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.