Picture of Using your Invent Variables in Text and Image Frames

Using your Invent Variables in Text and Image Frames

Using your Invent Variables in Text and Image Frames

 

Overview

So you've created your Invent Variables and now you want to use them within your Text and Image Frames that you have in your inDesign file. This article will walk you through the few simple steps to achieve this before moving on to creating and using the Variables in Invent Forms.

 

Variable Linking Types

There are 2 different ways to link a Variable to an InDesign Frame. Using Variable Placeholders and Linking a Variable directly.

 

Linking a Variable

The first is linking a Variable directly to a Frame. To do this select the Frame, in this example we will use a Text Frame and a Text Variable. Then select the 'Properties' tab and at the top of the Text Options you will see a 'Mapped - Type' dropdown. From this select 'Variable'.

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And then from the Variable dropdown select one of your created Variables. 

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As the variable is linked directly to the Text Frame the contents of that Text Frame will be replaced with the contents of the Variable.

 

Variable Placeholders

You can also use Variable Placeholders, similar to the concept of Global Variables in our Infigo Designer plugin, so rather than linking the Text Frame to a single Variable directly, you can use a number of Variables within the Text Frame itself.

To do this, ensure that the Mapped Type dropdown is set to 'Unlinked'

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Then double click on the Text Frame so that you are now editing the text directly in it. You will see that the Invent plugin panel has changed to show you the 'Text Selection Options' dropdown (ensuring you are still on the Properties tab).

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First position the cursor where you would like to insert the Variable Placeholder. Then from the 'Text Selection Options' dropdown select the Variable you want to add, and click 'Add'.

You'll see it then adds in your Variables using our Placeholder tags. The benefit of this approach is that you can use multiple variables in one Frame and they can be embedded amongst non variable text too.

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