Xdata 2.5 is the very latest version of the best-selling data publishing facility that brings all the typographical and pictorial power of QuarkXPress® to bear on your data publishing tasks: catalogues, directories, financial tables, form letters, labels, parts lists, schedules, feature charts, etc. This set of demonstration documents includes some small examples of using Xdata to turn raw data into professional publications. These examples only scratch the surface of what you can accomplish with Xdata and XPress.
Xdata 2.5 comes with a 200+ page manual containing in-depth tutorials, user guide and reference sections, and has a 60-day money-back guarantee. Xdata 2.5 works with all versions of Mac QuarkXPress 3.1 and later (3.1, 3.11, 3.2 and 3.3) and with Macintosh System software versions 6.0.x and 7.x. Xdata costs US$299 (higher overseas), with site licensing available.
To get more information on Xdata or to purchase it, contact its exclusive world-wide distributors, XChange North America (in Colorado) at 800 788 7557 (or +001 303 229 0620, fax +001 303 229 9773) or XChange International (in the UK) at +44 (71) 637 2966 (fax +44 (71) 637 2842). XChange is a “one-stop shop” for all XTensions for QuarkXPress and related products (fonts, images, borders, etc.).
DIRECTIONS
This demonstration requires Macintosh QuarkXPress version 3.2 or later. Please keep the demo documents as they came, together in a folder with the subfolders People Pictures, Profile Pictures, Place Pictures and Screen Shots, or else some of the demonstrations will fail (because they won’t be able to find their required graphic elements).
1. Just once, place the XTension file “Xdata™ 2.5 (Demo)” in your XPress folder and start (or restart) XPress. You should see a top-level menu for Xdata if it has been correctly installed. (This demo version of Xdata will turn a working copy of XPress 3.2 or later into a demo version, and you’ll be warned when starting up that this is in fact happening. Be sure you *never* save over any real documents, or you’ll lose them forever.)
2. Open any one of the demonstration documents, and place the insertion point in the main text flow (right before the “«fields...” statement, to be safe); take care not to make a selection by accident (you should have the blinking vertical I-beam cursor).
3. Choose “Import from Pasteboard...” from the Xdata menu, and, when the Xdata control panel appears, press the Start button to start the publishing process. Then, sit back and watch!
Some notes on these demonstration documents follow.
These documents use only the standard Macintosh fonts Times Roman, Helvetica, Courier and Monaco, in order to be nearly universally usable.
All these examples have their data “file” in a text box on the right pasteboard, though normally input would come from a comma- or tab-delimited raw data file exported from a database or spreadsheet application (and you’d use “Import from File...” instead of “Import from Pasteboard...”).
Almost needless to say, all data in these examples is entirely fictitious (though some of it is tongue-in-cheek).
• Music
This simple example illustrates some of the basic methods of data publishing with Xdata and XPress.
The raw data consists of a small sequence of comma-separated text records exported from a music publication database, sorted by music group (e.g., ensembles with violin, ensembles with cello, etc.). The fields themselves are: group, any discount (which might be empty if there is none), the composer’s name, the publisher code, the work’s title and final discounted price.
The Xdata “prototype,” or record template, is created as ordinary text in the automatic text box on the first page of this normal XPress template file.
The first thing in the prototype is a «fields ...» statement that tells Xdata where each data field can be found in a raw input record.
The second is a conditional statement, or test, that determines whether the group field in the current record is different from the group field in any previous record (this will always be true for the first record). If it is, then a group break is created, creating the group name as a reversed header. (This header is just white text with a rule above, overlapping the text.) Any discount percentage is added as well, right-justified (again, using a conditional to test whether the discount field is present or not (utilizing a shorthand equivalent to «if discount is not empty»)). After the header, a descriptive but unvarying sub-head is created, with a rule below.
Note that the group name itself is inserted using the Xdata statement «put group marked "a"». This has the same effect in the formatted result as just «group» (or its equivalent, «put group»), but also “marks” the given name as a source of header/footer data for later use (see below).
Finally, whether this is the first record of a group or not (in the normal case it’s not), the record’s basic data is formatted--composer, publisher code, title and price--, with suitable tabs between fields.
The master page has the automatic text box for the main text flow, along with the publisher codes abbreviation key in a separate fixed text box at the bottom of the page.
The master page also contains a header field (the “First” in small caps in the upper left of the page), created by selecting the ordinary “First” text, and using “Make Header/Footer...” in the Xdata menu. (You can check this by selecting this text on the master page and using “Make Header/Footer...” to inspect the settings, which ask Xdata to pick up the first text marked “a” on each page.)
After import is finished, Xdata knows that, because there has been marked text inserted (the group names), it must go back and scan all the affected pages for headers and footers, updating them as required.
