Autolink is the shortcut that does most of your mapping for you. Instead of connecting every placeholder to a field by hand, you let DataMergeStudio match them in one step.
When your layout and datasource are both loaded, Autolink compares the names of your placeholders with the names of your fields and connects the ones that match. For a layout whose placeholders are named after their columns, that can map nearly everything at once – turning a tedious manual chore into a single action.
Autolink works best when names line up. A little naming discipline pays off:
Autolink handles the obvious matches; you handle the rest. Anything it can’t match confidently is left for you to connect, and you can repoint any link it made if it guessed differently than you intended. It’s a strong first pass, not a black box – you stay in control of the final mapping.
See how those connections survive changes to your data and design: Resilient Mapping