Level 2

184 points

Pages 5.5 Mail and Data Merge

Pages 5.5 includes new scripting support for locating and replacing text placeholders. In addition, text placeholders can be "tagged" in the application interface, with script identifiers by selecting the text placeholder to tag and entering its "script tag" in the the new Script Tag field available at the bottom of the More tab in the format sidebar. With this new ability, scripts can replace the text placeholders in a document with data from other sources, including Numbers spreadsheets.

But you don't have to write scripts to take advantage of this new feature!

To make it easy for non-scripters to perform Mail merges, and other automated data merging tasks, there is a free application, the Pages Data Merge application, available at: http://iworkautomation.com/pages/script-tags-data-merge.html

Watch the movie, follow the instructions, and give it a try!

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 2:43 PM

174 replies

Jan 23, 2015 7:55 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

I really like this solution, but am having trouble getting this to work. After I define my text as placeholder text, I can't seem to get the option for Script ID to show up where you are accessing it. I'm using version 5.5.2 of Pages. Any advice?

Thanks!

Jan 23, 2015 9:40 AM in response to ingreenink

Hi there, I too had trouble finding this at first but hopefully this info will help

Make sure you have selected your placeholder text, it should be highlighted in a pinkish colour
On the left hand side format panel, make sure that the middle Text option is selected, this should be highlighted in blue
In this panel select the "More" option from "Style | Layout | More"
Now at the very bottom you should see Script Tag with an editable box below it, this is what you are looking for

Good Luck

Sal Soghoian Author

Level 2

184 points

Jan 23, 2015 10:20 AM in response to ingreenink

Quick question: is the text you want to use as a placeholder within a table? Currently, text within tables are not supported as scriptable text placeholders. Sorry. -- Sal

Sal Soghoian Author

Level 2

184 points

Jan 23, 2015 10:27 AM in response to bossa

Looks like it would best be accomplished by creating an AppleScript script to create and populate the master output document. Are you up for the challenge?

bossa

Level 1

0 points

Jan 23, 2015 11:42 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

1. I know that tables are not supported!

2. Yes!

Thank you -- Bossa

Jan 23, 2015 12:08 PM in response to Community User

I updated my operating system to Yosemite and was able to get everything to work. Thank you for the help!

Jan 28, 2015 5:28 PM in response to Sal Soghoian

Hey Sal, first of all, bless you for all this stuff you're doing. It's great!

So I downloaded Pages Data Merge -- I'm trying to merge music download codes to post cards. They're all on the same page. My numbers file has one collum - and that's the codes.

My pages document has text boxes -- 8 (1 per post card)

When I define my placeholder each text box puts out the same code...then it outputs the next page, different code, but it's the same code on every card again. i'm not sure that makes sense... Attached is a screenshot so you can see what I'm doing... I need every card to have a different code.

Maybe you can tell me what I'm doing wrong... Thanks!

Sal Soghoian Author

Level 2

184 points

Jan 29, 2015 10:26 AM in response to jeffallen1

First of all, you're not doing anything incorrectly. The issue is that the Data Merge application is not designed to perform the kind of task you're attempting.

You've tagged each box with the same tag "code". The Data Merge app will replace ALL instances of the tag with the value of the cell you've assigned it. So it's actually performing correctly too!

The Data Merge application treats the entire document as a single pass, and opens a new copy of the original document for each of the following passes. So, this equates to one row of data from the source table for each document pass.

What you want is for each tagged section of the document to be from an individual row of data of the source table.

I'm working on a script for doing just that, but since things are pretty busy here at the moment, it's taking me longer than I anticipated to post the script.

Sorry about the inconvenience, I'll get back to it as soon as I can, and post the script on the same page on iworkautomation.com.

-- SAL

Jan 30, 2015 7:21 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

Thanks so much for this "work around" while the new Pages matures.

I have a lot of fields to merge and it works great, but It would be great if the program could automatically match the tag name to a column name if they were identical. Or, if the links defined in your program between the two documents could be stored to populate the selection grid.

Thanks for your work.

Sal Soghoian Author

Level 2

184 points

Jan 30, 2015 7:31 AM in response to davidintyler

Excellent suggestions! Thank you.

JeanVis

Level 1

14 points

Feb 4, 2015 7:17 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

Hi Sal,

Somehow I can't get it working, not even with the sample files you provided. The error I get says: "Numbers got an error: document 1 doesn't understand the "exists" message.

Any idea what the problem could be?

Sal Soghoian Author

Level 2

184 points

Feb 4, 2015 8:01 AM in response to JeanVis

I'm surprised. What is happening is that the Data Merge application is asking Numbers to see if there is an open document (“does the first document exist?)), but the query is getting rejected by saying that "Numbers doesn't understand what “exists” means!"

This usually means that the message sent by the Data Merge application is getting jumbled in the OS someplace. Let's do some checking...

1) Are you using the latest copy of Numbers and Pages?

2) Do you have Numbers 09 on the computer? Is it open? If so, don't run it when the Data Merge application is open.

3) Which version of the OS are you running?

4) Do you have the document you want to merge open in Pages _before_ launching the Data Merge application?

5) Do you have a Numbers document, containing the data source table, open _before_ launching the Data Merge application?

JeanVis

Level 1

14 points

Feb 4, 2015 10:19 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

Wow, that is a quick reply! And a very helpful one, the problem was that I had the Data Merge application open when working on the Pages and Numbers documents. I did try to close and open the Data Merge app but that did not help. You really have to open the Pages and Numbers documents BEFORE you open the Data Merge application.

Thanks Sal!!!

Feb 11, 2015 4:37 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

I still do not have the option to create ID's. I have created placeholders but then when I open format there is no option to create ID.

Sal Soghoian Author

Level 2

184 points

Feb 11, 2015 6:35 AM in response to nicoladice

II'm guessing that the text placeholders are in tables or a chart? Placeholders in tables and charts are not supported in the current version of Pages.

Can you adapt the layout to avoid those?

sal

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Pages 5.5 Mail and Data Merge