Personalized Print (VDP) Workshop

Hands-on Practice 1: Basic Print Campaign (template building)

Hands-on Practice 1: Basic Print Campaign (template building)

Learn how to create variable data templates for personalization and customization using uCreate Print for Adobe InDesign. This session introduces basic VDP concepts and guides you through building a simple campaign from start to finish personalization.

Audience: New users working with uCreate Plug-in for InDesign to create variable data templates for personalization or customization.

Learning Prerequisite: Basic Adobe InDesign knowledge.

Practice Takeaway: How to build a simple variable (VDP) document/template using to uCreate Print functionality within InDesign.

Estimated Effort: 1-4 hours, depending on experience and immediate/required learning goals.

Learning Materials: EDU Open House Tutorial (from Campus video series) or using a custom campaign. If the custom campaign is very complex, practice effort time may increase.

Learning Objectives:

  • Campaign planning to identify business rules, data (sources, type, values) and other document production requirements.
  • Assess campaign goals (aka briefing) and prepare materials.
    • Download campaign examples or collect in-house files
    • Implement a typical folder structure of files
    • Summarize the differences between Resource and Asset files
  • Review the plug-in menus, panels, dialogs.
    • Ensure the uCreate plug-in is installed and licensed
    • Use the Dynamic Content menu to locate version and license information
    • Understand the uCreate interface menu and how to view panels
    • Review panel functionality (Dynamic Content, Audience, XLIM and VDP Job Center)
  • Build a VDP campaign from start to finish.
    • Open a static InDesign file, review the desired changes, and link a data source
    • Review the Dynamic Content panel and scroll through records
    • Tag the template by placing Content Objects/ADOR within the design
    • Create or modify various Content Objects/ADOR types and their business rules (expressions)
    • Locate and use Assets with Graphic Content Objects/ADOR
    • Use common Content Object features and options (e.g. shortest/longest values, suppress trailing spaces, copyfit, image fitting, etc.)
    • Understand how design features affect print performance (e.g. transparency, image types, fonts, etc.)
  • Generate dynamic VDP print output using Dynamic Content menu locally using desktop InDesign (if applicable).
    • Set the options for printing (data, output type, destination, policies, copies, impositioning, bleed and marks, and more)
    • Generate a PDF Output
    • Locate and open the PDF output and review
    • Make changes to the template or rules, then regenerate the output

Related Campus Material: