What file types can I upload?

XLSX, XLS and CSV. A workbook with several tabs is fine, you just say which tab the products are on. Photos arrive as a folder or a zip archive.

What columns does my spreadsheet need?

Two, strictly. A code that is unique per product and a name to print. Everything else, price, photo, category, specification and description, improves the page but nothing is blocked without it.

How do the photos get matched to the rows?

By file name against the product code, or against a column that names the file. Files saved with a suffix such as MW-4501_v2.jpg still find their row and anything unmatched is listed rather than silently skipped.

My headers are not in English. Does that matter?

No. Headers can be in any language and any casing. You map each one to a field the first time and every file you upload after that lands in the same places.

What if a product has no photo or no price?

It still prints. You decide what a gap looks like, whether that is a placeholder, an on request line or an omitted block and every gap is listed so you can chase them before the file goes out.

How many products can one catalog hold?

Far more than a spreadsheet usually holds. A 1,250 page document opens as quickly as a twenty page one and stays workable while you edit it, at the speed of a desktop page tool and without anything to install.

Can I change the layout after it is built?

Yes and it costs nothing. Move from four products a page to nine and the whole catalog repaginates, page numbers and index included, in the time it takes to look at it.

My spreadsheet has merged cells and blank rows. Will it break?

No. Merged headers are flattened, blank separator rows are skipped, trailing spaces are trimmed and prices stored as text are read as numbers. Messy sheets are the normal case rather than the exception.

Can I edit something on the page without going back to Excel?

Yes. Any price, heading or photo can be changed on the page itself. For anything that should be permanent, change the spreadsheet so the next export carries it too.

Is the PDF actually ready for a printer?

Yes. The print preset exports 300 DPI in real CMYK against a standard profile or your printer's own, with 3 mm bleed and crop marks, rather than an RGB file somebody has to convert.

Excel to Catalog: Print Ready PDF Catalog Generation

Convert Excel to a print ready PDF catalog cattalog.ai turns an Excel or CSV product spreadsheet and a folder of photos into a paginated, print ready PDF catalog. Upload the file, map your own column names to catalog fields once, choose how many products sit on a page and a thousand rows become hundreds of real print pages. Photos are matched to rows by product code or by a file name column. Merged headers, blank separator rows, trailing spaces and prices stored as text are read and cleaned rather than rejected. Category breaks, running headers, page numbers and the index are counted while the document renders and the export is 300 DPI CMYK with bleed and crop marks. Back to the cattalog.ai home page