What is Database Publishing?
The term database publishing refers to the idea of taking data from a database or spreadsheet and publishing it as a catalogue, directory, price list, or whatever, in either printed or electronic form. It's also known as variable data publishing or variable data printing.
What is CatBase?
CatBase is a database publishing program that simplifies the publication of catalogues, directories, price lists – or any data that's database-based. It works with Quark Xpress, InDesign, FrameMaker, and various other publishing formats. For a comprehensive overview of CatBase, click here.
OK then, let's
see just how easy it is!
For the
purposes of this Tutorial, we are using the Demo Database that is supplied
with the CatBase Demo. If you would like to follow along and try it
for yourself, you can download the fully-functional Demo from here.
The Steps
Publishing your catalogue, directory, etc. with CatBase takes just a few steps:
- Get your data into CatBase's database, either by importing it from another source or entering it manually.
- Set up Publishing Style Sheets. These describe what you want to publish and how you want it sorted and formatted; whether to include images, to index certain elements, etc. You set up Publishing Style Sheets by making choices in dialogues; there's no programming required.
- Select the data you want to publish (e.g., all of it, or just products in a certain category, or all companies in Arizona, etc.
- Publish it!
The process of publishing the data can be automated through the use of Publishing Projects.
See it in Action
We've got some data in our Demo database, we've set up a Publishing Style Sheet and a Publishing Project, and now we are ready to publish a telephone directory. We're going to use InDesign this time.
- Click on the Publish Data button on the main window and choose Telephone Directory - InDesign from the popup menu:
- Wait a minute or so as CatBase publishes the data (the time of course depends on how much data is being published)
- Open the InDesign template (or create a new document)
- Import the published file into the document
- It's all automatically formatted:
-
 |
Mohammed, John, and Mike have paid for a Bold listing.
Ferdinand and Kate have a plain listing.
Sheila has paid for a Boxed listing.
Jenny has an Extended listing.
... and it was all formatted automatically! |
This is quite a basic example: CatBase can create catalogs, directories, price lists etc. in many different styles - you are in control! You can see some examples of publications creates with CatBase here.
More Info
