Manually adding dates to a digital planner is a nightmare—trust me, I’ve been there! But what if I told you there’s a way to do it automatically in minutes? 🎉 Let’s dive into how Affinity Publisher’s Data Merge can save you HOURS of tedious work!
Well there are 6 easy steps to using Affinity publisher data merge:
- Create your Data File
- Create your Affinity Publisher Template
- Use Affinity Publisher to insert the merge placeholders
- Run the merge
- Save the merge file as your final template file
- Merge your template files into your base planner file
Manually adding dates is painful! It’s filled with typo’s, it’s hugely time-consuming, and error prone because you are adding hundreds of dates to pages. This is typically done one page at time.
As someone with a lack of focus and dyslexia, I understand the struggle all too well that comes with typing in all the dates to a planner. But I love using the data merge feature for dates, hyperlinks and custom text like holidays in my digital planners.
What is Data Merge?
A little background, just in case this sounds like Greek or Geek to you.
If you’ve ever created a dated digital planner, you know the pain of manually typing in every single date—day after day, month after month. It’s not just time-consuming, it’s frustrating and prone to mistakes.
That’s where Data Merge in Affinity Publisher comes in! 🎉
Instead of manually adding each date, hyperlink, or custom text field one by one, Data Merge automates the process—allowing you to pull in all your planner dates from a spreadsheet and apply them to your planner pages instantly.
How Does Data Merge Work?
Think of it like mail merge for planners:
✅ You create a spreadsheet with all your dates, labels, and hyperlinks.
✅ Affinity Publisher connects to that spreadsheet and inserts the right data into the right place.
✅ Instead of manually typing dates one-by-one, Affinity Publisher fills them in automatically—saving you hours of work!
💡 Example: Imagine creating a yearly planner where you need:
✔ 365 daily pages, each labeled with the correct date 📆
✔ Linked navigation tabs that change dynamically
✔ Pre-filled holidays, quotes, or reminders on specific days
With Data Merge, you can generate all of this in just a few clicks instead of spending days doing it by hand.
Affinity Publisher now includes the ability to import Anchors and Hyperlinks making planner creation even easy with Affinity Publisher.
Why Does This Matter for Digital Planners?
✅ Eliminates human error – No more typos or missing dates!
✅ Saves HOURS of tedious work – What took days now takes minutes.
✅ Adds customization options – You can include holidays, quotes, or personalized details with ease.
And the best part? You don’t need to be a tech genius to use it!
👉 Want to see how Data Merge works step-by-step?
My Affinity Publisher Basics course will walk you through it—without the overwhelm!
Benefits of Using Affinity Publisher Data Merge for Digital Planners
There are a few benefits of using the data merge feature for dated planners.
The biggest benefit is the amount of time you will save typing the dates, followed possibly second by the reduction in the number of data entry errors for dates.
Second biggest benefit is the ability to easily reuse your base template. By setting up your merge file with images and quotes for specific niche populations you could easily generate several planners for different populations quickly all with the same base template!
I use this feature to create planners for pet lovers, mom’s and others using the same base template. The time savings is huge, but it also saves my sanity!
The Six Steps to Import Dates with Affinity Publisher Data Merge
How to Import Dates with Affinity Publisher Data Merge
Step one: Create your Data File
Step two: Create your Affinity Publisher Merge Template
Step three: Use Affinity Publisher to insert the placeholders
Step four: Run the merge
Step five: Save the merge file as your final template file
Step six: Create niche specific pages for the planner & add graphics
With this powerful feature, you can import your planner data into Affinity Publisher, save time, reduce errors, and create the planner of your dreams.
Total bonus… remember you can import more than dates.
Let break this down a little below.
Step One: Create Your Data File
The data file hold all your dates, anchors and hyperlinks to import. If this is waaay over your head, I teach you what all this means and the basics of data merge in my Affinity Publisher – Basics for Digital Planners.
I have my master Dated Planner Dataset that I use. Yes I sell it as well, but you can create your own!
The Planner Data Wizard is an Excel file that programatically makes me the following files.
- Monthly – Monday Start
- Weekly – Monday Start
- Daily – Monday Start
- Monthly – Sunday Start
- Weekly – Sunday Start
- Daily – Sunday Start
I didn’t want to recreate the dates and type them every year, so I created this master template.
