InData™ is a sophisticated data publishing facility for use with Adobe InDesign.

® It
automates the formatting of documents containing repeating data units such as catalogs,
directories, mailing labels, price lists, and schedules, supporting both text and graphics.
Formerly, each separate element in such documents had to be formatted by hand. InData
automatically applies the format you specify to each element of information as it is imported
from the original data source. InData accepts data in the major Macintosh and Windows data
exchange file formats, enabling you to use it with textual data created in all major database
and spreadsheet packages, or even with data created by hand in a word processor. InData
operates as an plug-in to InDesign, automatically becoming part of the InDesign publishing
system once it is installed. InData runs from inside of InDesign, under its own menu, and
imports and formats text into normal InDesign publications. It is not a stand-alone program
which must be run separately from InDesign, and no special additional files are required. (See
the InDesign reference manual for general information about plug-ins.) InData is available in
both a MacOS (PowerPC) version and in a Windows (Intel) version. The Macintosh version
is fully carbonized and thus runs natively under both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. Since
InDesign doesn’t have the notion of auto-flow (automatic page creation) except when placing
text, we provide the InFlow plug-in as a companion to InData to provide this functionality.
System Requirements In order to run InData, you will need a Macintosh or Windows-based
computer running InDesign. The computer will need sufficient memory and hard disk space
to support InDesign (consult the InDesign documentation for details). MacOS-based
computers should run Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X. Windows 98, NT, 2000, ME and XP are
supported on Intel systems (to the extent that InDesign itself supports each operating system).
InData User’s Guide 1 What You Need to Know … About Your Computer You should be
familiar with basic Macintosh or Windows concepts and procedures, such as using the
mouse, selecting items from menus, entering information in dialogs, navigating among
folders, and manipulating files (e.g. copying, renaming, and deleting). About InDesign You
should be comfortable with basic InDesign tasks. You should know how to: ◆ Specify text
formats: font, size, style, and so on. ◆ Set paragraph formats, including indents, before and
after spacing, tabs and rules. ◆ Work with text and picture frames. ◆ Use the rulers and
guides. ◆ Edit text inside InDesign. ◆ Set up and assign master pages. ◆ Save and print
publications. It is very helpful, but not essential, to understand InDesign templates and
character and paragraph styles. About Your Database or Spreadsheet Program This manual
generally assumes that you are familiar with designing and manipulating databases or
spreadsheets with your database and spreadsheet applications and that you know the
meanings of terms like record and field. You will also need to know how to export data from
your application. Chapter 5, “Preparing Data for Importing,” reviews data exporting
procedures for several popular applications, and discusses general considerations applicable
to all such packages. However, be sure to consult the documentation for your own application
for the details of its export procedure. About This Manual Chapter 2, “Installing InData,”
describes the steps necessary to install InData. Chapter 3 contains the InData Tutorials. These
seven tutorials provide a handson, step-by-step introduction to InData’s essential features,
suitable for new users of InData. Experienced InDesign users may want to skip the early
tutorials, or even the whole section, and begin with the “Quick Overview,”which makes up
the first section of Chapter 4. Chapter 4, “Basic InData Operations,” contains a quick
overview of InData as its first section. Later sections discuss basic concepts and simple
prototypes—the What You Need to Know … Chapter 1: 2 InData User’s Guide mechanism
for telling InData how to place and format imported data records— in more detail. This
chapter also discusses InData menus and dialogs. Chapter 5, “Preparing Data for Importing,”
provides a general discussion of data export techniques from database and spreadsheet
programs, using Excel, AppleWorks and FoxPro as examples. Chapter 6, “Conditional Data
Importing,” considers more advanced prototypes in which data is imported only when
specified conditions are present. It also discusses creating loops within InData prototypes.
Chapter 7, “Manipulating Incoming Data,” discussing various techniques for extracting parts
of and transformations of the raw data as it is imported. Chapter 8, “Importing and
Formatting Pictures,” covers all aspects of importing pictures with InData. Chapter 9,
“Controlling Document Layout,” discusses creating running headers and footers and
assigning master pages within InData prototypes. Chapter 10, “Advanced Prototypes,”
discusses the more complex features of InData’s prototype language, including soliciting user
input, controlling record processing, using variables in prototypes, and building formatted
data using InDesign Tags. Chapter 11, “Hints for Debugging Prototypes,” discusses
techniques for building complex prototypes and sorting out the bugs in any prototype.
Chapter 12, “Automating Document Building,” discusses methods for automating InData
operations using the AppleEvent scripting facility available under MacOS and Windows
Automation using Visual Basic. Chapter 13, “InData Reference,” contains descriptions of all
InData menu items and dialog fields as well as a complete description of the InData prototype
language. It also discusses various InData fine points, including its incoming data conversion
and string comparison specifications. Chapter 14, “Troubleshooting and Error Messages,”
describes solutions to common InData importing problems and explains the InData error
messages.