HELP!!! Excel links/styles are not being maintained in ID CS Pagemaker Conversion!

[Derek_Books@adobeforums.com]

I do 100+ page price lists. Pricing is extracted from the company's internal database into several hundred Excel spreadsheets via VLOOKUP. I then open my Pagemaker Price List file which automatically updates all the Excel files that had been changed/updated. (Pagemaker maintains a link to the Excel files and knows when they have been changed/updated making this very simple.) Also, I can double click on the Excel table in Pagemaker to bring up the original Excel file for manual editing if need be. Once I am done editing and close the excel file..presto..Pagemaker is automatically updated.. no having to recopy/repaste/reimport anything. This is especially useful being several different price catalogs (Pagemaker files) utilize the same Excel files for price info.

We are wanting to go to InDesign, however... When I open/convert my Pagemaker 7 files in ID CS (Pagemaker Version) all my excel tables are converted to .tif files and the links are gone. Not having InDesign CS able to maintain a link to outside databases like Pagemaker is a MAJOR deal. It appears with ID I will have to manually reimport every single excel file into ID every time I need to update the price book. And being I don't always know which specific Excel files have been updated (Pagemaker always told me), I will have to either tediously reimport/recopy/repaste them all. (and I can't just look at each excel files update date because there could be several tables in several worksheets in the same excel file some of which may have pricing updated and others not.)

I don't see anything in ID that resembles Pagemaker's Paste Special>Paste Link>Microsoft Excel Worksheet which maintains a link, along with the same font, cell colors, borders, etc. that have been formatted in Excel.

This seems to be a pretty major oversight unless I'm just missing something?? Any Plug-In that does this? Most of the Plug-Ins people have suggested thus far still don't maintain a link to Excel file and are capable of autoupdating ID when Excel info has changed in the original files.

[Simon Warner]

I'm still on 2.02 so this is not an answer. In 2.02 the link to an excel
spreadsheet is maintained but a bug means that it forgets the range it
is linked to.

If the bug is fixed in CS I would expect it work as you seem to expect
it to work.

Please keep us posted.

[Bob_Levine]

Edit>preferences>text

Under links, check maintain links when placing text and spreadsheet files.

Then just place the Excel file.

FWIW, your Pagemaker workflow was flat out dangerous from a postscript
standpoint. You're lucky you didn't wind up with your spreadsheets
moving around on the page or not printing at all.

Bob

[Derek_Books@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the input Bob. Flat out did not see that maintain links box. (You would think that would be checked by default.)

So that solves the problem of creating new documents. However, when converting existing Pagemaker files it still converts all the tables to .tif files. That's alot reimporting I would have to do. And the importing from Excel to ID wouldn't be a walk in the park either. I would have to open each Excel file and make a note of each cell range I wanted to import, then manually type that cell range into the place range box. Like I said before, some of our worksheets have more than one table on them so I can't just point ID to an Excel file. Copying the cell range in Excel and pasting link would make it MUCH MORE easier. Excel 97 doesn't support drag and drop either. (If the new Excel does and if this would even work who knows.) :\

Also, once you do place the Excel file in ID, double clicking on it only allows you to edit the text in the table in ID. It won't take you to the original Excel file for editing, nor will it update the linked excel file if you edit it in ID. What you have to do is right click on the table, go down to the "Graphics" menu, then click on "Edit Original". Not too hard I guess, but double clicking was a bit more convenient in Pagemaker.

BTW..We have never had a problem with spreadsheets "moving around on the page or not printing at all". This workflow has worked out ok. There is an ongoing push to get this stuff online and be done with it. They used to hand type all this price info right into Pagemaker..from a workflow standpoint, THAT was a nightmare.

Yes Simon, I did try it out too with InDesign 1.5.2 and it does retain the link if you "placed" the excel file, however, it wipes all your excel formatting...just text. We copy the range in Excel then Paste Special>Paste Link>Microsoft Excel Worksheet. Doing it this way, when converting it, ID 1.5.2 would only bring in the bounding box with nothing in it at all. Sounds like they got a little closer on the conversion with 2.02, then just dropped it completely in CS and decided to just convert all the tables to .tif files.

Anyone else have a solution or do I need to spam email this to Adobe until they submit..heh?

[Bob_Levine]

You're not going to get OLE links in InDesign. It was never intended for
high end publishing. Visit the PM forum and you'll read plenty of horror
stories from people who used it for postscript output.

If you want to use that type of workflow, then stick with Pagemaker and
be prepared to tell your own horror story one day.

Bob

[Derek_Books@adobeforums.com]

I got to thinking about your Excel files moving around on the page or not printing, and thought... why on earth would they do that? Then I remembered..years ago, when we did start importing excel files into Pagemaker, there were problems with printing them. However, this was because someone had gone through and resized the Excel files inside Pagemaker. This is a no no. You have to resize your Excel files in Excel, then reimport them. No size adjusting can be done to the Excel tables in Pagemaker. (Well..you can a little bit but at your own risk.) Otherwise yes, things can go funky on you when you print.

[Derek_Books@adobeforums.com]

UPDATE.. I posted that you can indeed place Excel files into your ID files AND maintain a link, providing you do have the maintain links checkbox selected in Edit>Preferences>Text as Bob suggested. However, apparently it doesn't maintain the table cell height. You have to go another step and manually edit the table in ID to get the table to show up correctly.

[Bob_Levine]

OLE is for office level applications like PowerPoint and Word. The only
reason it was in PM was that originally, Microsoft insisted on its
inclusion for Windows certification.

Bob

[Derek_Books@adobeforums.com]

And it was good that they did. It was one of the main reasons many people chose Pagemaker over QuarkXpress.

[Bob_Levine]

I'm just the messenger. You want to continue down a dangerous path, go
ahead. But you'll have to use PM or Word to do it.

Bob