Hi,
I have been putting together a manual with the overall goal of bypassing the elongated process of having to go through and replace text and variables each time the manual needs to be reproduced for a new client/build.
To do this I compiled a book in MS Excel consisting of 15 - 20 sheets, each with a table of variables depending upon the section in the manual. These can be filled in dependant upon answers from the client. Example:
I have then inserted datatags into the InDesign document, so that a mail merge can be ran using a .CSV copy of the excel spreadsheets and automatically populate the manual with values, see below:
My current problem is that within some of the tables, I have multiple bullet points which in Excel have had to be expressed by inserted a bullet symbol, the text and then using Alt+Enter to create a line break (so that I can have multiple lines of text within one cell).
Unfortunately, when I run CSV2Tables to prepopulate each table with the content from Excel, this line break is being interpreted by InDesign as a command to start on a new row - meaning that one cell that contained multiple lines is imported into InDesign as multiple rows of one-line text. (see below).
My question is, is there any alternative to using the Alt+Enter in Excel so that I can still have multiple lines of text in one cell, that can then be imported into InDesign as one row.
OR
Is there a way of changing what InDesign picks up as a new row symbol - I have looked at 'Hidden Characters' and looked around the internet but have not found a solution as of yet.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.