BY CYNDIE SHAFFSTALL

These days — thankfully — everything is extensible: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, even Microsoft Word, and there are thousands of extensions from which you can choose. No longer are extensions limited to just savvy QuarkXPress users. There's more. Much more.

Working in production means that you get stuck performing all sorts of repetitive tasks — tasks that by their sheer nature are perfect candidates for extensible technology. Having been in production myself, I discovered the benefit of XTensions and Plug-ins early on. So, while I have lots of favorites, here's three that depending upon the production that you do, you'll find at least one of them to be right up your alley. I'm starting at the ad agency, heading then to the output provider, and wrapping up at the post-processing and repurposing department.

Here's shortcuts to cut down on your scrolling efforts:

• StudioPack for InDesign CS2 or CS3 or QuarkXPress 6 or 7 (below)
• Printools XT for QuarkXPress 6 or 7
• Exportools Pro for QuarkXPress and Exportools 2 for InDesign CS3

StudioPack for InDesign CS2 or CS3 or QuarkXPress 6 or 7
US$349 | Macintosh Only

OpenNow Pro for QuarkXPress	OpenNow Pro for InDesign
OpenNow Pro for QuarkXPress	OpenNow Pro for InDesign

StudioPack CS and StudioPack for QuarkXPress combine three of Gluon's most useful Plug-ins: Slugger, Cropster, and ProScale. Like all Gluon products, once installed, you may access the functionality through the Gluon menu added to the top menu bar of your core application, be that InDesign or QuarkXPress.

These three products are a design agency's complete production toolbox. The collection includes three very important classes of functions: the ability to place (and remove) fully customizable slugs on documents, the ability to customize and place crop and registration marks, and the ability to scale items, groups, and documents.

Let's wander through the feature sets and screen shots.

Slugger

Slugger (also sold separately as Slugger ID or Slugger for QuarkXPress, US$199) place slugs on each document page. As you can see in the figures below, slugs can display a logo or image as well as information about the document creator, the department owners, and more.

 

 

Figure 1 Setting the content of the InDesign document's or QuarkXPress project's slug is as easy as typing into fields.

Using the Slugger palette, you set up the information that will appear as the content of the slug once placed. Slugs are added to each page and are updated automatically on print. XML/XMP-based metadata can even be accessed by other systems.

Figure 2 This is a sample slug based on the information as typed in figure 1. This slug was placed at the bottom of my document pages and that is determined by the setup as defined in the SlugDesigner, or in this case, the default.

Along with Slugger (for customizing the content of the slug), you will receive SlugDesigner, an application that enables you to fully customize the design, layout, and placement of the slug.

Figure 3 SlugDesigner is a separate application for designing your slug. You can even save designs as presets for easy recall.

Slugs and crops, for many shops, go hand in hand. Gluon's bundle includes both, though these products are available separately. Slugs can be placed whether or not you choose to customize your crop and registration marks with Cropster.

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