Enhanced vs Regular Tabular Fields Advantages over regular tabular fields include: Field Options are supported. Most regular types can be used;  Images, Hyperlinks, Barcodes, etc. Multiple level sorting.  Sorting is a global property for each Tabular Field. Rather the relying on a ‘Computed Field’ command to determine linked content, the field name includes all the […]

EasyCatalog 2024 and later can now integrate with ImageLink to manage the download and caching of images retrieved from a URI. The main advantage of this is that ImageLink will periodically check — provided the server supports it — whether the image has been updated and flag it as such in the Links and EasyCatalog […]

EasyCatalog 19.0.4 Download The latest version of EasyCatalog can be downloaded from our main downloads page here. Bug Fixes The following bugs have been fixed in this release of EasyCatalog. For clarity, the bug reports listed below show the original problem as reported. It is often not possible to detail the fix for each issue […]

When a tabular field is set to the JSON content type, EasyCatalog automatically converts the JSON field content into a tabular field. Certain assumptions are made based on the structure of the JSON: For an array of objects, each object is as a row and the properties are columns. For an array of values, each […]

In some cases it may be desirable to obfuscate the code in Lua scripts and Advanced custom fields and prevent them from being edited.  In order to do this, drop a menu.lua script in the data sources Scripts folder, When you next open InDesign this adds a menu option to the data panels pop-out menu […]

Data may contains fields which aren’t required.  These make working with the data harder and require extra resources to maintain. To exclude a field or set of fields permanently from an already established data source,  press the info button on the panel, then the icon at the top left. This presents a dialog box similar […]

This example outlines the steps involved to paginate and build data sheets using Containers. It illustrates how each area of a template can accommodate data and flow onto subsequent pages as needed. The Example The example files can be download here Here To install the data source use File->New->EasyCatalog Panel->Import Data Source. To paginate, select […]

Hyperlinks EasyCatalog can insert hyperlinks into your document, which will then appear when exported as an interactive PDF. To insert a field as a hyperlink, change its type to be “Hyperlink” in the Field Options dialog. The dialog is split into two parts: the top part determines what will appear in the document; the bottom […]

General information on activating EasyCatalog can be found in this support document. The serial number entered is for a product that has already been activated. The serial number you have entered is already being used on this machine – if you take a look in the “About EasyCatalog” dialog you should see the serial number […]

Prerequisites Requires the Pagination Module. Sample Data A sample workspace and document is provided for reference. Import the data source using the File->New->EasyCatalog Panel->Import Data Source… menu option.  The data contains two fields shown below: Multiple Field Values Sample Each field has values separated with a comma. EasyCatalog requires them to be delimited with a […]

Prerequisites The Pagination module is required to for container functionality. Sample Data A sample workspace and document is provided and relates to the example below. Import the data source using the File->New->EasyCatalog Panel->Import Data Source… menu option.  This contains a simple tabular field formed with HTML content:

The sample document contains a series of […]

EasyCatalog 17.0.2 EasyCatalog 17.0.2 is now available for download from our main downloads page. Bug Fixes The following bugs have been fixed in this release of EasyCatalog. For clarity, the bug reports listed below show the original problem as reported. It is often not possible to detail the fix for each issue as they involve […]

Prerequisites Requires the  Pagination Module. Sample Data A sample workspace and document is available from link below. Import the data source using File->New->EasyCatalog Panel->Import Data Source.  This contains images and should open with the correct grouping for pagination (Category 1 > Category 2 > Category 3). Container Sample Files What are Containers? Containers can be used […]

EasyCatalog 17.0.1 Enhancements The following enhancements have been made to EasyCatalog and are available in the latest release on our web site. Maintenance customers can receive a version of EasyCatalog containing these modifications for an earlier version of InDesign by contacting us via the web site. Please be aware though that its not always possible […]

The Edge Relationship Tool can be used to establish geometric relationships between parent and child frames. The Tool is shown in the InDesign Tool panel as  When the parent frame is moved or resized, the distance between the nominated edge remains the same. Here the bottom of the frame at the top is linked to […]

EasyCatalog supports the use of third party translation services. At the current time the only available service is provided by DeepL Once you have created an account, go to the EasyCatalog Advanced Preferences and configure the Language Translation Services section with the correct API URL and Authentication key. The service can be invoked using an […]

Adobe recently released version 16.3 of InDesign, which requires new EasyCatalog plug-ins. These can be downloaded from our main downloads page.