• Car Parts
This example, a car part price list inspired by a real-world use of Xdata, illustrates dealing with slightly irregular raw data using some of Xdata’s more powerful scripting features.
The raw data records normally consist of a part number, two different note fields, a list price and a discount price, sorted by part number within each functional group. However, the groups are separated by records whose part number is actually the group name, with a special flag character (*) in the first column. A better data design would have a separate field denoting the type of record, be it header or part number, but we’ll assume this came from a source over which we have no control (as it did in the real-world case).
The prototype, using Xdata’s scripting features, checks to see if the first character of the part number is the flag character, and, if so, formats the rest of the part number as a reversed header. The rest of the prototype is quite straightforward and won’t be covered here.
The master page defines the 3-column layout, with fixed headers over each column.
If you want to see the effect of importing more data than exists on the pasteboard, open this document, put the text insertion point in the main story, select “Import from File...” from the Xdata menu, select the file “Part numbers (csv)”, and then press Start on the Xdata control panel.
• Detectives
This detective directory illustrates importing graphics along with text.
The raw data contains each detective’s vital information--names, position, company, positions held and other memberships, career history, education, nationality, and address--along with a picture file name (in this case, what are purportedly black & white TIFF images (and which are actually PICT screen shots to save space)), if the sleuth in question has a picture on file.
Pictures are imported along with text, using one or more anchored graphics boxes in the Xdata record prototype. You tell Xdata where to find each picture by setting the picture box’s filename property with the «set filename of picture n to field» statement (field is the name of the data field containing the picture’s file system name).
In this case, the picture may or may not be included, so there’s a conditional test right at the start: «if picfile ≠ empty». When there is a picture, we place it in-line at a right tab up against the margin, and end its containing paragraph immediately. Then, any following text will wrap around it to the left. To align the person’s name, title and company with the top of his or her picture (when we have one), we baseline-shift it all up 10 points. Otherwise, we simply include the name, title and company information unshifted, but with extra space above to compensate for the lack of a picture (whose paragraph normally supplies the extra space above).
The rest of the prototype simply formats the various fields, fully punctuated and suitably prefixed.
All but the last paragraph in the prototype have “keep with next paragraph” set, in an effort to control column breaks.
The second statement «set pictureposition to aspectratiofit» tells Xdata to make each picture fill its containing box, but maintaining the proper aspect ratio. You can also ask Xdata to just leave the picture as-is when it’s imported (100%, upper left coincident), center it, make it fit the picture frame exactly, or make it fit, maintaining aspect ratio.
The third statement «set picturefolders to ":People Picture:"» tells Xdata to look in the sub-folder named “People Pictures”, if it can’t find a given picture file in the document’s folder. In general, you can give Xdata a list of picture folders in which to search for pictures, either absolute (starting with a volume name), or relative to the document’s containing folder.
• Real Estate
This real estate guide is created using 4 equal-sized text boxes on the master page as the main text flow, and setting the “space above” for the paragraph containing the anchored picture box to some large value (in this case, 6”, enough to push each picture box to the top of the next text frame).
Each picture box in the prototype is nearly as wide as its containing text box, and thus forces the accompanying descriptive text to flow below it.
Further, the descriptive text is interpreted as XPress-tagged text (by including it with «put styled description» instead of just plain «description»), so it can contain local emphasis (in this example, bold and italic phrases, though all XPress Tags are supported.)
• Features
This example simply shows the use of extensive Xdata scripting to turn set of raw data fields denoting the presence or absense of a feature (or its non-applicability, “x”, blank, and “n”, respectively) into a fully-formatted feature chart.
The prototype is repeated, once shaded (using paragraph rule) and once unshaded, separated by a «read» Xdata script statement, which tells Xdata to get the next data record but proceed with the prototype. The effect is to set every other line shaded, starting with the first.
• Software
This development tools software catalog uses a combination of the Xdata features used in previous examples to produce a fairly typical product listing, complete with occasional product screen shots, full product descriptions (which are sub-formatted using XPress Tags), and section and product headers.
• Consultants
This consultant directory creates one record per page, using techniques we’ve already examined earlier.
There is one new technique used here: each consultant has a “specialization profile” table, using a fixed set of icons to represent at a glance the consultant’s specialties. The Xdata prototype includes 8 anchored picture boxes, each of whose contents are fixed, but each of which is imported only if the specialization profile raw data field contains the appropriate code. For example, the specialization code field value “bde” in a given record would call in the second, fourth, and fifth icons. Any empty picture box acts as a placeholder, to keep the icons in a fixed pattern.
CONTACTING US
For any sales query, contact XChange as described above. For any other type of query, contact Xdata’s developer at:
