InDesign Beyond Layout: Data, Barcodes, and Automation

• Pre-presentation networking begins at the event start time
• The formal presentation begins 30 minutes later
• Attendees now need to be signed in to Zoom to join meetings. Creating a Zoom account is free.

InDesign is much more than a page-layout application. In production environments, it often becomes the final stage of a data-driven publishing workflow, where product information, pricing, images, barcodes, and versioned content all need to come together accurately and efficiently.

In this workflow-focused session, Lawrence Horwitz of Teacup Software will demonstrate practical native InDesign techniques for building more reliable production documents, including styles, Data Merge, GREP formatting, linked assets, tables, conditional text, preflight, and scripting concepts. Along the way, he will show where native workflows work well, where they begin to strain, and how Teacup Software tools can extend those same workflows for more complex data, barcode, and automation needs.

Attendees will learn how to:

• Build InDesign templates that are more automation-friendly
• Use native Data Merge, styles, GREP, tables, and preflight more effectively
• Understand the practical limits of native data-driven workflows
• Manage barcode and structured-content workflows more reliably
• Recognize when plug-ins can streamline repetitive or error-prone production tasks