import CSV content to InDesign document with script

Question

I have a Daily Planner (400+ pages) created in InDesign. Each daily page has date. The 365 daily pages start from page 17 to 382 in my InDesign document. I figured it would be better to add weekday to the daily page too. I created a csv file with dates and corresponding weekdays. I wonder if there's a script that can import csv data to my InDesign document so the weekdays can get added to the corresponding daily page. Ideally, the weekday can go to a specific location of the page and set to a character style I created in my document. Any help/insight would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

Data Merge with an already built document, unless i am missing something, is not likely to work.

A pretty basic Javascript loop however could add a specific box on each page, in a specific location, with a style assigned and so on. I am not very familiar with JS and this could take too long for me too code, but you can easily have a JS script to:

• loop from page 17
• add a text box in a specific location X,Y on the page
• place weekday name in the box from an array and assign a character style
• move to next page up to 382

I have done similar code to batch copy paste items between multiple layers, not pages, but this is 100% doable with basic Javascript.

Answer 2

You can do all of this with InDesigns Data merge feature without the need of a script.

I have actually made something similar. I did a diary that I printed and bound myself that was a week per A4 spread. I merged dates, weeks, national holiday, images to highlight what week in the year I was. I even had it merge annual events for the business highlighting where in the year it nornally happens.

If you want to do this, then spend your time on the data file. I did mine in excel. It looks big and complex but once you get your head around it is easy to manage and update. You will probably already know this but treat the first row as your titles. They wont be merged but will appear in InDesign's Data Merge panel as each set of data. Then treat each row aftereaeds as a page or spread and each column as the seperate info.

For example, on mine I had the week number on each page. In the excel sheet Coloum A Row A was titled Week No, then Row B had 1. This would show as Week 1 on page 1 in InDesign.

If you are interested I could dig our an old file that could act as a reference point.