Using Filemaker with Adobe Illustrator for book project

Hi all

I have a database of musical works contained within a Filemaker Pro database - it's a mix of images and text.

I would like to make a book with content and hoped to use a template in Adobe illustrator and retrieve dynamic data from Filemaker.

Is the right tool for this Illustrator? I can't find a lot of links or articles.

Any advice at all on the use of Filemaker to generate the content of the very popular book.

Thank you

Antknee

I don't really want to post some screenshots here to a proprietary solution. But here's a description of a similar solution on the 'edition ': FMP

You have a layout for the main navigation of the end-users. Put superficially similar are used for data entry, but include administrative functions, fields and flags that accelerate the creation of content, but are not intended for end users. Typical stuff of FMP. But now you take it to the next step:

You create a report layout specifically size and format to print or export to PDF. You use the tools of the FMP for slippery object; use the container fields or objects WebViewer for illustrations; to format the content of the text of several data fields, use the function of a merge field and/or the text fields of calculation. You can overlap fields, so have a container in the background field is simple.

You basically ignore the 'release' layout that you create, edit, and work with data. But it's still there and it is always "already built and populated." Whenever you want to publish a print version for a particular product catalog, you run just a BANG that script automatically:

Invites you to indicate the desired record game (product model, chapter, category, etc.).

Running find it necessary and sorting.

Creates a table of contents. (Based on a different presentation of the report in print).

Exports the TOC in PDF format. (Pages ten in general).

Exports the content as a separate PDF pages. (Several hundred pages is not a problem.)

In a few minutes, you have a ready to print book updated.

You open the PDF content in Acrobat Pro, insert the TOC PDF on the front pages it and send to your on-demand printing outsourcing. The end result is a manual of the perfect binding, without never having jumped through hoops to generate data in a conventinal-wisdom page layout application.

If this FMP one solution:

  • Is used for data entry.
  • Serves as a tool for direct internal reference served on FMPSA.
  • Serves as an export of data and data analysis tool.
  • Can be linked as a fully functional runtime standalone application.
  • Is web-deliverable by IWP of FMPSA.
  • Is web-available as a "back-end data' web site via PHP.
  • Serves as the "publishing platform" for catalogues PDF ready to print and/or web-delivered.

Vector drawings are created in Illustrator, drawing, software CAD, or anything else and saved as vector PDF files in a folder accessible to the database of the FMP. PDF files are named according to the unique identifier of registration (primary key) field.

You start Acrobat Pro, and run a batch operation that opens the folder full of PDFs and batch export them to an adjacent folder of png. The png is exported to the right size for the field on the container page. (Possibly another container on the route of navigation field displays PDF icons that are links to PDF files for when a user needs a scalable vector version, zoomable.) During data entry, whenever a new record is created or modified, a button by script is so important the PNG and PDF with a single click. or batch-import images for all records at once.

We could just as easily create a page layout and the solution to create and send e-mail messages to the HTML to a page found or a set of pages of script.

As an XML / InDesign solution, FMP effectively figures for you how many pages is necessary for the length of the table of contents and the length of the list of parts that accompanies each illustration and creates and numbers; and do it without the need of mucking around with XML.

So in this workflow, FileMaker Pro, use the app "page layout". All that is sacrificed is upscale and demanding letterpress printing; for many practical reasons today is increasingly unnecssary.

The underlying concept here is "FileMaker and PDF" «FileMaker and Illustrator» (Use any graphics program you want which can return to ordinary raster RGB or PDF formats).  And he "let FileMaker automate the assembly of page" instead of XML / InDesign. Just keep the layout in a FileMaker layout capabilities.

JET

Tags: Illustrator

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