EasyCatalog Support & Reference Guide

GETTING STARTED

Getting started with EasyCatalog

Introducing EasyCatalog

Getting started with your automated catalog

Downloading and installing Adobe InDesign

Detailed instructions for installing EasyCatalog

Navigating EasyCatalog components within InDesign

Managing EasyCatalog preferences

InDesign concepts for EasyCatalog-based catalogs

InDesign fundamentals for catalog production

Creating and managing your catalog as an InDesign book file

Workflow design

Designing and optimising your automated publishing workflow requires some careful planning.Designing your automated catalog workflow

Sourcing & loading product data

EasyCatalog can import data from a CSV file, spreadsheet or XML file as well as linking to data held in a business database via ODBC.

Introducing the EasyCatalog panel

Loading or updating data in an EasyCatalog panel

Using XML data within EasyCatalog

Product management principles

Managing detailed product information for thousands of products (Coming soon)

What’s the difference between a product record and a product instance record?

Managing product images

(Coming soon)

Choosing a layout

Choosing a flow-based or a grid-based catalog layout

EasyCatalog for teams

If your workflow includes multiple designers, graphic operators or contributors.

Using EasyCatalog in a network environment

USING EASYCATALOG

Creating automated pages

EasyCatalog can easily create grid and flow layouts based on your design preferences.

Creating automated content using ‘Paginate Into Text Flow’

Creating automated content using ‘Paginate At Positions Specified In The Data’

Creating content templates

EasyCatalog uses an enhanced version of an InDesign library file to hold pre-prepared layouts, including field specifiers for product and category data.

Creating and editing your EasyCatalog library

Controlling content using Pagination Rules

EasyCatalog includes powerful features to control your templated content.

Introduction to EasyCatalog Pagination Rules (Coming soon)

Creating tables using EasyCatalog

EasyCatalog allows you to create table-based catalogs quickly and easily.

Creating simple tables with EasyCatalog

Changing the maximum height of a table cell/row

Updating data

Managing data updates

EasyCatalog provides separate methods for updating data in both directions between the source data, EasyCatalog panel and document.

• Synchronize With Data Source – Refresh data from original source
• Synchronize With Document – Check if data has been manually edited within document
• Update Data Source – Save changes made in document back to source data
• Update Document – Update fields within document pages

Managing large documents

InDesign prefers book files for >20 pages. EasyCatalog has specific tools to integrate.

Creating and managing your catalog as an InDesign book file

Creating an index/table of contents

Which table of contents method is right for my catalog?

Creating an index using EasyCatalog

For a simple table of contents refer Creating a table of contents using Adobe InDesign

Advanced data management

Tidying your data with EasyCatalog data cleansing

Using regular expressions (REGEX) with EasyCatalog data cleansing

Cross-referencing between multiple EasyCatalog panels (Coming soon)

REFERENCE

EasyCatalog Panel Flyout Menu

The EasyCatalog Panel Flyout Menu allows you to control all aspects of EasyCatalog.

Commonly used items include:

• Configuration – Manage appearance of panel
• Group – Create & edit data hierarchy
• Synchronise With Data Source – Refresh data from original source
• Table – Configure tables, rows, columns and cells
• Update Furniture – Control automated master page content

View all items in our complete EasyCatalog Panel Flyout Menu reference.

EasyCatalog Field Options

Data fields within the EasyCatalog Panel can be configured to control data types & formatting, picture options and advanced data cleansing.

• Custom Field – Manage custom data fields
• Format – Control data type & formatting
• General – Add prefix/suffix & cleanse data
• Picture Content – Manage images & placement

EasyCatalog Pagination Rules

Pagination Rules are used to control the way your layout templates are merged with your product data.

Commonly used items include:

• Apply Swatch From Field – Apply colour by name or hex value
• Force Break – Specify whether library element should be inserted
• Group Name – Specify particular group
• Insert – Control method of content insertion
• Keep With Next – Keep library item with next paginated one
• Paginate – Specify relationship between data and content

View all items in our complete EasyCatalog Pagination Rules reference.

EasyCatalog Custom Fields

EasyCatalog includes powerful functionality to allow you to organise, manipulate and extend your data.

Transform and supplement your data with EasyCatalog Custom Fields

• Barcodes
• Grouping data
• Logic/Conditions
• Maths functions
• Miscellaneous utilities
• PDF
• String manipulation
• XML

EasyCatalog Computed Fields

Computed Fields are similar to Custom Fields, however the field transformation is applied directly to the EasyCatalog library item. Depending on your application, this can reduce the complexity and number of your Custom Fields.

Should I use a Custom Field or a Computed Field to transform my data?

Custom Field and Computed Field function reference

EasyCatalog Book Menu

EasyCatalog includes an additional menu available via InDesign’s book menu. Many common features can be applied to either the whole InDesign book, or to selected documents.

EasyCatalog book menu

Troubleshooting

A duplicate key was detected

Pagination could not start because there were no library items available