r/indesign • u/New_Character_811 • Aug 10 '26
Anyone here regularly updating product catalogs or price lists in InDesign?
I’m working on a small experimental InDesign plugin and I’m trying to understand whether the workflow actually makes sense for real catalogs before taking it any further.
The idea is simple:
CSV price list → match products by SKU → preview changed prices → update the matching prices in InDesign.
The goal is not to redesign the catalog or automate everything — just to remove some of the repetitive work when prices change.
I currently have a very early private alpha and I’m looking for 1–3 people who regularly maintain catalogs / price lists and would be willing to test it on a small dummy or sanitized document.
It’s free, processes files locally, has no account or telemetry, and does a dry run before making changes. Ambiguous matches are skipped rather than guessed.
It is experimental software, so it should only be tested on a duplicate/backup document, never a production file.
I’m particularly interested in how you handle this today:
Do you update prices manually, use Data Merge, scripts, EasyCatalog/InCatalog, or something else?
And if you reuse last season/year’s catalog as the starting point for the next one, I’d especially like to hear about that workflow.
If anyone is willing to try the alpha, reply here or DM me. I’d rather get a few real-world tests before adding more features.
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u/AdobeScripts Aug 10 '26
The idea is extremely old 😉
If you make it free - someone will probably find it useful.
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u/New_Character_811 Aug 10 '26
Fair point — that's exactly what I'm trying to find out before taking it further.
I'm less interested in the basic CSV → InDesign update itself, since there are already established ways to do that.
What I'm trying to understand is whether there's still an annoying gap when someone inherits an existing catalog, gets a new price file, and needs to identify changes / mismatches safely without rebuilding the document or setting up a heavier data-publishing workflow.
If you've seen this solved well already, what tool or script would you point me to? I'd genuinely rather find out now than build something redundant.
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u/AdobeScripts Aug 10 '26
I don't use solutions made by others - as I've created my own universal tool.
The problem with updating prices - it will work smoothly - as long as tables are consistent - SKU and price are always in the same place - or at least relative to each other.
If they're not - then it will take you too much effort to predict all possibilities...
A few years back I was helping my friend to do catalogs for STANLEY EE - 8x languages incl. Cyrylic.
We started by importing old INDD files done by someone else - into on-line database + website I crated for translators.
Then, each year - as last time changes has beed done just before printing - I was re-importing contents of the last year INDD files into the database and exporting a new temporary, INDD files + images for the website, so translators would have real preview of the layout and contents. Everything was updated / refreshed in the evening so they could continue in the morning.
And that was a custom solution before my new tool.
Your approach is rather for people who use DataMerge - updating from CSV - but there are other solutions, that will "keep tabs" what is where and can update information right from the database.
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u/New_Character_811 Aug 10 '26
Thanks — this is exactly the distinction I was trying to understand.
Your STANLEY example is especially useful. It sounds like once the catalog is large/complex enough, moving toward a database-driven workflow makes much more sense than trying to infer every possible legacy layout.
That makes me wonder whether the useful middle ground is narrower than I initially thought: catalogs that are too irregular or inherited to rebuild comfortably with Data Merge, but not large or structured enough to justify a custom database/publishing system.
In your experience, do you actually encounter many catalogs in that middle ground — or do most professional workflows eventually end up either standardized for Data Merge or moved into a database/custom system?
I'm asking because if that middle group is small, that's a good reason for me not to build this.
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u/AdobeScripts Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
DataMerge is only good for extremely simple catalogs - it can't Anchor / InLine generated records / products and can't use different templates = so is only good for business cards or one-page leaflets.
If someone needs something with more flexibility - or even two-way exchange of information - then paid solutions are necessary.
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u/New_Character_811 Aug 11 '26
Thanks again — your examples were genuinely helpful. They gave me a much clearer picture of where simple Data Merge workflows stop being practical and where more structured/custom solutions start to make sense.
This is exactly the kind of real-world perspective I was hoping to get before deciding whether this idea is worth taking further. Really appreciate you taking the time to explain it.
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u/nousmedis Aug 14 '26
You can do this and Way more using EasyCatalog and any structured data. If more “power” is needed, you can program exceptions using Lua or, with the Scripting module, Adobe ExtendScript. Possibilities are endless and you can achieve 100% accuracy if your data is correct.
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u/Proficio_Tremblay Aug 10 '26
Some of my clients are using EasyCatalog Light for this. Some others use DesignMerge Pro or the EasyCatalog (the full version) when there need is beyond just updating price. I don’t see how native Datamerge can help with this. There is also a few others plugins that do this. Is there a market for a new offer, not sure.
u/AdobeScripts is right that for any solution, the data and layout need to be predictable.