QuarkXPress XTensions now Universal
XChange International's Xdata, Xcatalog and Xtags for QuarkXPress 7 have been upgraded to Intel-based compatibility
Tami Stodghill of UK Quark User Group reports:
Xdata brings the full layout, design, typographic and picture publishing power of QuarkXPress to bear on all data-driven repetitive publishing tasks.
Xdata works like mail merge on steroids. Users write simple text statements to import and format their text and graphics and then the menu-driven tools build their documents at hundreds or even thousands of pages per hour with just a few clicks. Xdata lets users take advantage of QuarkXPress' typographic controls for each variable field and any intervening text to get just the right look for their data. Xdata has a powerful English-like scripting language and users can put any field from their data source in any order in the text flow, force page breaks, generate headers/footers, apply master pages as needed and much, much more.
Xcatalog is a powerful bi-directional linking tool for creating transparent links between QuarkXPress documents and external data sources. With these links in place, users never have to enter or update their data in two places ' Quark documents and data source ' but can simply update one or the other from the most current version.
Once links are established with the the easy-to-use linking tool, changes can be made either in the document or the database, and the changes pushed in the other direction with no extra work. No intermediate steps such as report creation and extraction are needed. The Pro version of Xcatalog differs from the normal version by offering ODBC support, providing connectivity to 'big iron' databases such as Oracle, Sybase and SQL Server, as well as connectivity to Access databases and Excel files under Windows.
Xcatalog can be used to update prices, graphics, or product information'even change versions or swap languages'automatically. For users who have different pricing regions, Xcatalog can be used to swap the prices in for each region automatically.
Xtags is a powerful import and export text filter supporting the full Quark XPress Tags language plus its own extended tags for even more document-building power. With Xtags, users can use a database or other front-end system to auto-build any text content with full styling (the same as XPress Tags), anchor and fill picture and text boxes, build and fill unanchored boxes, size picture contents to containing boxes, size boxes to content (text or picture) in various flexible ways, translate text and tags on input, use macros to reduce typing, apply master pages and spreads, and more.
For output, Xtags will save the contents of any text story, including anchored text and picture boxes and will also save the structure and content of any selected text, picture or group boxes. Xtags is perfect for picture-based data publishing, books, classified ad building, code conversion and much more.
QuarkXPress v7 XTensions
System Requirements:
* Macintosh platform - QuarkXPress QuarkXPress 6.1+ and 7.01+ (Mac)
* Windows platform - QuarkXPress 6.1+ and 7.0+
* title = XChange Int'l announce New QuarkXPress v7 XTensions Shipping
* author = Tami Stodghill, XChange International
* url = http://www.xchangeuk.com
* dept = DTP: publishing, page layout, type, fonts
* audience = General: cross platform anyone
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