Xdata Downloads

First, see the general software distribution download information, if you haven't already. Then, download either:

• Xdata 6/7/8.4.0.1 for QuarkXPress 6.1+/7.01+/8.0+ for Mac OS X (.zip) or

• Xdata 6/7/8.4.0.1 for QuarkXPress 6.1+/7.0+/8.0+ for Windows (.zip).

Then download the ancillary files, including the manual, either:

• Xdata manual and demo/tutorial files for Mac OS X (.zip) or

• Xdata manual and demo/tutorial files for Windows (.zip).

Download/installation

When you've downloaded and unpacked one of the archives above, open the appropriate folder for QuarkXPress 6.x, 7.x or 8.x, then drag the XTension (.xnt) file to the XTensions subfolder in the appropriate QuarkXPress folder, to install it.

Upgrades

There is no charge to upgrade from Xdata 7 to Xdata 8. If you already own an up-to-date license for Xdata 6 or 7 (beginning "ED"), then this same license also activates Xdata 8, and requires no explicit activation.

Limits in demonstration mode

In demonstration mode, Xdata will import no more than 50 records at a time. No other limitations are present.

Host requirements

• Xdata 6.x Mac OS X/Windows: QuarkXPress 6.1 or later.
• Xdata 7.x Mac OS X: QuarkXPress 7.01 or later (note well the .01, which is the first Universal Binary release).
• Xdata 7.x Windows: QuarkXPress 7.0 or later.
• Xdata 8.x Mac OS X/Windows: QuarkXPress 8.0 or later.

System requirements

Same as the QuarkXPress host application.

You will have to request old-style serials for these products, given your new-style serial.

Note that we don't support QuarkXPress 5 at all; the 4.x XTensions will work with it in general, but not in some specific cases we've seen.

Also note that there may be multiple versions in these downloads; you should use the XTension whose major version matches the major version of QuarkXPress (e.g., use Xdata 4.x with XPress 4.x).

• Xdata 4.2 for QuarkXPress 4/5 for Mac OS Classic (.sit.hqx),

• Xdata 4.2 for QuarkXPress 4/5 for Windows (.zip),

• Xdata 3.1 for QuarkXPress 3 for Mac OS Classic (.sea.hqx), or

• Xdata 3.1 for QuarkXPress 3 for Windows (.exe).

Release history

Changes for Xdata 6/7/8.4.0.1

• Loosened a longstanding requirement that the character formatting of each Xdata statement, including the enclosing chevron marks (or chevron mark and paragraph mark), be consistent. The character style of the statement's opening chevron mark is now what's carried over to the formatted data record, and the formatting of the statement's remainder is essentially ignored. We hope that this change will alleviate some of the frustration associated with writing and maintaining Xdata prototypes.

• Shrinking boxes to fit their content, which stopped functioning back in the 6-7.3.1 release, now works again.

• Fixed a problem introduced in 6-7.3.1 where subfield delimiters other than the (default) group character were being ignored when importing data from a file.

• Styled fields using <@$p> will now properly restore the current paragraph's character style when imported in QuarkXPress 8.0.

• Addressed an issue in Windows XP and Windows Vista where some users were being asked to reenter their serial number every time they launched QuarkXPress. (License information is now stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Em Software rather than HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Em Software. Note that this change will not affect existing installations.)

Changes for Xdata 6/7/8.4

• Added support for QuarkXPress 8.0.

• Added support for QuarkXPress 7's picture background color settings (for line-art images) and changed Xdata's default picture background color from white to none so that line-art images import with a transparent background as they did pre-QuarkXPress 7. (QuarkXPress 7+ only)

• Added full Unicode support for hidden marked text, headers/footers, story names and sub-story names.

• Added full Unicode support to the ask statement. (QuarkXPress 7 only)

• Picture boxes that fail to load content will now appear with a large "?" for content, and the missing picture's name will appear in the picture usage pane.

• Added format(number, pattern) number formatting function (also abbreviable at fmt), which works as follows:

  • number is given as a string, containing a raw number to format.

    All characters other than "-", the decimal digits, and the decimal marks are removed from the string before processing. Any digits found before the first decimal mark are used as the "whole" part of the number, and any found afterwards are used as the "fractional" part.

