Xdata, US$400
Mac/Windows

I use Xdata for most of our marketing events, including mailing lists and product-upgrade notices. Xdata is truly the jack-of-all-trades and useful in just about every type of job.

Xdata is the best-selling data-publishing QuarkXPress XTensions module, and has been since it debuted in the early 90s. No other product even comes close. Customers have been finding for years that Xdata accesses the typographical and pictorial power of QuarkXPress and delivers it to any type of data-publishing task.

If you've ever received a mass mailing, of any sort, where your name or your information was embedded within the text, (even something as simple as, Dear [insert your name here]), there's an excellent chance you could replicate that document on your own data using Xdata.

Do you have a customer database? How about a billing system? Mailing list? All of these are different types of data that you can use to customize a campaign. For instance, at ThePowerXChange, we send product-upgrade notices to customers who have purchased a product once it has been upgraded. We export the customer name and purchase data from our invoicing system as comma-separated values (CSV), create a template (prototype) in QuarkXPress with Xdata, and then merge the two.

For a look at writing prototypes and ideas on how to use your customer invoicing data for marketing messages, check out X-Ray Magazine v3n3: Creating Personalized Customer Notices with Xdata

Xdata places no limits on the data. You can have as many records and fields as you want and they can be as long as needed. You can place and scale pictures in anchored picture boxes, and you can place text or pictures based on the content of a field (e.g., you have a gender field and, based on its content, you could place one picture for men and a different one for women). If you're doing book or catalog publishing, data can create dictionary-style headers and footers on each page or spread.

Xdata is not the simplest XTensions module to master. The prototypes can be very challenging, especially to beginners, but the manual and tutorials are unparalleled in the XTensions industry. Use a sample to get you started and customize as you gain the skills. In no time at all, you'll be ready to go and the next project will be much easier. You can use your own prototypes over and over and in different jobs, since a prototype is a QuarkXPress text box.

Keeping Current

While these seven represent some of my favorites, there are hundreds of XTensions developers working on their v7 updates or that have already released their products. ThePowerXChange is a great resource for finding them all at once, and they also have a customer-notification service for owners of earlier versions.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

If you enjoy our articles, click here to subscribe.
Free JavaScripts provided by The JavaScript Source