Combined Data Sources in EasyCatalog allow you to combine data from separate data sources into a single panel. By specifying a series of simple rules that determine how data from one data source relates to data from another data source, you can quickly build complex data structures without having to write SQL. A Combined data […]

EasyCatalog normally assigns one record to each row in a table. When populated, the table body rows will be altered to accommodate row per record.  The Table->Filter… menu sets a table level option to only populates with records matching a certain criteria. In this example you can see the top table has been populated without […]

EasyCatalog can hilight the selecting fields in a document using a blue outline in a data panel as shown: This is enabled via an “Advanced Preference”, available from the InDesign->Preferences->EasyCatalog dialog box. The Advanced button reveals the settings below: Hilight Document Selection can be found in the Miscellaneous section and should be set to true. This […]

Manipulation of  incoming data is possible through the execution of a script right after EasyCatalog retrieves data from a data source, but before any subsequent processing takes place. The script, named ‘createcontent.lua‘, when placed in the data source’s scripts folder, is triggered as the last stage of the synchronise operation. Pressing the info button on […]

Allows content to be processed before any additional formatting is applied. Once processed other options such as cleansing, prefix, suffix are applied. Only fields with content are processed. This option should only be used on fields that do not update back to a data source, because there is no way of reversing the process.  Ensure […]

Fields Containing Multiple Images Fields may contain references to multiple images, each separated by a carriage return. For example: image1.png image2.png image3.png Here’s a simple post processing script that paginates these into the bounds of the formatting rule. The rule must have a graphic frame tagged with the field and a script label set to […]

The enhanced HTML parser cleanses the field HTML prior to processing. Any unbalanced are corrected and the entire field is enclosed with an implied <body> node. As a general rule any tag which matches the name of character or paragraph style will apply that style. EasyCatalog Tags Supported The following tags and attributes are available: […]

The Versions Panel aids the creation of multi-version content using InDesign Layers, typically for regionalised adverting or promotional material.  To use this functionality, data must contain a record for each version of a product. The related records need share common fields in order to identify them as a single ‘product’. Example Data page number position product version […]

Overview Lua scripts can be integrated with EasyCatalog to provide custom menus and dialog boxes. User Interface is provided by the the InDesign Scripting DOM, which offers dialog creation and control. Details on how to access this from Lua are here. Creating a Custom Menu Option Adding a custom menu option is a case of […]

Overview The InDesign Scripting DOM provides full access to the creation and manipulation of all content within InDesign. By combining this the speed of Lua with the data access and control facilities of EasyCatalog, it’s possible to create data driven content in virtually any format. Accessing The InDesign Scripting DOM can be accessed via Lua […]

Use this option when a custom field has no computed content, and the content is provided exclusively using a Lua script. This is a special type, designed to prevent the editing of raw content and restricting the user interface to applicable field options. Any existing field content is cleared before the script is executed to […]

If you’re recently requested assistance from 65bit, you may have received a number of files that demonstrate how to configure EasyCatalog. Here’s a run-through of what you may have received and what you should do with them: Data Source Folder This is typically sent over as a zip file, so unzip it before going into […]

The Adopt Fields->Custom menu facilitates the development of custom scripts to manipulate individual links in the current document. The dialog displays the active documents links on the left, and the links after processing by the script. Pressing the Test button will execute the code for each link and present the results in the right hand column. […]

Once a Formatting Rule has been populated with data, it can be processed before final placement using Lua code. Typical uses for this would be to position frames relative to one another,  position a series of images,  or incorporate other Formatting Rules to build a layout. It’s also possible to create the entire content via […]

The EasyCatalog preference panel provides access to Advanced preferences. Relaunch InDesign To Apply Any Changes. EasyCatalog Workspace Multi User Workspace Defines the the default setting when the preferences are rebuilt. Cache Formatted Data  When true, EasyCatalog stores the ‘formatted’ content of a field for quicker data source loading. When it’s false, the formatted content is rebuilt […]

The “ENV” custom field command can be used to determine environmental properties of EasyCatalog, such as the version of InDesign that’s running or the platform (Mac/Windows) that EasyCatalog is running on.

