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i'm looking for an easy way to resize roughly 40 pages of barcode PNGs in indesign. If i can cut off approximately 50-60% of each barcode....well, you can see how many pages i would save at the printer. I have already tried to click preview, and move the actual image UP so only a portion of it is inside the visible area...but it doesn't recognize this when i run datamerge.

i know i can make an action and batch a folder of images, but i was trying to see if indesign had any way to do this so i wouldn't have two sets of images, and free time while i wait for photoshop to process 3500+ images.

I'm going to post two images so you can see what i am trying to attempt, and what the entire page looks like as well.

BAR CODE BEFORE AND AFTER enter image description here

FILLED PAGE PREVIEW

enter image description here

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The key is to use Frame Fitting Options on your barcode image frame before you create the merged document.

In the template document, resize your barcode placeholder frame to the desired final height. Then, right-click the image placeholder frame, and select Fitting > Frame Fitting Options.
Placeholder Frame Options
Then, for Align From, select the bottom center reference point. To be safe, also make sure the Fitting is set to Fill Frame Proportionally. I think the data merge Content Placement Options will override this, but might as well just in case.
Frame Fitting Options
After that, go ahead and click Create Merged Document, and go to the Options tab. In there, again make sure the Fitting is set to Fill Frame Proportionally. Also make sure Center In Frame is not checked.
Content Placement Options
Then go ahead and click OK to create your merged document.
before and after

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  • thanks for the reply @apex, it looks like you had to do quite a bit of work for this answer! Love how organized the answer is! – mephisto21 Sep 17 '14 at 16:26
  • to anyone reading these steps!! please note, that if you click preview before merging, it will scale your image and make it smaller. if you preview the merged document, however, you'll see it works just fine! – mephisto21 Sep 17 '14 at 16:40

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