Variable Text - InDesign CS3 Tutorial
Jacob Van Ness

May, 2008

There are times information not included in the default page information may be useful. For example if you wanted to have the "creation date" included on the document you are printing out. This can be good if you have several versions of a file and need to know when in the design process a certain file was created.

Obviously you do not want to have to take the extra step of changing this information every time you open a file. There is a simple way to have this information displayed by using the Text Variables option under the Type menu.

1. First we will create a document the size of a standard business card. After opening InDesign go to File -> New -> Document or Cmd N (Ctrl N).

2. When the New Document window opens [1]set your document size to 3.5" wide and 2" high. You also want to [2]set the slug to be .5" for the top.

3. When the document open you will not see the slug. Use Cmd - (Ctrl -) to zoom out a bit. You will then see the slug box on top.

4. Selecting the [1]Type Tool we will [2]create a text box in the slug area. This is where we are going to place our variable text.

5. To place a pre-existing variable go to Type -> Text Variables -> Insert Variable and then select the one you wish to use. In this case we are going to use Creation Date.

6. As you can see the date the file was created (current date). In this case the date of 04/23/08 is being used because that is the date I created the InDesign document for this tutorial.

7. Now say we want to have the text Date Created before the date. Rather than making a new text box, you can add it to the variable text. To do this you will need to edit the Creation Date variable. Go to Type -> Text Variables -> Define. You will see a Text Variables window come up with a list of the different types of variables available.

8. Next we will select Creation Date. You can see at the bottom where it says Preview how the date is represented. It matches what we have in our file.

9. With Creation Date selected we will now click on Edit. This will bring up the Edit Text Variable window. To add text before the date all we have to do is insert it in the field next to Text Before.

10. When you type in the text in that field you will see it update the Preview box at the bottom.

11. If you wanted to you can change the way the date is formated too; all you have to do is click on the arrow at the end of that field to bring up the fly out menu.

12. Here you will see options to add Time and to change how the rest of the date is shown. Feel free to play around with these setting to get it how you wish it to appear. I chose to have the short month name, the date number with a coma after it and the year as four digits. You can see the changes appear in the Preview box at the bottom.

13. As you can see though the date in my file still has not changed. To have the new variable applied you will need to click OK in the Edit Text Variable window and then you will see the change happen in both the preview box and in the file.

14. So as you can see we now have the date the file was created above where the artwork would be.

15. To get this information to print you have to make sure the check box is in the Include Slug Area option under Marks and Bleed. You can see the slug is represented in the orientation window by the bluish bar above the P.

So now you have the date the file was created at the top of your page when you print. This is helpful when you do several items and need to know when each was created. You can use this technique to add modified date to an actual file. Which some places do to make sure they have the most up to date file. Maybe I'll set up another tutorial soon to show you exactly how that is done.