Data Merge Wishlist?

Hi

I wonder if anybody has discovered a feature, or if they know of any future plans to include a date merge feature to Designer?

I currently design labels for customers for products that require ingredients and/or health and safety information. If that information changes, I then have to go through each design and change the information. However, if that information was pulled in from a database/spreadsheet or something similar it would help no end!!

Maybe something for a wishlist ?

Comments gratefully received. Not planning to go outside of Xara if I can help it. Thank you.

Don't know what version or actual Xara application you use.

Have you tried having one master label, say in the upper left, then make all the others live copies? You only have to make a single edit, the others update automatically.

I do almost every merge in other applications--they are more extensive. However, I do one set of food labeling in XDP. It's a jar, product label on the front and nutritional label on the backside. The live copy works for me in this instance.

Mike

Welcome to TalkGraphics. I'm going to move this thread to the Dear Xara forum which is better for feature requests.

Do you have any experience with JSON and Ajax?
Acorn

Acorn, this ain't about web stuff.

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Originally Posted by mwenz

Acorn, this ain't about web stuff.

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JSON is a mechanism to store structured data, "...a database/spreadsheet or something similar...". It can be used on a local filestore.
Equally, Ajax can take this data and put it into a Placeholder (crude) or with some jQuery replace the contents of a named ID.

As far as I know the Xara engine doesn't care about how the objects are created, it is only the final out that matters.
The closest analogy I can think of in the document domain is page numbering, limited from Xara, but with CSS styling, jQuery and a few other tricks I can achieve Chapter, Section, Page references to my own rules.

I also tried to keep the approach to within the bounds of Xara alone.

A CMS would do the same job and probably better.
I could throw something together with Wordpress (but that's webbie).

I have used a post processor, hand-coded REBOL to copy a Xara page and replace named text areas with live data.

Where there's a tool, try it.

Acorn

All commendable.

I think I would rather pay $20 to obtain PagePlus X7, get my XDP label design into it via PDF, and do a merge on a CSV in 20 minutes. 15 minutes of which would be downloading and installing PP.

I believe the request is a good request for persons desiring to have a merge facility in XDP akin to the one in CorelDraw. Even though I have CorelDraw, I'll do label (and other) merges in different applications. But the data merge in CD does work fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mwenz

All commendable.

I think I would rather pay $20 to obtain PagePlus X7, get my XDP label design into it via PDF, and do a merge on a CSV in 20 minutes. 15 minutes of which would be downloading and installing PP.

I believe the request is a good request for persons desiring to have a merge facility in XDP akin to the one in CorelDraw. Even though I have CorelDraw, I'll do label (and other) merges in different applications. But the data merge in CD does work fine.

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All appreciated.
I personally use MS Excel or MS Access and Mail Merge into MS Word as I have control over style and layout and then just copy into Xara or add the Xara label as an MS Word background.

I took it as a "what can I do with just Xara (and free tools)".

Acorn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

All appreciated.
I personally use MS Excel or MS Access and Mail Merge into MS Word as I have control over style and layout and then just copy into Xara or add the Xara label as an MS Word background.

I took it as a "what can I do with just Xara (and free tools)".

Acorn

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One can argue that while adding JASON, jQuery and REBOL are free, they too are not native to Xara products as would be needed to build a merging interface that integrates into an Xara product--the Xara product being a mere shell to hold outside programming languages at that point.

For professional print to exacting color demands, I would charge extra if you handed me a print PDF made from Word and likely MS Publisher if one didn't know how to get accurate color from Publisher.

I don't want to keep hammering on this point. It's a valid request made by the OP. XDP cannot handle thisnatively. No matter what free "tools" you find doesn't negate the fact that Xara products cannot currently do this.

And beside, $20 to get the job done? My time shoe-horning a web interface into XDP is worth far more than $20 to end up with professional quality output.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mwenz

One can argue that while adding JASON, jQuery and REBOL are free, they too are not native to Xara products as would be needed to build a merging interface that integrates into an Xara product--the Xara product being a mere shell to hold outside programming languages at that point.

For professional print to exacting color demands, I would charge extra if you handed me a print PDF made from Word and likely MS Publisher if one didn't know how to get accurate color from Publisher.

I don't want to keep hammering on this point. It's a valid request made by the OP. XDP cannot handle thisnatively. No matter what free "tools" you find doesn't negate the fact that Xara products cannot currently do this.

And beside, $20 to get the job done? My time shoe-horning a web interface into XDP is worth far more than $20 to end up with professional quality output.

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Never took your views to be "hammering" in any way. All of these views are valid but why would Xara go out of its way to create something if it was already available for $20. If a client has the need for such a capability, I would pass that cost on after I bought PagePlus. Everyone would benefit. All I can find, however, is PagePlus X8 at £90 ($140 USD) and I would need convincing to install a Serif product having not enjoyed the experience previously to find that I couldn't get accurate colours without a steep learning curve. To my mind, there is a comparable cost involved here.

As I like a challenge, I am currently downloading Serif's PagePlus Starter Edition (free) to see what it offers.

Wish me luck,
Acorn

OH--be careful with the freebie installer. Like Magix, use a custom install and don't install whatever it is wanting to other than PP. What "that" is changes.

I don't know if the freebie does data merge or not. It is quite limited. I can hunt down the offer for X7. Previous versions can be had quite cheaply if by no other means, calling them and haggling. But there is a link somewhere I saw on the Serif forum.

OK. Now that the warning about the installer is out of the way...

First, adding capabilities keeps the person from "jumping ship" as much as possible. The same argument can be made for adding any new capability to any application--it already exists in something else. Heck, InkScape is in many ways more capable than XDP is--and it's free. For a low cost, Serif's DrawPlus has more capabilities than XDP. Why bother even buying XDP?

Serif's color handling is better than XDP. Xara products are not color managed, Serif's are. But with "better" and "color managed" comes a slight learning curve. Which hopefully will happen in XDP at some point.

I far prefer XDP to other vector drawing applications despite it lacking certain "professional" features. Those "professional" features are sorely needed in XDP but one can in most all instances make do without them. Even if that means it begins in XDP and ends up in something else.

As regards the point of the thread--and I'll mention once again it is a valid request that may benefit others beyond the OP--merging would not be very high on my personal list. Not at the expense of other items on that list anyway.

The PagePlus Free Edition unfortunately doesn't allow Mail Merge.
For those who are interested, installing it took the 15 minutes as advised. Dithering about gave the offer of a 10% discount. Then going to purchase X8 offered another reduction with a final cost of £67.48 instead of £90 so almost 30%.

I decided not to buy.

Acorn

And calling Serif would likely bring a little bit more off X8, which is the current release.

One link to X7, the immediately previous version. It's gone up a little since the thread I found the link in:

http://www.serif.com/pageplus/offer/

Now, unless one has a true need, don't spend whatever it costs. With software, I use the same principle for myself that we use to inform our consulting clients: Prove a compelling need to the company. Needing software once, twice or thrice isn't compelling need. If it cannot be used with regularity, find a work-around or hire a contractor as needed.

Mike