New data into old catalog merge

[Scott McD]

Ok, please bear with me on this. Questions is pretty simle.

I was given a catalog to update for a school silent auction. I have been
monkeying with it for a week now and can't figure out how to merge the new
data (from Excel) into the existing fields/pages in the Publisher 03 created
catalog.

When you do a catalog merge from a data source, can you simply change the
text in the fields of said data source and "re-merge"? Or do you have to
re-create a catalog from scratch when you need to update the data in the
source? I don't want to change anything else in the catalog except the data
in the merged fields.

Now granted, the person I inherited this project from may have done
something wrong, but I seem to have all of the appropriate fields and data
sources, I just can't get my head around how to do this.

Help please!

<quietly desperate>

 

[Ed Bennett]

When you do a catalog merge from a data source, can you simply change the
text in the fields of said data source and "re-merge"? Or do you have to
re-create a catalog from scratch when you need to update the data in the
source? I don't want to change anything else in the catalog except the data
in the merged fields.

You have to re-merge from the original pre-merged publication (with the
Catalog Merge repeating area in), rather than merging from the
post-merged publication (with the old data populated into it).

 

[Scott McD]

Ed, thanks for the quick response, but I'm not sure I follow you. When I
create a catalog from scratch - and go through the catalog merge wizard - I
don't "have a file" until after I hit merge and chose new or existing
bulication.

So what would the "pre-merged" publication be?

 

[Ed Bennett]

Ed, thanks for the quick response, but I'm not sure I follow you. When I
create a catalog from scratch - and go through the catalog merge wizard - I
don't "have a file" until after I hit merge and chose new or existing
bulication.

So what would the "pre-merged" publication be?

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you do the following things:

- Create a new publication
- Using the Catalog Merge Wizard, create a Catalog Merge area with the
field structure in
- Optionally save a pre-merge file
- Merge to your final publication.
- If you merged to a new publication, you could save a pre-merge
publication here, too.

i.e. a publication saved prior to actually adding all the data from the
database.

 

[Scott McD]

Ok, thanks I'll see if I can get the work in progress file from the person
who created the old catalog.

With out that file though, I have to recreate from scratch right? No way to
-retro-merge from their final one huh?

 

[Ed Bennett]

With out that file though, I have to recreate from scratch right? No way to
-retro-merge from their final one huh?

Yep to the first, nope to the second. Sorry. Publisher ain't that clever.