CS4, Data Merge, creating menu for restaurant

[G***@adobeforums.com]

Hey folks.

I am making menu for a restaurant, and i am pretty familiar with Data Merge, but this one is driving me crazy.

The problem is in structure of my data table, CSV. All the tutorials and all the help files are revolving around data which is not broken down into SEGMENTS, rather each row is it's own segment.

For example, all tutorials have:

NAME; DESCRIPTION; PRICE
Food1; Nice food 1; 100
Food2; Nice food 2, 200
Food3; Nice food 3, 300

And what i have is a section name added to this as well, like this:

SECTION NAME; FOOD NAME; DESCRIPTION; PRICE
First section; Food1; Nice food 1; 100
-blank-;Food2; Nice food 2, 200
-blank-;Food3; Nice food 3, 300

Second section; Food1; Nice food 1; 100
-blank-;Food2; Nice food 2, 200
-blank-;Food3; Nice food 3, 300

As you see, some pieces of data are "missing".

So basically what i need InDesign to do is to recognize that section name is something that needs to be filled only once, until it hits another entry in SECTION NAME column.

You have all seen how restaurant menus look like, no need to further explain this i hope. Section name -> lots of data in that section -> New section.

Is that possible at all in InDesign?

[P***@adobeforums.com]

The only way this MIGHT work is if you tell InDesign to skip blank lines. In theory, then, you could make a single frame with multiple fields and have ID run the merge with multiple records per page.

I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure that what will happen, though, is that you'll wind up with a bunch of wide spaces between the menu items where that blank field is (actually, they'll probably be at the bottom of the frames instead of the tops since ID will move the rest up).

In any case, this isn't really what Data Merge was designed to do. I suspect XML would be more appropriate, but I've yet to play with that at all.

Peter

[Robert Tkaczyk]

Goran,

you can modify your data in InDesign without DataMerge:

- place your CSV file in InDesign as text
- convert it to Table - with ";" as field delimiter
- add new column after first column

you will have something like this:

First section|.|.Food1|.Nice.food.1|.100
-blank-......|.|.Food2|.Nice.food.2|.200

- next step - convert your Table to Text with tab as delimiter
- now replace three tabs "^t^t^t" to "#@#"

First section|.|.Food1|.Nice.food.1|.100
#@#Food2|.Nice.food.2|.200

- now replace two tabs "^t^t" to "#$#^p#@#"

First section#$#
#@#Food1|.Nice.food.1|.100
#@#Food2|.Nice.food.2|.200

- now replace "#@#" to "" (nothing) and apply Item ParagraphStyle
- now replace two tabs "#@#" to "" (nothing)
- now replace "#$#" to "" (nothing) and apply SectionTitle ParagraphStyle
- now replace "#$#" to "" (nothing)

so after all you will have:

First section (with SectionTitle ParagraphStyle)
Food1|.Nice.food.1|.100 (with Item ParagraphStyle)
Food2|.Nice.food.2|.200 (with Item ParagraphStyle)

now you can redefine TabStops in Item ParagraphStyle and play with NestedStyles :)

of course all these setps could be automated ;)
if you are interested - contact me on priv

robin

[G***@adobeforums.com]

Holy Moses and the Prince of Narnia, that is some serious idea you got there in order to trick it into restructuring data.

I got your idea, however, basic thing is to allow them (restaurant owners) to do this themselves. Since they are some crazy Japanese restaurant and their menu is dependent heavily on what types of fish and vegetables are seasonally available they modify the menu once a week.

Therefore i would need to make some retard-proof method and just give them .INDD file, show them the import process of .CSV, and they could do it themselves.

But i just realized there could be bigger issues, like number of food per category changing and dropping to second page, and stuff like that.

Bah, good old manual job, here we come! Thanks for the tip =)

[Robert Tkaczyk]

hi Goran :)

there is one more trick you can do - if you can build your CSV file in other format ;)
you can prepare this CSV file as InDesign TaggedText file ;)

other idea to my first post - if you prepare each type/group of menu as table and in first row there will be "section name" - you can set Repeat option for first row - header ;)

if they work on PC - I can write one-button script ;)

robin

[P***@adobeforums.com]

In my first job at a print shop we did menus for a lot of local restaurants, and I HATED them. It never failed that the chef would add an additional item and completely spoil the layout. Sometimes I think the best approach is to put each item into its own frame (although one frame set to vertically justify might work as well for each category).

I was going to mention the problems of breaking across pages and Data Merge last night, but I figured you had some special trick. :)

Peter

[G***@adobeforums.com]

If the total number of different meals is finite, then
make a menue card for all of them, together with an
empty check box for each.

Then mark the available meals by a brush made of pig
bristles (stroke by Illustrator), or even better by
dadger, and Japanese ink, as required, either daily
or weakly.

An improved strategy: divide the menue card into
'always available' without check box, and 'seasonal'
with. Will be less work then.

So far this is a joke. Of COURSE one has to create for
each situation an entirely new design. The only exception
is the case of having served that well-known highly
poisonous Japanese fish - further menue cards would be
obsolete then.

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

[G***@adobeforums.com]

Not 'weakly' but 'weekly'.
G.H.

[G***@adobeforums.com]

Ha! I solved the problem. I created small web interface through which they fill each page with data, and then via small backend i export that data into CSV that suits me to fill InDesign.

Yippeee! Now they can change menu daily for all i care, as long as they change in online (and i threatened them with spanking unless they do).