The “ENV” command takes a single parameter, which the name of the attribute you would like to retrieve:

The Apply Swatch Named in Field “Pagination Rule” can apply either a named swatch or an RGB or a CMYK value if that value is in a field. For RGB, the value should be: #RRGGBB Where each part is a 2 digit hexadecimal value. For CMYK the value should be: cNNNmNNNyNNNkNNN Where NNN is the decimal […]

EasyCatalog attempts match the tag name to a character or paragraph stylesheet. In this example:

EasyCatalog attempts to apply a stylesheet called “ul” before performing the default behaviour. Since there is a nested <ul> inside a <li> tag, EasyCatalog attempts to apply a tag called “ul>ul” for a single level of nesting. For three […]

Specifying defaults for the Workspace folder location The default location for your EasyCatalog workspace folder can be specified creating a preference file in your preferences folder, which on the Mac can be found at:

on Windows it can be found at (although it depends on the version of Windows):

The file should be […]

EasyCatalog can automatically tag fields in existing documents by looking for patterns in the text defined by a regular expression. This feature – Auto Pickup – is designed to mark up documents that have already been created (either by hand or by another automation method) and is useful for updating prices, for example.  Auto Pickup […]

Defaults for data providers can be specified by creating a preference file in your preferences folder, which on the Mac can be found at:

on Windows it can be found at (although it depends on the version of Windows):

The file should be created using a text editor (such as Notepad or TextEdit) […]

EasyCatalog has the ability convert XML tags to EasyCatalog tags via a simple LUA script that maps tag attributes to the elements of a link (key, data source, field name). The .lua script should be placed inside a folder called “Adopt Fields” in the “Scripts” folder of a data source.  The file name of the […]

The standard “Adopt Fields” method of relinking assumes field names and key field values are consistent between the existing links and the new data.  It was designed to link fields from one data source to another, and as such is limited to changing the key element of a link. In some circumstances it may be […]

Full list of formatting codes, used in the input and output field options of a date/time field: %a Weekday as locale’s abbreviated name. Mon %A Weekday as locale’s full name. Monday %w Weekday as a decimal number, where 0 is Sunday and 6 is Saturday. 1 %d Day of the month as a zero-padded decimal […]

You need to include a preference file in your preferences folder, which on the Mac can be found at:

on Windows it can be found at (although it depends on the version of Windows):

The content of the file should be:

Overview Fields can contain tabular data, where each cell is treated as an independent link.  Tabular field data can come from a number of sources, including delimited field content, other data sources, HTML, XML, or built from conditional logic. Example In this example the field “AttributeValues” contains the following XML snippet:

The first stage is configure the field as ‘Tabular’ […]

Paths are represented differently on Macintosh and Windows machines.  This has an impact when working in a cross-platform environment as a picture import path configured on Macintosh would not work on Windows and vice-versa. To overcome this, a Custom Field command can be used to determine the platform that EasyCatalog is running on:

The […]

Custom field functions and field formatting options can be used to format numeric values in a variety of ways.  For example, here the data contains ‘value’ and ‘appearance’ is at it should be displayed: value appearance 636000 636,000 20000 20,000 1400000 1.4 Million 6200000 6.2 Million 473000000 473 Million 40000000 40 Million 45000000 45 Million […]

When downloading an image from a URL, by default EasyCatalog will attempt to build a filename based on the format of the URL.  Sometimes, however, the filename used is not desirable: for example, the links shown in the Links panel in InDesign will sometimes be meaningless. EasyCatalog provides a feature to specify a file naming […]

‘Computed Fields’ have additional commands that allow behaviour based on the position of the field within a document: TAGPAGENUMBER() – Returns the page number the tag is on, or -1 for the pasteboard TAGPAGEX() – Returns the X position of the tag in points. TAGPAGEY() – Returns the Y position of the tag in points. TAGSPREADX() -Returns the X […]

Using the field options, the ‘cleansing’ edit area can be used to replace a specific unicode code point for another character. For example: REGEXV2:[\x{2028}]=^n; This replaces the hexadecimal code point 2028 with a soft return. In this specific case, the code ‘Numbers’ uses as a soft return.

