considering buying InDesign to replace current process of producing marketing type documents in Word.

However, our text files and images are held in a web-based EDM system (SQL database) and not in a local directory.

I am struggling to find information / advice on how to achieve this - I have been told that it is only possible to import from a directory.

Any help appreciated (I am not technical but can provide techincal answers to any questions if helps)

Although this can be archieved with a custom made plugin, there is a more
easy way: SQL databases can be accessed via the scripting interface of
InDesign. So you will need for the windows version a programming language
that supports COM/ActiveX programming. So you can theoretically use C++, C#
or even Java and Python, most scripters use VisualBasic because you can code
very fast to get the results you want.
So you need a tool that will manage the access to the database (e.g. via
ODBC or native drivers depending on the database that lies under your
managment system), get the needed records and fill InDesign templates with
it.
Either one of your programmers have to get into InDesign (which is somewhat
more complicated as Word for someone that isn't a typesetter) itself and the
scripting interface, or you should look out for someone you can hire. The
newsgroup/forum adobe.scripting.indesign is the best place to ask for help,
as there are all the active scripters.

Jens

Many thanks Jens