How You Can Make Your Price Catalog Manually Created in Adobe InDesign Fit for the Future

Price catalogs, price lists, and price schedules are at the heart of many companies — but manually created catalogs can quickly become unclear or illogical to read, inconsistent, or difficult to maintain over time. A few tried and true methods along with the right InDesign functions enable you to gain efficient, consistent, and updated output over the long run. By reading further, you will learn how to create a price catalog, price list, or price schedule that stands the test of time.

Best practices: formats, master pages, and templates

A clearly structured catalog is based on the consistent use of character, paragraph, object, table, and cell formats. Consistent formatting helps you work efficiently while keeping the visual appearance of the price catalog uniform. Here are some tips on how to work better when creating a catalog:

• Work faster using formats: Instead of individually formatting every headline, every price, and every product description, define a format once and use it as often as needed. Changes — for example, to the typeface size or color — can be controlled centrally: You change the format and all the affected elements in the entire catalog update themselves automatically.
• Create consistency edition after edition: Even when different graphic designers work on one catalog, the layout remains uniform because of the formats and templates. This creates a professional-looking catalog and simplifies maintaining the catalog throughout several editions.
• Stay flexible when changing designs: If the appearance of your catalog is to be modernized, just change the defined formats, and the complete document will adapt.
• Structure the document efficiently: Use master pages for repeating elements such headers and footers, page numbers, or logos. This saves you time and helps you avoid mistakes.
• Optimally manage large catalogs: Very large catalogs may benefit from the use of the InDesign book function. Using the book function, you can join together many smaller InDesign files (e.g., each 50–100 pages) to one book. This simplifies working with the file, keeps the file size small, and enables centrally controlling format and layouts across all individual documents.

Automate price updates: Just press a button to update prices

Manually updating prices is prone to errors and takes a long time. Modern InDesign extensions from T+S deliver you major advantages compared to manual updates:

• Directly connect to price data: Connect your price catalog directly with the source of prices – for example, an ERP system or Microsoft Excel file. This will cause price changes to transfer directly into the layout at the press of a button. Quick feedback is given by a log file; for example, if an article number in a catalog doesn’t have a corresponding price in the ERP system. Just check the log file to see.
• Update prices with one click: One click in the extension updates all prices in the catalog. Last-minute changes become so much easier and faster with automation that saves time and minimizes errors.
• Keep catalog prices up to date at all times: Your customers always have the correct prices and you avoid unprofessional emergency solutions like stickers covering up old prices.

Creative professionals create price catalogs better using formats, master pages, templates, and extensions in InDesign

By using InDesign formats, master pages, and templates, the book function in Adobe InDesign, and modern automation solutions (e.g., a custom extension to update prices), you can not only make creating your price catalog more efficient and give yourself needed flexibility in working with the catalog, but also make it fit for the future. Your price catalog, price sheet, or price schedule will remain up to date and professional looking, independently of who updates it or how your company continues to develop and grow its ranges of products offered. 

Custom Adobe InDesign Extension Boosted By Artificial Intelligence (AI) Paraphrases Text Automatically for More Efficient Publication Review Workflows

As the deadline for sending a publication to the printer approaches, the tension in the publishing team mounts. Graphic designers and copywriters often have no choice but to work overtime to complete the publication on time and in the desired quality. Wouldn’t it be helpful to streamline the coordination processes between graphic designers, editors, and copywriters in advance to avoid stress?

The challenge: Fit each and every text in its text frame

In the past, manuscripts at a publishing house were handed over to graphic designers, who would then transfer them to an InDesign document for the final layout. It often turned out that some texts were too long for the predefined text frames in the InDesign layout. The copywriters then had to rewrite the text and send it back to the graphic designers. This process was sometimes repeated several times until all the text was exactly the right length.

The publishing house needed an extension for Adobe InDesign. Using InDesign scripting, the extension would automatically process overflowing text in text frames to prevent and eliminate overflow. The AI functions would shorten the text by deleting subordinate clauses, using synonyms, eliminating filler words, and inserting adjectives.

The solution: T+S developed an Adobe InDesign extension that allows the graphic designer to determine which methods should be used to rephrase or rewrite text while preserving its original meaning.

