X-Ray Magazine v5n4 CopyFlow Gold for QuarkXPress and InDesign

By Cyndie Shaffstall

Imagine being able to export all of the individual text boxes of a catalogue, translate the text, and then have it flow back into the document, in the same way it was exported.

How about exporting all the text for archiving, or for creating web pages, or populating a database? It's not impossible, it's the feature set of CopyFlow Gold: round-tripping — or just exporting — of text and graphics between QuarkXPress® and Word RTF or tagged text files.

CopyFlow Gold for QuarkXPress 8 (and 7) is extremely easy to use, but given the possibilities that the product affords you and the time it saves, this product should have been named CopyFlow Rhodium.

X-Ray Magazine v5n4 CopyFlow Gold Figure 1 Exporting your QuarkXPress project begins with naming the individual boxes. This tagging enables CopyFlow Gold to identify from what box each block of text is extracted, and — in the case of round-tripping — to what box the text should be returned.

Figure 1 Once you have installed CopyFlow Gold into QuarkXPres the CopyFlow Gold menu will be added to your top menu bar.

CopyFlow Gold's dialogue boxes are prompted from the CopyFlow Gold menu that is added to your top menu bar upon successful installation. Name box, the first option enables you to name boxes individually, though for most projects, I find that using the automatic naming feature works best — it's certainly faster.

Note: When translating text files be careful not to disturb or
translate the tags and other markup.

CopyFlow Gold for QuarkXPress 7 preferences

As with most applications, it's generally a good idea to first set your preferences. Upon successful install, CopyFlow Gold preferences become an integrated part of the QuarkXPress preferences as shown below. If you'd like to try CopyFlow Gold and follow along, click the demo button to the right to download.

X-Ray Magazine v5n4 CopyFlow Gold Figure 2a

Figure 2 To access the preferences within QuarkXPress, choose preferences from the file menu.

The CopyFlow Gold preferences are divided into three groups: Box Naming, Import/Export, and Art.

With CopyFlow Gold, you have the option of exporting bundles. Bundles are groups of text and art elements exported together. At this time, CopyFlow Gold only supports a single bundle. Import/Export can now be set to import and export text only, art and text, or art only.

X-Ray Magazine v5n4 CopyFlow Gold Figure 3

Figure 3 With CopyFlow Gold for QuarkXPress 7, the preferences enable you to choose to export text only, text and art, or art only.


CopyFlow Gold for QuarkXPress		CopyFlow Gold for QuarkXPress

CopyFlow Gold has extended QuarkXPress' standard tags in XPress Tags to support most anchored text and picture boxes. There is no need to use the box-naming feature to name anchored boxes, CopyFlow Gold does this automatically. Inline text box tags preserve the anchored box's width and height, baseline or top alignment, and any content. Inline picture box tags support any picture content allowed by QuarkXPress: box width, height, and alignment, and these picture positioning attributes: offset across and down, and scaling across and down. The path to the picture content is recorded as part of the tag and used to re-import any anchored picture content. It is important to remember that the picture must be in the same location and available at time of import.

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Gina's Shortcuts

Inspired by a note going around in Facebook, here are 10 of 25 random facts that you may or may not know about QuarkXPress. Look for more details about some of these in future tips.

Output styles are presets for printing and will save you from having to set up the same printer, PDF, or EPS settings every time you output. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

If you use a white drop shadow — turn off “multiply drop shadow” and it will show up in your output. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress 7 & 8)

Auxiliary dictionary lets you add specific words to your dictionary. Use it for special cases such as QuarkXPress with the capital X and P. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

Palette sets are great for working in various modes. I like to have a default set, a text editing set, a picture editing set, and a none set. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

Layout properties (under the layout menu) lets you resize your project or turn on and off facing pages once your project is already started. Change your margin guide settings by going to the master page and selecting page > master guides & grid. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

If you have a client that likes to make many changes, you can use the multiple-layout functionality to keep a history of your changes. Just duplicate the layout (right click on the tab) each time you make a change. Then when they ask to go back, you don’t have to do any work. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress 6, 7 & 8)

You can apply group opacity. First, group your items. Then in the modify dialog, you get another tab called group. Here you can see group opacity and apply it to the entire group of objects. Now you can see though the entire group not just one item at a time. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress 7 & 8)

You can do math in many measurement fields across the application. For example, if you have a box that is 3.167 inches and want it to be half the size, just type /2 (backslash 2) and hit enter. QuarkXPress does the math and resizes the box to 1.583”. For multiply use the star (*), subtract (–) and add (+). (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

Update all images in the usage dialogue box by selecting the images you want to update and holding down option/alt. Notice the three dots disappear on the update button. Now you can update all images without being warned for each one. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

Add bleed marks with the new guides palette. Open the guide palette and click on the icon on the upper right. Choose create bleed & safety guides. Just add your gutter width and click OK. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress 8)

You can anchor pictures into text box so they move with the text. Just copy any box and paste it into your text box. It will flow with the text and can be aligned just like a text character. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

Create an auto page number on the master page. Draw a text box on your master page and enter command/ctrl + 3 in the box. It will make a <#> character in the box. Now you can apply attributes view your pages. They are numbered. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress legacy)

Libraries are handy for all those special items you use over and over for each project; such as drop shadows on boxes. Get your settings just right and use the library to store them for all your shadow needs. (Mac and Win | QuarkXPress 7 & 8)

Space/align is great for evenly spacing your items. Say you have five boxes and want them to all be distributed evenly across the page. Just select all five, go to the space-align tab in the measurements palette, and choose space horizontally or space vertically. (Mac and Windows | QuarkXPress 7 & 8)

Just for fun the Easter egg alien is still around (ctrl + shift + command + K) but did you know there are two? Try it three times. (Mac | QuarkXPress legacy).

About the author:

Cyndie Shaffstall is publisher, editor, and contributing author to X-Ray Magazine. She began her career working in print and type shops. At the introduction of the Macintosh to the print industry in the mid-80s, Shaffstall became a corporate trainer helping print-shop professionals adopt and adapt to the Mac. She has authored or co-authored many books on computer software, and self-published her first, QuarkXPress: Making the Most of Your Negative Experiences and her most recent, QuarkXPress 8: production tricks and experts' tips. In 1995, Shaffstall founded ThePowerXChange, a software-distribution company dedicated to extensions technology. In addition to ThePowerXChange, Shaffstall is the managing member of StrappyArt, LLC, the distributor of StrappyArt, which she invented in 2006. She has recently joined Spider Trainers, LLC, as the SEO/SMO advisor. She is also director of QuarkAlliance at Quark, Inc.