  • pattern is given as a string, containing the pattern describing how to format the given number, in a form similar to Excel numeric format strings. Some examples:

    • Number, whole part only: "-#,##0" or "-0"
    • Number, fractional part only:".#" or ".00"
    • Number, both whole and fractional part: "-#,##0.#" or "-0.#"
    • Dollars and cents (2-digit precision for the fractional part): "-#,##0.00" or "-0.00"
    • Social Security: "000-00-0000"
    • Phone number: "000-0000" or "(000) 000-0000"
    • Zip code: "00000-0000" or "00000"

  (Date, time, and scientific formats are currently not supported.)

  There are several characters that are treated specially when they are found in pattern: "-", "#", "0", the (locale-dependent) thousands separator, and the (locale-dependent) decimal mark. Any other characters found in pattern will be placed literally, without further processing. The "-" character is treated differently only if it occurs before any other special character. If this is the case, then it will appear in the output only if the number given is negative. The "-" sign is never displayed unless it appears in the pattern. The first decimal mark to appear in pattern acts as a divider between the whole number pattern on the left, and the fractional number pattern on the right. All other decimal marks are treated as ordinary characters. All instances of the thousands separator are ignored, except that if one appears, it indicates that that mark should be inserted after every third digit in the whole number output, starting from the right.

  The "0" and "#" marks are placeholders for the digits given by number. "0" is a hard placeholder (always must appear, "0" if no data exists), and "#" is a soft placeholder (appears only if there is a corresponding digit in number).

  The whole number pattern: Placeholders are filled right-to-left. Any digits that do not have a placeholder are placed immediately to the left of the first placeholder found in the pattern. If no placeholder exists, then all the whole digits in number are ignored.

  The fractional number pattern: Placeholders are filled in left-to-right. The number of fractional digits displayed must always be between the bounds [number of hard placeholders, number of placeholders]. If the number of actual digits falls between these bounds, then the digits will all be displayed and any extra soft placeholders will be removed. If digits are truncated because not enough placeholders exist, then the portion that is kept will be rounded, except when all its digits are "9"s, in which case the extra digits are simply truncated (The fractional part of the number is never allowed to carry over to the whole part.)

  The decimal mark itself will only be displayed when both the whole number portion of the pattern is not empty, and data exists in the fractional part of the output. This behavior allows the format function to be called separately to output the whole and fractional portions of number, e.g.

  $«format(price, "-#,##0")».«format(price, ".00")»

  where the "." in ".00" (in the second call to format) won't be output, since the whole number portion is empty.

• Added support for anchored tables.

  Tables can be built in Xdata by inserting a table "fragment" (an anchored table of 1 or a few rows) directly into the prototype. The table template is just a regular XPress table with Xdata prototype code (or regular text, or nothing) in each of the cells. A table will be inserted into the main text flow whenever a table template is encountered during the import.

  Xdata will copy all styling and other attributes found in the table fragment, including the size of the original cell unless its autofit setting is enabled. Xdata enhances the cell autofit setting so that the cell will shrink to fit whatever content is produced by its prototype code. Xdata will never allow the imported box to exceed its prototype's box's size (the maximum autofit size is set to its original size).

  Xdata can piece tables fragments together so that large tables can be built from individual records in the prototype. Every time a table fragment is encountered while evaluating the prototype during import, Xdata checks to see if the last-created item was also a table. If it is, and the number of columns are equal, then the new fragment is merged into the previous table. Attributes common to the previous table and the new fragment (column width, column autofit, and the separating grid line) adopt the setting of the previous table.

  Note that if any text intervenes between a previous table and the next table fragment, they will not be merged.

  QuarkXPress does not automatically break anchored tables over column and page boundaries, so the prototype should not produce built-up tables larger than the column height of the main text flow.

  QuarkXPress doesn't allow table headers/footers in anchored tables, so the prototype will have to have include logic to include such headers/footers using normal table fragments.

• Added per-import preference settings to the Xdata > Import from File... dialog. When selecting a data file, the data format (comma- or tab-delimited), the character encoding (WinLatin, MacRoman or, in QuarkXPress 7 only, Unicode) and the range of records to import may now be changed just for that import. Any changes made to those settings are active for that import only; the dialog will revert to the document's import preference settings (Xdata > Preferences > Data...) the next time it is displayed.

• Added support for background blends.

