In this tutorial, we'll explain how to do an easy setup in InDesign for automatically numbered tickets. We will look at the handy "Data Merge Tool," which is a great time-saver. Let's jump into this quick tutorial!
Final Image Preview
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Step 1
Open a new document in InDesign and deselect Facing Pages, choose letter size and vertical orientation. then OK.
Step 2
Open the Margin and Columns Palette (Layout > Margin and Columns) and set the margins all around to 12 pt (1 pica).
Step 3
Drag a horizontal and vertical guide onto the page. Set them both to 1p6 (18pt). To align them select the guide with the selection Tool (V) and type the number into the X and Y tab. This will ensure that the guides are set to the exact number.
Step 4
Repeat Step 3 and set the other guide the same way.
Step 5
I already created a background image (in EPS format, which is available to Vector Plus members in the download). Select the Rectangle Frame Tool (F) from the tools palette and drag a rectangle onto the page. Then click Command + D and locate the image (in this case an image that you chose to use as a background for the tickets).
The background image has a size of 22p5 by 5p6. You can choose any size as long as it fits onto your page. To fit the Rectangle Frame to the background image, select the Option + Command + C. This fits the frame to the content.
Step 6
Create several layers in the Layers Palette. We will need one for the background ("bg"), one for text ("text") and one for the numbers ("numbers"). Lock the background layer.
Step 7
A very important step is to make sure we are working in the Master Page. Double-Click the A-Master icon in the Pages Palette. This will make the master page active.
Step 8
Start adding some text. Date, time, place, event, etc. Be creative. You can place color boxes behind the text and play with the font sizes. I usually never use more the two fonts, and if I do, I'll make sure that they are quite the opposite. Pick a font with a big family, meaning lots of weights. Helvetica, DIN or Univers are good choices.
Step 9
We also want to setup right away the crop marks for the tickets. Create another layer and call it "crop marks & score marks." We will place the crop marks and the score line onto this layer. Start placing crop marks that you create with the Pen Tool (P) around the ticket.
Step 10
We also want to place a score mark where the ticket in theory will be perforated and torn. Create a dotted line with the Pen Tool (P) and place it where you want your ticket to be scored.
Step 11
Now let the fun begin. Go to Window > Automation > Data Merge and select the text file 100.txt. (You can download this data file with numbers 0-100 here).
Step 12
Select the Text Tool (T) and start dragging a text box that will wrap around the whole ticket including the crop marks. This is very important since the Data Merge will automatically calculate the duplication. Then open up the Text Frame Option (Command + B) and set the Inset spacing to 1p4 for the top and 1p8 for the left. Of course, you can place the text for the numbers anywhere you like. I set the numbers to a small text.
Step 13
Start writing the text for the numbers. In this case, I typed ticket "nr." Leave any numbers out. This will be filled in by the data file. As you can see, the text box wraps around the full tickets with crop marks.
Step 14
Zoom into the tickets where you have placed the text for the numbering and click on the data merge palette. This should be open already since we already called in the data file in Step 11. Place the text cursor behind the last letter of your text. Then click on the text data file (100.txt) in the Data Merge Palette.
Step 15
This is what you should see now. Brackets with 000. Make sure you are still on the Master Page.
Step 16
This is what you should have right now. We are still in the master page.
Step 17
Go back to the Data Merge Palette. On the bottom-right of the Data Merge Palette is a small icon called Create Merged Document. Click this icons once.
Step 18
You will now have a pop-up window called Create Merged Document. Make sure you select All Records. Then select in the Records per Document Page the Multiple Records drop down.
Step 19
On top of the pop-up windows click on the second tab called Multiple Record Layout. In there set the margins to 1p0. Check Column first and leave the spacing at 0.
Step 20
Select the last tab on the right called Options. Check Link Images. Then click the OK button on the bottom. Watch what happens.
Step 21
InDesign will automatically generate as many pages as needed and automatically insert the numbers. It's magical :)
Step 22
When you zoom in (Z), you can see that each ticket has a number. Not just randomly but in sequence.
Conclusion
This is the final result. I exported the tickets as a PDF. I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial.
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Jim April 13th
While this is a great tutorial on “how to do XYZ” in theory – it should be noted that this is method is fine if you’re printing 50 tickets off your inkjet printer, but this is not how you should prepare files for commercial printing that have numbering. You would essentially be paying more for every page you create. Not to mention that you’re really creating more work for yourself.
Any modern printer that handles numbering is going to tell you simply to create one single ticket, drop in a bogus number and color it with a specific pantone color, and let them worry about the best way to get it on there. They have computers and presses that handle nothing but numbering. Trying to “help” them out like this (or trying to out-smart them) is going to do nothing but cost you time and money.
( )Samantha Armacost April 13th
I had no idea inDesign could do this. Thanks for pointing it out.
I could see this being used for addressing custom designed envelopes on the cheap if printed from an at home printer.
( )binocle April 13th
Nice explanation of the “data merge” thing. Thanks.
Personaly when I have to number a small number of elements, i use the pagination features, much more simple IMHO.
( )blueice April 13th
Thank you for this explanation, very useful when you print on a copier.
( )Cheryl April 13th
Excellent. SO many uses for this.
( )Franky April 13th
Very Clean!!!