EasyCatalog supports an embedded version of the Lua programming language.  When text is processed, any commands between  delimiters [[ and ]] are processed using Lua. EasyCatalog supplements Lua with functions to make data access easier. For example:

In this example, if the contents of the ‘new’ field are equal to ‘1’ the text NEW! will be output. […]

The problem is actually InDesign drawing bold text in the user interface. The upgrade to Yosemite sometimes messes up the UI fonts used by InDesign. Launch your ‘Font Book’ application and look for Helvetica Nue. There should be a suggestion to fix problems relating to this font.

When a document is created using incorrect key fields, this can be corrected using the keyboard shortcut called “Change Document Keys”. Steps involved changing keys are: 1. Create a data source with the NEW key setup and select any record in the panel. 2. Use the keyboard shortcut “Change Document Keys” 3. Enter a comma separated […]

EasyCatalog can insert hyperlinks that link to other pages in the document or, if the document is stored in an InDesign Book, to pages in other documents in the book.  The most common usage of this to produce contents or index pages that can link to the actual page in the document when the user […]

It’s possible for EasyCatalog to build a path to an image from the data, but this only works in there is a clear structure to the way the images are stored.  For example, if all the images beginning with ‘A’ are stored in a folder called ‘A’ then you can build a path using custom […]

Field options can be applied based on the value contained within. Here’s an example that will format prices over a dollar like this: $1.00 ..and under a dollar like this: 50₵ To do this define a ‘custom’ format and enter: [PRECISION=2] [DECIMAL=.] [REMOVE=0.(

Not directly, but it is possible. Here’s a reseller who has produced simple bar graphs using EasyCatalog… https://www.ozalto.com/en/bar-graphs-with-indesign-easycatalog/

The easiest way to remove EasyCatalog is to delete the “EasyCatalog” folder from your InDesign->Plug-ins folder.

Some fonts have a variety of bold and italic faces, so it’s not easy and sometimes impossible to figure out which to use in any given scenario. To overcome this there are a number of attributes that can be specified on the <i> and <b> tags, namely:

For Example:

When the tag is […]

When a field is flagged as “Formatted” using field options, EasyCatalog will try to match any HTML style tag to the name of either a paragraph or a character stylesheet and apply it. For example, in the following text:

If a paragraph style called “bullets” exists, this is applied automatically. The default behaviour of […]

User-interface elements of EasyCatalog can be suppressed (disabled) or hidden using a “SuppressedUI.xml” file in the root of the EasyCatalog workspace folder. The XML file must be well-formed, with a single SuppressedUI element at the root. The root element can contain any number of SuppressedMenu and SuppressedAction elements. SuppressedMenu elements have a menuName attribute, which […]

Here’s an example CALLSCRIPT script that references record data passed to it:

After EasyCatalog imports an image, it looks for a script called “PostImageImport.jsx” in both the Data Source->Scripts folder and the EasyCatalog Workspace Folder->Scripts folder. This can be used to manipulate an image after import. The example below applies the DETECT EDGES clipping path setting:

If by panel you mean ‘data source’, then yes. Close all your existing panels using the “Windows->EasyCatalog Panels->Close All” menu option. Then locate your ‘EasyCatalog Workspace Folder’ via the Reveal button in the InDesign->Preferences->EasyCatalog section. Then just rename the appropriate folder in there and open them from File->New->EasyCatalog Panel

Holding the shift key down while dragging the left margin will fix the left-most column in the panel view:

This example uses a formatted field and cleansing to make the decimal part of a price Superscript:

The “Cell Finder” keyboard short can automatically tag existing table content based on the presence of key values in the table. Here’s a simple example of this in action:

EasyCatalog can populate a table providing the table contains the key value of records in an associated data source. This is achieved using the ‘Auto Fill Tables’ keyboard shortcut. In this example, a table is populated using field names contained in the table header:

Select a cell in the table you can use the Table > Table Options menu from the data panel’s pop-out menu and set the ‘Expand’ pop-up to be ‘No Expansion’.