It’s important to remember when making your data file one row equals one page worth of data. So the daily file would be around 365 rows and look something like this…
I include a variety of date headers because I wanted flexibility when it came to dating my daily planner page. Just because the field is on this page doesn’t mean I use every one on every planner. But I have it if I want it!
I love the custom text field on this page! For some planners I will add more than one, but the base template has only one.
There could also be a column for background images if you wanted to have a different image for different pages.
The flexibility of importing data is just so exciting to me! There are so many options once you understand how it works. This is just the daily example, you can do weekly and monthly pages too!
Important: One row of data equals one page in your planner!
Step Two: Create Your Affinity Publisher Merge Template
Now we are on to creating the merge template! This is where the fun design comes into play.
The template does hold the import values so you only need to create a single template for each type of page in one document.
Create Template Files for Each Section
- Monthly Template File
- Weekly Template File
- Daily Template File
Create a Master Planner File to merge the templates into.
I typically create the template on the Master Page in Affinity publisher. Apply the template to a page. And then add the merge fields on the page itself. Once these steps are done it’s time to run the merge. This makes the process very repeatable!
It’s important to add the merge field to the Page. Don’t add the merge field to the Master Page.
The easiest way to make a planner while using the data import tool is create a single file with your base planner pages. For example I created these six pages in a single file for a basic digital planner….
Step three: Use Affinity Publisher to insert the placeholders (and Fields)
In this step you want to add your placeholders in the Pages (not the Master as shown below), and attach the data from your Excel file.
You’ve already designed the template at this point, so it’s just a matter of linking the text in your page
You will need two panels open in Affinity Publisher to accomplish this.
The first Panel is the Data Merge Manager, this is how you connect your datasheet to your planner.
The second panel is the Fields Panel. This panel is found in the Window drop down under References.
This is how you link the data to the fields in your planner.
Step Four: Run the Merge
The proces to “Run the Merge” is quite simple, you click Generate on the Data Merge window and it creates an entirely new document.
Below is a sample daily merged file. I only did 10 pages of dailys for this test. The test was determine if my rings and tabs would fit.
So a Page for the daily, one for the weekly, and one for the monthly. Once those are created and the merge is done, it’s time to generate a Master Planner file.
Step Five: Save the Merge File as Your Final Template File
This step is an organizational step. When you generate the version with dates you will end up with 2 files. The template file, and data merged file.
You can use merged file to create several planners with different additional templates, and this is where you will hyperlink you tabs Master Page and index pages because those will be unique for every planner you create.
Step Six: Create Niche Specific Pages for the Planner & Add Graphics – Finishing Links
Step 6 is the final step, it’s a design step for the most part. In this step you will add the hyperlinks to your tabs and index page, add any graphics you want and create your bonus pages.
I consider the “bonus” pages to be things that are specific to my niche. Student Planners may have study planners, planners to write papers, group project organizers.. things like that.
This is your master file that will include hyperlinks, and any other non-dated templates. Think your cover, habit trackers and notes.
If you create a “basic” merge file, you can reuse it over and over with different graphics for different planners in a sub group. 🙂
Save HOURS of work on your digital Planner!
Learn how to automate your planner dates with Affinity Publisher’s Data Merge feature—step by step!
Key Takeaways
Importing dates and images can save you a ton of time. Think of the possilbilities, you could even do the background cloud images and cover and quote… This tool gives you the ability to take one planner and turn it into 50 in the blink of the eye.
I’m slightly underwhelmed by Affinities ability to import hyperlinks because you can’t hyperlink a page, which is our primary way of linking a planner. But you can import anchors, and then link to those anchors. This works really well for the daily hyperlinks.
Update: Either this issue is fixed in Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 or I figured out how it actually works. Over the weekend I perfected my import tool and I was able to import all the links for an entire planner including the mini-calendars on the Year-At-A-Glance page.
These 6 steps are the basis for creating digital planners quickly and making a process for creating a planner efficiently for each year.
Frequently Asked Question
Can I import Hyperlinks using Affinity Publisher Data Import.
The short answer is yes. You can use Anchors to hyperlink. Affinity Publisher has the ability to import the anchors to the page and the hyperlinks.
Can I use Google Sheets Instead of Excel for my Data File.
Yes, but… don’t you just hate that. With Google Sheets we add a step. You must export your datasheet as a CSV and use that as an import. So you will have a CSV for each . Meaning a Monthly, Daily and Weekly CSV. And those will become your import files instead of one file with different tabs.
