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I'm making my first invoice on InDesign.
As I'm a web designer, I ask for a 50% deposit immediately, with the rest upon completion. For the final payment, clients have 30 days to pay.
My question(s) are:
How can I put an automatically updating date in, and, Is it possible for me to set it to jump ahead 30 days automatically?
Thanks!
There may be no need for a script. It depends upon how versatile you need things. Text variables can be limiting in some instances.
A text variable is an item you insert in your document that varies according to the context. For example, the Last Page Number variable displays the page number of the last page of the document. If you add or remove pages, the variable is updated accordingly.
InDesign includes several preset text variables that you can insert in your document. You can edit the format of these variables, or you can create your own. Some variables, such as Running Header and Chapter Number, are especially useful for adding to master pages to ensure consistent formatting and numbering. Other variables, such as Creation Date and File Name, are useful for adding to the slug area for printing.
It's sort of a "basic" InDesign feature and quite broad. A lengthy answer simply detailing the same steps wouldn't really compete with Adobe's own help section on text variables.
I create monthly newsletters for several clients. I use text variables for the months/year. So When I open a file, edit it and save, all the dates update accordingly based upon the month of the edit. That way, a month change isn't overlooked when working on a new iteration.
As Joojaa said, this can be done by scripting.
You can find here an example of a script looking for XXXXXXXX and replacing it by last month date.
Of course, you can modify the script in order to set the month +1. Change line
setMonth(getMonth()-1);
by
setMonth(getMonth()+1);
That said, an alternative (that I would personally prefer because it's automatic) could be to use a simple excel file with a single cell with a formula that calculates today's date + 1 month. Place the XLS file as a linked file in your INDD document (Preferences > File handling > create Links when placing text and spreadsheet files).
Since I use a French version of Excel, I can't test the English formula, but something like =EDATE(NOW(),1) might be working for you. To be tested - or asked in an Excel forum...
