By Cyndie Shaffstall

If any of the projects within this article remind you of a job on which you recently worked, then you are probably intimately familiar with the benefits of Xdata. If you're not, once you read this article, you'll want to be.

Em Software, the manufacturer of Xdata for QuarkXPress, touts their products as a mail merge on steroids. I think that definition is an understatement — of huge proportions.

In our screencast and in the images on the pages of this story, you will get a real feel for the power of Xdata. It's not just about importing data, it's about styling that text on import and removing as many manual tasks as possible. Take a look and see for yourself.

Want a quick tour? Click here to check out our new TimeSaver:MoneyMaker Screencast: Xdata for QuarkXPress 7/8 and InData for InDesign CS3CS4.

While it's true that Xdata can perform mail merges, very much like those within Microsoft® Word®, the term mail merge doesn't even begin to tell the story of Xdata. Xdata provides full automation of price lists, catalogues, directories, and even one-to-one marketing pieces using your customer data. Scroll down and you'll find a number of samples of actual products. The pictures have been fuzzed out to protect the innocent, but the screen shots are good examples of the different types of projects that can be conquered with a simple extension to your favorite application.

Note: These samples are representations only and may be copyrighted by companies other than X-Ray Magazine.

Product Catalogue The catalogue sample above is for books. It's a typical project for which you will receive all of the benefits of Xdata. First, there are style-sheet changes galore, all handled automatically, then there are the book jacket images that needed to be placed. The document is two-column, and I wanted to ensure that a book description did not break across the column. I managed this through the use of the QuarkXPress paragraph formatting, Keep with Next Paragraph.

With Xdata you build a sample (prototype) of what you want your data to look like and pass the raw data through the prototype as it flows into text boxes or blocks within the QuarkXPress project — all in an automated manner.

Calendars A project like this creates a particular challenge. If you created this manually, you could either link text boxes, use tabs, or use the table features. This calendar is included in the data2date set up and is created with linked text boxes. There are style sheets set up for the date, the text, the month, and the year. All style sheets are applied on import and the 12-page calendar is complete in well under a minute.

Xdata for QuarkXPress		Xdata for QuarkXPress

 

 

 

 

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