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I print decals. A lot of them. Especially this time of year (summer sports, back-to-school, etc.)
It'd make my job a lot easier if I could import a CSV list of names into two predefined artboards, one for production, and one for a proof.
Is this possible? ActionScript maybe?
Use variables within Illustrator.
Variables are designed so that you create a basic layout and designate what text is to be changed with each instance. You then link to an external document containing that list of items to use in the steps, in your case the CSV file.
Here's a link to the Adobe Help Files explaining the use of variables within Illustrator: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-62a2a.html
Note the help files will tell the user to select Import, but there is no import in the menus... you want Load Variable Library and not "import".
You can use this script called VariableImporter.jsx to import CSV or tab-delimited TXT files as variables:
https://github.com/Silly-V/Adobe-Illustrator/blob/master/Variable%20Importer/VariableImporter.jsx
However, importing variables is just a single step, the rest would be actions that you create which process your collection of data records.
