2019.2

Lookup in Microsoft® Excel® Documents
The Lookup in Microsoft® Excel® Documents action task is used to complement your job
file's Metadata by retrieving data from a Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet on your system. The
data retrieved is based on existing data in your Metadata, and it will either be added to your
Metadata or will append or replace your existing Metadata if it exists.
Fields on any level (Page, Datapage, Document, Group, Job) can be used, and the result field
will be added on the same level as the lookup field.
Note
This task will automatically "loop" through the Metadata and repeat its action for each of
your Metadata's data pages. This task should not be placed after a Metadata Sequencer
task, otherwise it will run as many times as there are Metadata sequences, which will
result in decreased performance.
Use cases
Here are some examples of how the Lookup in Microsoft® Excel® Documents task could be
used in combination with PlanetPress Design documents.
Use case 1: Send personalized emails with promotional document attached
A PlanetPress Design document takes a PDF file as the input data file, and reproduces it
exactly as it enters. The document also contains a custom data selection set to hold an email
address. The data selection's value is given by a Metadata Field called 'Email'. The value of
this Email Metadata field is a region from the sample data file representing the customer
number. At production time, the Lookup in Microsoft® Excel® Documents action task will
replace the value of this Metadata field with the corresponding customer email.
Use Case 2: Translate a list of line items descriptions into a given language
A PlanetPress Design document takes as input a transactional PDF file, and reproduces it
exactly as it enters. Metadata fields called ItemDesc are created, one for each line item
description, at the data page level. Each ItemDesc Metadata field is given the value of a line
item description as found on a region of the current data page. The line item descriptions
appearing on the resulting page produced by the design tool are custom data selections whose
value come from the corresponding ItemDesc Metadata fields. The Lookup in Microsoft®
Page 522