• Xdata now supports anchored text boxes (single- or multi-column) containing arbitrary sub-prototypes (i.e., you can put any text, static or dynamic in the anchored text box), including shrinking the resulting box to fit in vertical, horizontal, and simultaneously vertical/horizontal fashion.

  To import an anchored text box, simply place a text box of the maximum size needed into the prototype. This box may itself contain prototype code so that its contents will be dynamic. By default, the imported text boxes will not be automatically shrunk. This default can be overridden with a "set" command. Eight new symbols have been added to accommodate the text box auto-shrink features. The format of the set command has been extended to allow statements in this format:

  set fit of textbox / textframe boxnumber to fithv / fith / fitv / manual

  where textbox and textframe are synonyms, and number is the text frame index in prototype (counted separately from picture frames), and
  • fitv (the default) shrinks the box vertically as far as possible without overflowing;
  • fith shrinks the box horizontally as far as possible without overflowing. This option is very time consuming when there is any line wrapping or the text box contains multiple columns;
  • fithv shrinks the box as far as it can, both vertically and horizontally, without causing any line wrap or overflow;
  • manual turns off all auto-shrinking.

  Note that the symbols picturebox and pictureframe have been added as synonyms of picture and pic for consistency.

• Fixed a styled text import problem which could cause Unicode data to be put styled incorrectly (where a bullet might be output as a quote character, for example).

• Fixed a problem where opening a document on a Mac/Intel machine that had previously been saved on a Mac/PPC machine (or vice versa) could cause Xdata's import settings to display as invalid values. (QuarkXPress 7+ only)

• Worked around a problem (with the built-in DropShadow XT) that was causing imports containing anchored text or picture boxes to be extremely slow. (QuarkXPress 7 only)

• Fixed a headers/footers updating problem where text in (non-hidden) marked text was not being transferred properly, resulting in hidden spaces between each character of the resulting header's text and the garbling of "special" (non-ASCII) characters. (QuarkXPress 7 only)

• Fixed a problem where saving documents in QuarkXPress 7/Windows would always corrupt named box names. (QuarkXPress 7/Windows only)

• Worked around a problem where QuarkXPress refused to load pictures that had a slash ("/") in their filename.

• Fixed a problem where import preference settings (Xdata > Preferences > Data...) could display incorrectly for documents created prior to QuarkXPress 7. (QuarkXPress 7 only)

• Corrected the use of ellipses in Xdata menu entries.

• Fixed a crash in header/footer updating under QuarkXPress 6 for Windows.

Changes for Xdata 6/7.3.0.5

• Fixed a crash when updating headers containing non-empty, untagged continued text.

Changes for Xdata 6/7.3.0.4

• Fixed a problem where Xdata's preference settings would become muddled upon opening a document in QuarkXPress 7 that was previously saved in an older version of QuarkXPress.

• Corrected ellipsis usage in a couple of menu entries.

Changes for Xdata 6/7.3.0.3

• Fixed a problem which was causing Unicode code points above U+7FFF to be ignored on import.

Changes for Xdata 6/7.3.0.2

• Fixed a problem where Xdata > Update Headers/Footers... could result in a crash if any header being updated is to be set to empty because there are no marks on the page or spread for that header.

Changes for Xdata 6/7.3.0.1

• Added indexing tag support to Xdata's put styled statement. The <XO>, <XC> and <XI> tags may now be used to create dynamic index entries from Xdata-generated text.

  Important: the Index palette must be showing for these index tags to work properly. If the Index palette is hidden for the import, these tags will not be handled correctly by the Indexing XT. (This is QuarkXPress's limitation, not Xdata's.)

• Corrected a problem where Xdata preferences could become corrupt if the document was moved to a different OS and saved without Xdata being present. For example, creating and saving a document in QXP/Mac with Xdata, opening and saving the document in QXP/Win without Xdata and then reopening the document in QXP/Win with Xdata would result in corrupt Xdata preference values.

• Worked around a problem where some folks were seeing odd system behavior (hidden windows appearing) seeming to result from an import using Xdata 7. (QuarkXPress 7.x Windows only)

Changes for Xdata 6/7.3

• Xdata 7.x is now fully Unicode compliant internally and externally and supports the import of files encoded as Mac Roman, Windows Latin, UTF-8 and UTF-16 (selectable in the Data Preferences dialog) on either platform (Mac OS and Windows).

