Get Started

Producing a catalogue: from product data to the finished book

The sequence a printed catalogue actually follows: cleaning the product data, planning pagination and navigation, briefing photography, building the index and managing versions before anything goes to press.

How the book gets built

The stages between raw data and a printed catalogue

A printed catalogue is assembled from several separate jobs that have to run in a fixed order, because each one depends on a decision made in the step before it. The sequence below is the one that determines whether the finished book matches the prices, stock and photography a customer actually finds when they order.

  1. Cleaning the product data

    Every catalogue starts as a data feed: product codes, prices, descriptions, sizes and stock flags, pulled from a retailer's core system or a supplier's spreadsheet. Before any of it reaches a page, someone has to reconcile duplicate codes, fill in a missing colour or size, and settle on the one price that goes to print. A catalogue built on data that has not been checked will show the wrong price, list a size that is out of stock, or point to the wrong photograph, and none of that gets caught until a customer calls to ask why.

    This is a checking job. Product copy, the wording that describes each item, is usually handled as a separate task from the data cleaning that feeds the layout.

    Feed from a product information system

    Data arrives already structured by field, so cleaning is mostly a check for gaps and duplicates.

    Spreadsheet compiled by hand

    Fields are often inconsistent between suppliers, so cleaning takes longer and needs a clear rule for which source wins when two figures disagree.

  2. Planning pagination and navigation

    Once the data is settled, the page count and running order get fixed: how many pages, which categories come first, and how a reader who wants one product finds it among hundreds of others. Pagination, the plan mapping which product sits on which page, is agreed before photography or copy start, because moving a product later in the process means moving everything that follows it too. The layout also fixes the navigation devices, tab colours, section flags, running headers, that let a reader move through a long book without reading it from cover to cover.

    Gridded catalogue

    Products sit in a consistent grid by category, built for browsing a large range quickly.

    Narrative catalogue

    Fewer products per page with more copy, built to be read in sequence.

  3. Briefing the photography

    A photography brief states, for each product or group of products, the shot type needed (a pack shot, a lifestyle image, a detail shot, a swatch), the background, and the crop the fixed page grid requires. Because the layout is already set, the brief has to give exact aspect ratios, so a shot sized for a website thumbnail will not automatically fit a printed page. Getting the brief wrong is expensive to correct, because a reshoot after pagination is locked can delay the whole print schedule.

    Where a range has already been photographed for a website or a product feed, the brief needs to say plainly whether that existing photography meets the print format or whether new photography is required. See /digital-catalogues.html for how product feeds are structured for online use.

    Photography reused from the website

    Works where the existing images already match the print crop and resolution.

    Photography commissioned for print

    Needed where the printed page grid demands a shot the digital assets do not provide.

  4. Building the index

    The index maps each product to the page it appears on, and it can only be built once pagination is fixed, because it is generated from the same page plan and the same data feed used for pricing. On a catalogue running to several hundred pages, an index built against an earlier version of the page plan sends readers to the wrong page. That is a small error to make and a large one for a reader trying to find and order a specific product.

  5. Managing versioning

    Prices, stock levels and ranges keep moving after the page plan is agreed, so a business needs a way to track which version of the data matches which proof of the book. A price change made after the proof is signed off but before the print run starts has to be tracked, and where it affects the information customers rely on to order, corrected before the catalogue goes to press. The same versioning also has to reconcile the printed price with whatever price is live on the retailer's website at the same time, because a gap between print and digital pricing is the kind of thing a customer notices at the checkout.

    For what happens once a version is signed off, from proof to press, see /catalogue-print-production.html.

    Print price

    Fixed once the proof is approved and cannot move again before the run is printed.

    Digital price

    Can keep changing after the print proof is locked, which is why the two need reconciling before publication.

These stages are shown in sequence but overlap in practice. Photography is often briefed before the data is fully clean, and a pagination plan agreed early usually gets revised again once photography and copy come back.

What a printed catalogue does that a website cannot

A website answers a search. A printed catalogue invites a browse, and the two put a product in front of a reader in different ways. Someone searching online arrives already looking for a specific item and leaves once they have found it. Someone turning the pages of a catalogue sees the products either side of the one they came for, and a page that has been planned with that in mind sells things the reader did not know they wanted.

Sequence and page order do work a search box cannot

Because a printed page has no search function, the order of the pages is doing the job that a search bar does on a website. Products that are bought together need to sit near each other. A category that a customer browses slowly, such as furniture or garden equipment, earns more page space than one bought on repeat, such as stationery or pet food. This is a decision made before a single page is laid out, and it shapes the page count, the paper choice and the index that follows.

The production sequence this drives

Once that structure is settled, the practical work follows in a fairly fixed order:

  • Cleaning the product data, so that sizes, prices and stock codes are consistent before anything is laid out
  • Planning pagination, so that related products sit together and the reader's route through the book makes sense
  • Briefing photography, so that images are shot to the format and scale the layout needs.
  • Building the index, so a reader arriving with one product in mind can find it quickly
  • Managing versioning, so that the correct prices, offers and stock positions reach print and are not overtaken by changes made after the file was sent

Each of these is covered in its own section of this guide, because each carries its own set of small decisions that add up to whether the finished book earns the cost of printing and posting it.

Print and digital doing different jobs

None of this makes a printed catalogue a replacement for a website or a digital version of the same book. It does a different job: slower browsing, a fixed sequence the reader cannot skip past with a filter, and a physical object that stays in a home. For the mechanics of getting pages to the printer, see the print production guide. For how the same product range works as a flipbook or a live product feed, see digital catalogues, flipbooks and product feeds. For the copy that sits on the page once the layout is fixed, that is a separate discipline handled at copyonline.co.uk.

Turning product data into a catalogue that earns its postage

The sequence from cleaned data to a finished book, and why print still does a job a website can't.