1. Delete subordinate clauses
2. Use synonyms
3. Avoid filler words
4. Use adjectives

The extension automatically creates an AI prompt with paraphrasing instructions and the text to be made more concise; both the prompt and text are sent to OpenAI. The InDesign extension then inserts the shortened text into the text frame instead of the original long text. If the text is still too long, either the InDesign extension will automatically create customized AI prompts or the designer will provide explicit instructions for further rephrasing.

Reduce turnaround time by automating text layouting

The use of AI shortens the text to fit the text frame while preserving the central message of the text. Using AI saves designers, copywriters, and proofreaders valuable time. The time-consuming back-and-forth of rephrasing text several times just to fit it into text boxes is a thing of the past. Time is instead spent on checking the final AI output to ensure it is effective and correct.

The long version of the text remains in the background of the InDesign document. If the machine-generated paraphrased text is not optimal, the original version of the text can be restored at any time by the graphic designer and then manually rephrased by the copywriter.

More efficient publication review workflows for publishing teams

By combining InDesign scripting with artificial intelligence (AI), the client was able to significantly reduce internal coordination and review processes and create more efficient workflows in the creation of publications, which in turn reduced and reduces the workload for everyone involved.

Update Tiered Prices and Quantity Discount Tables in InDesign Product Catalogs — the Efficient Way

Let’s say it’s time to update the prices in a manually generated InDesign product catalog or price list. You have a look at how the prices are shown in the document. The prices are tiered and laid out in tables. Each table awaits your touch. That means hours and hours, maybe even days stretching into weeks, of copy-and-paste, copy-and-paste, copy-and-paste, from an Excel table into the InDesign document.

And what happens when not only the prices, but also the tiers of quantity discounts, need to be updated, too? Then there is even more work per table. The tiers in the InDesign document have to be modified to match the new specifications of an Excel table generated by the ERP system.

Updating a catalog with 2,000 items and four tiers per item can therefore easily take between two to three weeks when correction runs are accounted for.

In addition, manually updating every price table in a catalog tends to create mistakes because of the repetitive copy-paste routine. It is no wonder that graphic designers and catalog creation specialists are not necessarily keen on updating prices and often push the assignment off into the future.

In short: Time-consuming, repetitive work updating prices in catalogs can be stressful, time-consuming, difficult to manage, and prone to errors. That’s when it’s time to automate price updates.

Automatically update price lists with an InDesign plugin

We at T+S make updating tiered prices, graduated prices, bulk prices, scaled prices, and quantity discount levels in your product catalog so much easier and faster by connecting Microsoft Excel with Adobe InDesign using a special InDesign extension created for you. Your custom designed InDesign extension will update all prices and tiered quantity or discount levels in every table and every block of your catalog — lightning fast and free of errors.

The result is an optimized product catalog with accurate and current information, regardless of how many tiered prices are shown.

What is database publishing?

Database publishing is a method of producing catalogs more efficiently and with more personalization. Database publishing involves saving nonformatted content in databases and automatically assembling the content on page templates at the point of generating the catalog. The result is a fast and cost-effective way to produce catalogs.

What are three advantages of database publishing?

A major advantage of database publishing is the ability to create personalized catalogs for various target audiences. By linking databases with the publishing tool, companies can respond specifically to the needs and interests of their customers. This leads to higher customer satisfaction and a better conversion rate.

Another advantage is more consistent data. The central administration of information in the database ensures that all product information is current and correct. Central management reduces the rate of errors and reduces the effort required to manually check data.

Database publishing also enables catalogs to be updated more rapidly. Changes to product data can be made in the database, and then the modified data automatically fed into the catalog. This method saves time and ensures that customers always have the most up-to-date information at their fingertips.

In summary, database publishing offers several advantages for producing catalogs. Companies that use database publishing can work more efficiently, create personalized content, and increase customer satisfaction. Database publishing offers a modern and future-oriented way of creating catalogs and meeting the needs of the digital age.

How can T+S help my company take full advantage of database publishing?

The database part of database publishing is at the heart of a product information system (PIM system) or master data management system (MDM system). T+S offers a sophisticated PIM system called Contene. When you maintain your product data in Contene, you can automate your catalog production processes to a high degree. Product information, product images, and metadata about products are stored in Contene and then processed or inserted into templates and layouts.

T+S can assist you to develop modern database publishing processes, from discussing your requirements to evaluating the best way to produce catalogs and technical documents, to introducing Contene into your environment, should that be the best PIM system solution for you.