The easiest way of doing this is to prefix the field with a formatting tag: e.g. <mystyle>text text text</mystyle> If you set the field to be ‘Formatted’ in its Field Options, you should find that the character style named ‘mystyle’ will be applied to the text in the example above.  If you have a field […]

A Custom Field is a field the exists in your EasyCatalog panel but not in the source data.  A custom field can be populated using one of our inbuilt functions, and are often used to manipulate the source data into a form more suitable for appearance on the page or to summarize group data. To […]

On the Field Options dialog provide a list of valid image file extensions, separated by a semi colon: EasyCatalog will attempt to import images using the list of file extensions in the order given in the list, so if you would prefer Photoshop images to be imported instead of JPEGs ensure that the .psd file […]

The location of the images is determined by the Field Options: on the image box you will have tagged a Field Specifier, so take a look at the Field Options for that field. On the ‘Picture Content’ pane you should see the folder where EasyCatalog is looking for the images. Failing that, right click on […]

EasyCatalog will only look in the folder that you have specified in the Field Options for the field. This is mainly for performance reasons, as searching sub-folders each time an image is placed could adversely affect performance. However, if the path to the image can be determined using the content of other fields then custom […]

Yes, EasyCatalog supports both UTF-8 and UTF-16. If you’re seeing characters coming into EasyCatalog incorrectly check the data source configuration, and the ODBC driver configuration when using an ODBC data source.

Supported Barcodes EasyCatalog includes support for all major barcode types: EAN5 EAN8 EAN13 EAN14 Code 39 Code 128 GS1-128 UPCA I2Of5 Data Matrix QR Code The following QR code types are supported: Text URL The following QR codes can also be inserted, but a custom field needs to be created first in order to collect […]

EasyCatalog requires that the values in the field(s) you have defined as being ‘key’ fields are unique. This is to enable it to uniquely identify each record in your source data so that if, for example, a record changes position in the data it can still be found. When loading data, EasyCatalog will check the […]

EasyCatalog has no upper limit on the number of records or fields. The only limit is physical memory. InDesign CC and above is a 64 bit application, so can handle very large data sets. Earlier versions of are 32bit and as such limited to addressing around 4GB of memory.

The field markers in the document will not be visible if: ‘Hide Field Markers’ has been selected from the data panel’s pop-out menu.  This setting is stored with the document. To show the field markers, use the ‘Show Field Markers’ menu option from the panel’s pop-out menu. The document is in ‘Preview’ mode.  Switch back […]

The easiest way to achieve this is to use the ‘Update Panel->With Page Numbers’ option…

Placed records can be identified outside of EasyCatalog by updating the panel with Page Numbers,..

The field definitions file is located in ‘EasyCatalog Workspace > DataSourceName > Data > Fields.xml’…

To edit multiple fields Alt-click in the column headers to select the fields then right click and use “Field Options…”….

This example uses a loop to fill a table. Each product has a colour code, which is the column…

Custom fields can be exported back to a data source by holding down SHIFT + ALT and selecting…

If you have contacted support and we need to recreate your configuration here, we will need…

When EasyCatalog sees a table in a Product Style, by default it will insert one row per record…

If lots of data sources are open on start up and they are causing InDesign to become slow or…

This is displayed when dragging an item to the page if you have the ‘EasyCatalog Library’ option checked…

EasyCatalog Lite is designed for simple ‘link and update’ tasks, so the user is responsible for…

It could be that there is a populated cell somewhere off the right hand side of the spreadsheet…

This dialog warns that the document was edited without EasyCatalog being loaded, which is not recommended…

Each field in the document is linked to the source data using a combination of…

Removing these empty fields can be done in one of three ways – here’s a typical example…

The header row in the table is not defined as an InDesign header row…

The EasyCatalog workspace folder is a folder on the computer that stores EasyCatalog’s configuration settings…

Ordinarily the workspace folder which contains data source configurations and a snapshot of the source data — i.e….