Working with the Data Merge API

Data merge generates variations of a template document from data in a provided CSV file.

The Data Merge API supports UTF-16BE encoding for CSV files, which is necessary for languages or characters requiring multi-byte representation. For plain English characters, the CSV will function correctly even without this encoding.

The Data Merge API includes two components to complete the task: the data merge and the data merge tags.

Quickstart

The example below takes the data from Directory_Names.csv and creates different variations of dataMergeTemplate.indd. The output is a merged INDD file of all variations.

Merge data

This cURL command merges the data (from Directory_Names.csv into dataMergeTemplate.indd).

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curl --location --request POST 'https://indesign.adobe.io/v3/merge-data' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN}' \
--header 'x-api-key: {YOUR_API_KEY}' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "assets": [
    {
      "source": {
        "url": "{PRE-SIGNED_URL}",
        "storageType": "Azure"
      },
      "destination": "dataMergeTemplate.indd"
    },
    {
      "source": {
        "url": "{PRE-SIGNED_URL}",
        "storageType": "Azure"
      },
      "destination": "Directory_Names.csv"
    }
  ],
  "params": {
    "targetDocument": "dataMergeTemplate.indd",
    "outputMediaType": "application/x-indesign",
    "outputFolderPath": "outputfolder",
    "outputFileBaseString": "merged",
    "dataSource": "Directory_Names.csv"
  },
  "outputs": [
    {
      "destination": {
        "url": "{PUT-SIGNED_URL}"
      },
      "source": "outputfolder/merged.pdf"
    }
  ]
}'

The raw data may include three parts:

• assets - Input assets for the request.
• params - Information about what to do with the input assets.
• outputs - Specify locations where the output assets are uploaded. Without an outputs parameter, the output assets are stored in a temporary repository, and a pre-signed URL will be shared for those assets, which will be valid for 24hrs.

Consult this skeleton cURL request for more details.

Retrieve data merge tags

This cURL command retrieves the data merge tags from the document.

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curl --location --request POST 'https://indesign.adobe.io/v3/merge-data-tags' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN}' \
--header 'x-api-key: {YOUR_API_KEY}' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "assets": [
    {
      "source": {
        "url": "{PRE-SIGNED_URL}",
        "storageType": "Azure"
      },
      "destination": "dataMergeTemplate.indd"
    },
    {
      "source": {
        "url": "{PRE-SIGNED_URL}",
        "storageType": "Azure"
      },
      "destination": "batang.ttc"
    }
  ],
  "params": {
    "outputMediaType": "application/x-indesign",
    "targetDocument": "dataMergeTemplate.indd",
    "includePageItemIdentifiers": true
  }
}'