( )Duluoz April 13th
Jim is correct – only use InDesign’s data merge if you’re handling a low count of items (500 or less from my experience). Print shops will often use a more sophisticated Variable Data Printing (VDP) solution. Depending on your in-house printers, you may already have a VDP available.
( )Grafiko April 13th
great tutorial. the possibilities are endless for that trick
( )Bendsen April 14th
Neat! I knew that InDesign was able to do this – but not how to do it. So, thanks for sharing !
( )imsraaia April 14th
NICE… THANKS..
( )Rob L (spaceguy) April 14th
I just did a ticket numbering job the other day. With CS4 Indesign, you can insert leading 0’s in the numbering, CS3 doesn’t. I then created a pdf file stepping them up as page spreads 6 up a page. This would be the easier approach.
Then final output was Color laser printing on heavy 10pt stock front and back. Had to fiddle with the centering on the page a bit with the crops, but worked out ok.
The data merge feature in CS4 is much better too than CS3 for final output to pdf formats. I did a job for certificates with 800 names from Excel, worked nicely.
( )Ryan April 14th
Not only should the printer handle this, the imposition is all wrong. You should never, ever create crop marks in InDesign. The right way is to design the job at the final trim size. Let it create a merged multi-page document that way, then output a PDF with your specified bleed and crop marks. Then you can place that PDF into a new doc and step and repeat the pages. I shudder that people will read this and start drawing their own crop marks.
As noted, unless you’re printing this at home, do NOT send anything to the printer like this!
( )Julio April 14th
It seems that some people here want to show that know better than others, but should know that there are some comercial printers that have different features os others, and crop marks may be very usefull if used right in those cases… Before saying what people should or not should do here you should see if you understand everything about this… i work just like he did here, and in 10 years of work nothing gone wrong until now, and i use those features, great tutorial, excelent work!!
( )Emil B April 15th
I use this feature when help a restaurant chain that frequently change their menus and have small differences between the diffrent restaurants, but I prefer to use a CSV file instead of a TXT because then you can have multiple text fields and multiple versions at the same time.
I would also agree that it’s better to let your print shop do the numbering or other larger changes (over larger series), otherwise their “click-cost” that they pay to the company that provided their printer (Heidelberg, Canon and others) increases and thus the price that you or your customer pays.
( )Kelly April 16th
This could prove to be a very useful tip for me. Every year, I have to throw out around 100+ award certificates each to different businesses, and it would be nice to just use a csv file to populate all the different names on each certificate instead of having to manually type them in on each and every page. I’ll have to play around with this. Thanks for the intro!
( )Johnny April 22nd
Very Interesting. I was unaware that crop marks would need to be manually created and thought setting the final output size would be sufficient.
( )Nice to see someone elses perspective though!
Thiago [Okami] Vieira April 26th
Wow.
You are my favourite “teacher” here, Simona. I always learn a lot in your tutorials. Thanks for share your expertise with us.
( )huwaw69 May 2nd
this technique can be used in a lot of ways, thanks for sharing man!
( )Dan May 23rd
I just learned this trick a few days ago, myself. Thanks for confirming that I did it correctly.
I wonder, though, if you can do the same automation with images. So that instead of having to change images (via Links) one by one, I could refer to a data file of the image names and/or locations. That could make use of the batch rename function in Adobe Bridge.
( )CAG October 12th
THANKS! Tut was very helpful.
( )Joe October 22nd
Great tutorial! In the past I’ve left these kids of details to the printer but I now have a high capacity laser printer so we can do this in house. The only thing I would adjust is how the tickets are numbered. Say you are doing 500 tickets and numbering them as you do in the tutorial. Once printed they will need to be cut. Sheet one has tickets 1-18 and Sheet 2 has 19-36 etc. When you cut these in stacks on a large mechanical paper cutter, you end up with a stack that has tickets 1,19,37,55 etc in the stack. Is there a way to number them sequentially so that when cut, you end up with a stack that is tickets 1-28 and the next stack would be 29-56 etc? Then they could be padded. This would save the time of sorting them all when your finished cutting.
( )Scott November 11th
Joe, I just had to do something similar, here’s what I did.
Using your own job of 500 tickets as an example, 500 tickets @ 18-up, you will have 28 sheets being printed.
In your excel file you will need two columns; let’s call the first one ‘Numbers’ and have it sequential starting at 001 and ending at 500 (actually, I’d number it to 504, just to fill all the sheets). Lets label the second column as ‘Re-order’ and have it sequential starting at 1 and ending at 28.
Then highlight all 28 numbered cells in our ‘Re-order’ column, then copy and paste them into the first empty cell in our ‘Re-order’ column. We now have cells numbered 1 – 28 and then 1 – 28 again right underneath.
Just keep pasting the 1 – 28 in the first empty cell until you have eighteen sets starting at 1 and ending at 28.
Obviously, if we were talking about different quantities, these numbers would change but the concept is still the same.
So now we have our two columns, 001 – 500 and 1-28, 1-28, 1-28, etc, select all and do a sort by whatever column you assigned as ‘Re-order’.
What you have in your ‘Numbers’ column now is 18 sets of numbers set-up so that, when printed, each stack of tickets will be in sequential order.
( )