Mac OS X | Design / Graphics | Publishing | Xtags

Xtags - 7.2.2b1/4.0.1

enhanced markup tags for Quark & InDesign

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This Version:	Not rated (0.0)
Current Version:	7.2.2b1/4.0.1
Release Date:	2006-06-22
License:	Beta
Downloads (this version):	1,053
Downloads (all versions):	2,211
Price:	$400.00

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Product Description:

Xtags is a powerful text filter for QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign that automatically creates finished documents from a tagged text file. Xtags gives IT departments, OEMs, and system integrators a way to automate the construction of complex documents without learning InDesign internals or creating custom plugins, and it gives tag-using end users the power they need for complex editorial jobs. When driving the document building process with a database (picture-based data publishing, books, catalogs, classified ads, etc.), Xtags gives you the ability to build very complex documents using the data-side environment of your choice. From the end user’s standpoint, no technical knowledge is required, and it’s easy to use — you produce a tagged text file, and the end user (or your automation script) simply imports the tagged text to generate the final document. Here are just a few things you can produce with Xtags: catalogs, one-to-one marketing, TV guides, directories, real estate guides, trader and swap magazines, phone books, classified advertising, and much more! Xtags can create text content with full styling, anchored and unanchored boxes and rules, size boxes to their contents, group multiple items together, apply master pages, and control many other aspects of document building. It integrates with InCatalog as well, allowing you to build a document and then update your data at any time without having to rebuild your document. Xtags is available for both Mac OS and Windows. It costs $400; multi-pack discounts are available.

What's new in this version:

New for 7.2.2b1 (Quark):

Xtags 7.2.2 is a fully-functioning serialized release. If you've used a registered copy of Xtags 6 on your machine, then once installed in QuarkXPress 7's XTensions folder these versions should work without reentering a serial number. Otherwise, when prompted you'll need to obtain and enter a 6.x-style Xtags serial number appropriate for your OS.
These builds are Unicode-aware internally, but do not yet read or write Unicode file encodings (UTF-16 & UTF-8, for example). Support for external Unicode file encodings will be added in a future release. For now, characters in a document which aren't part of the native 8-bit character set (that's Mac Roman in Mac OS and Windows Latin in Windows) will be saved as a <\#Uxxxx> tag (see next bullet).
We've added support for the <\#Uxxxx> (and <\#U+xxxx>) tag that was first introduced in our Xtags for InDesign product. With it, any character may be specified using its Unicode code point value. For example, an Em Dash may be specified as <\#U2014> or <#U+2014>.
Specifying a non-"Standard" H&J via <*h"..."> may cause QuarkXPress 7.0 to crash. In most cases, however, H&Js should work correctly.
What was File > Get Text with Xtags... has been changed to File > Import with Xtags... and what was File > Save Text with Xtags... has been changed to File > Save with Xtags... to better align with QuarkXPress 7's updated terminology.

New for 4.0.1 (InDesign CS2):

The Xtags 4.x series now runs under InDesign Creative Suite 2 (CS2).
A new <\e> tag inserts an End Nested Style character. (CS2 only)
A font specified by just a family name now maps to that family's plain style (whether explicit or implicit). For example, "Helvetica" becomes "Helvetica-Medium" rather than some other seemingly-random variant like "Helvetica-Narrow".
Fonts may now be specified by their PostScript names in addition to their user-visible names.
Fixed a problem where the "Get File" dialog could display garbage in its file types list. (Windows only)
QuarkXPress standard color names ("black", "blue", etc.) are now supported. Note that a document swatch with the same name as one of these standard colors will "win".
Baseline-aligned anchored text frames created with a vertical alignment other than "top" now display their contents using the requested vertical alignment. Before, InDesign was reluctant to display the applied alignment until the user had manually changed either the frame or its content.
Fixed a problem where the superior text attribute, once on, couldn't be turned off.

Added automation/scripting support. For Windows, we've added a method to both the application and the document objects:

void GetTextWithXtags(
        [in] VARIANT From,
        [in, optional] VARIANT_BOOL QuoteConversion,
        [in, optional] VARIANT_BOOL ErrorReporting,
        [in, optional] VARIANT_BOOL DocumentUpdating);

For Mac OS, the event (found in the Basics Suite) is also available at both the application and document level:

get text with Xtags from <alias or string>
        [quote conversion boolean]
        [error reporting boolean]
        [document updating boolean]

As with Xtags for QuarkXPress, these entry points require a current document and a selected text frame.

Fixed a problem where imports into an existing paragraph would remove applied character settings.
Fixed a problem where error strings supplied by scripts and our facade interface weren't always correct.
A font specified as a font family without any explicit style is now treated as an implicit plain style request so that, as in QuarkXPress, the tag <f"Times"> will actually call out "Times-Roman" (for example).
Fixed a sporadic problem which was causing the creation of unanchored boxes placed as anchored boxes (i.e. with the x and y parameters left empty) to fail.
Unanchored boxes are now placed in front of existing boxes by default. Previously, they were always being placed behind existing boxes.
Added support for the send-to-back (K) flag, used to place new unanchored boxes behind existing boxes.
Unanchored boxes placed as anchored boxes (i.e. with the x and y parameters left empty) are now positioned as they are in Xtags for QuarkXPress where the top-left corner is aligned with line's height rather than with the font's ascent. (This difference is really only apparent if the line contains a baseline-aligned anchored object.) That Xtags for QuarkXPress aligns to the line height rather than the font's ascent -- as the documentation states -- is probably a bug, but in the interest of cross-application compatibility we're going to mimic that behavior in Xtags for InDesign.
Fixed a problem which was causing unanchored boxes placed as anchored boxes (i.e. with the x and y parameters left empty) to be positioned incorrectly if the paragraph's style differed appreciably from the No Paragraph Style's style.
Fixed a problem with the <f$> tag which prevented subsequent <I> and <B> tags from working properly.
Fixed a problem where typeface names containing their weight (e.g. "45 Light Oblique") were always being treated as plain even if they were really bold or italic (or both). This caused the <I> in the tagged text "The <f"Univers 45 Light Oblique">quick<I> brown fox..."--which should have toggled italics off--to be ignored.
Worked around an InDesign issue which caused the tag <f"Univers 45 Light Oblique"> to emit an error even when the font was present. (This doesn't appear to be a widespread problem; we only saw it happen with "Univers 45 Light Oblique".)
The non-breaking space tag <\!s> now emits a Unicode "hard space" rather than a normal space with the no-break attribute applied. This change allows InDesign to display the space as a special glyph when Show Hidden Characters is enabled.

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
Mac OS X 10.3.9
Mac OS X 10.3
Mac OS X 10.2
Mac OS X 10.1
Mac OS X 10.0

Additional Requirements:

QuarkXPress 7
Adobe InDesign CS or CS2

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