The other day, I was creating a QuarkXPress 7 demo that I was going to deliver to some folks and I noticed that I repeatedly reused a text and picture box in several places. I also noticed that I was constantly manipulating that content over and over again in the different places I’d used it, and then it dawned on me…

Have you ever had that kind of experience where you know about something but then, for whatever reason, you don’t actually use it in practice? It killed me; the same actions, over the same objects, over several layouts and, for whatever reason, I didn’t think that maybe I should use shared content. In an effort to punish myself, I have decided to write this article for all those like me who seem to make life harder for themselves. To begin, let’s define shared content.

What is Shared Content?

Shared content actually started in QuarkXPress 6 as synchronized text. The idea was simple. There are occasions where text content is used multiple times in a single design or in several layouts within a project. With synchronized text, internally, that content is tagged and when multiple instances of it are used, an edit to a single instance would update every instance simultaneously.

Think of a QuarkXPress project file that has three layouts. One layout is a business card, the next layout is the corresponding letterhead, and the last layout is the corresponding envelope. Each one of these layouts contains almost exactly the same content. Each layout, for example, contains exactly the same address. If I don’t synchronize that address and I need to make a change, then I will have to change the content in all three of those layouts. If I do synchronize the content, then all I have to do, in this example, is change the address in one location and it changes in all locations automatically. The advantages here are obvious.

 

The limitation in QuarkXPress 6 was that you could only synchronize the text content. You could not synchronize the attributes of that text, such as font, point size, and so on. Further, you could not synchronize pictures at all. In QuarkXPress 7, you can synchronize text and pictures as well as all of the attributes of that content. In addition, you can synchronize the box that the content is in. To go even further, I’ll give you a quick tip on synchronizing multiple objects as well.

Content Synchronization

Synchronizing objects is easy. Let’s do something quick on a single page of a single layout. In QuarkXPress 7, choose window q shared content to open the shared content palette. Start a new project, draw a text box, and type the classic phrase, “Hello World.” You should see something similar to figure 1.

Figure 1 I have opened the shared content palette, started a new project, and typed, “Hello World.”

If you take a look at the shared content palette you’ll notice that there are a number of buttons running horizontally across the top of the palette. Ensure that your text box is selected, and click the new shared content item button (the first button from the left) to prompt the shared item properties dialogue box shown in figure 2.

In the name field, type a name for the item. From there, choose synchronize content and the content only option as shown in figure 2. Choosing these options in this way essentially replicates the functionality that was available in QuarkXPress 6. We are choosing to synchronize only the content — just the words inside the box. Once you have the dialogue set up as in figure 2, click OK.

Figure 2 This is the shared item properties dialogue box that appears.

You’ll notice that the text box you have selected now has blue handles with a squiggly S. This is a visual indicator of sorts that helps you to identify that the item has been synchronized. Now, let’s draw another text box below the first, and drag the hello world item from the shared content palette into the new text box. See figure 3.

Figure 3 Drag the hello world item out of the palette and drop into the new text box.

Now if the text is edited in either of the text boxes, the text within both boxes will change right before your eyes. However, because we only synchronized the content, we can make changes to the attributes of one of the text items without affecting the other. Take a look at figure 4. Here I have changed the words and they updated appropriately, but I also changed the text formatting and only one of them changed.

Figure 4 When I change the text content, both text boxes change, but because I have only synchronized the content, if I change the attributes (such as the font) it doesn’t change in both instances.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | PDF Version

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