• Fixed a problem where some valid data files were being displayed as unselectable in the Import from File dialog.

• Fixed a problem where settings modified in Xdata's preference dialogs were not being saved with the document.

• Fixed a problem where a box name specified via scripting could result in a "box not found" error.

• Fixed a minor memory leak that could occur with each <<put styled>> statement.

• The File to Import dialog now displays all validly typed or named text files as selectable. Before, some valid data files were being displayed as unselectable in Mac OS X 10.4.

• Fixed a problem where an import would force the document's Master Page Items preference to always be Delete Changes.

• Fixed a problem where <<set picturefolders>> statements were being ignored. (7.x only)

• Added support for drop shadows. (7.x only)

• Fixed a problem where Xcatalog links in a prototype were being replicated incorrectly in the document.

• Fixed a problem where a crash could occur upon Xdata > Import From File... if the dialog's initial folder contained a file with a name ending with a period. (Mac OS X only)

• When importing tagged text, the character resulting from a numeric escape tag is now governed by the <e> tag and mapped into the current platform's character set. So a Mac-based numeric escape tag like <\#170> now properly generates the TM symbol on Windows rather than a superscripted "a" character.

• A problem in QuarkXPress 6 where the document's home folder is "forgotten" when the document was opened on a network volume has been worked around (the problem arises because XPress now copies a remote documents to a local version before working on it). Now Xdata will find pictures relative to the document's folder even when that document is on a network volume. (Documents on a local volume were never a problem.)

• The Get File dialog now displays files that match the filename extensions .tsv, .csv and .txt as well as the Classic TEXT file type. (Mac OS X only)

• For data files, Xdata now automatically recognizes Unix/Mac OS X-style line-ends (a single line-feed, character 10) in addition to DOS and Mac OS (Classic) line-ends when a carriage return (character 13) is specified as the record delimiter.

• Fixed a problem where loading a picture using a relative path of the form ":a folder:a picture file with a very long name.tif" or ":a picture file with a very long name.tif" would result in a file not found error even if the picture file actually existed. (Mac OS X only)

• Fixed a problem where keyboard focus would disappear after dismissing an Xdata error dialog. (Windows only)

• Attempted to work around a problem where QuarkXPress's Document Layout palette would get confused and start drawing outside its borders after repeated page additions or master page applications. (Windows only)

• Fixed a problem where pictures weren't always being loaded if the end of the data source was reached while using a <<read>> statement.

• NB: If you're having trouble with Xdata 6.x for Mac OS always prompting for a serial number at start-up, find and delete any old com.emsoftware.* files in your ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/ folder.

• Fixed a problem where doubled quotes followed by a field separator character inside a quoted field would cause Xdata to skip the rest of the record. For example, the comma-separated record

  "Some part of length 1"", and and height 2""","Last"

  is now read as two fields (Some part of length 1", and height of 2" and Last), rather than one partial field.

• Placing anchored pictures with non-item clipping applied will no longer crash.

• The new import data from scripting event will treat its direct parameter as a string, if possible. If the parameter cannot be coerced to a string, only then will it be treated as a file. (MacOS only)

• The import data from file scripting event once again handles file paths specified as strings (e.g. import data from file "Macintosh HD:MyData.txt") rather than requiring file aliases. (MacOS only)

• Fixed a header/footer updating problem where a line-limit specified in the Make Header/Footer dialog was being ignored in some cases. This was manifesting as a failure to find text marks on previous pages when used in conjunction with that feature.

• Images are now imported with a high (72dpi) resolution preview instead of a half-resolution preview.

• Images containing a default embedded clipping path are now loaded with that clipping path active. Previously, such images were ending up with item clipping unless custom clipping was being applied via a proxy image in the prototype.

• Improved support for long filenames (longer than 31 characters). Previously, pictures with long filenames would fail to load. (Mac OS X only)

• Fixed a problem where a prototype's rectangular anchored box would be inserted into the document as a rounded-corner box if the prototype's box had ever been a rounded corner box. (6.x only)

• The "first" and "last" radio buttons in the Make Header/Footer dialog are now set correctly when the dialog is first displayed and header or footer text is selected. Before, the "first" button was always set even if the selected header or footer had previously been set to "last".

• Added an upgrade button to the About... dialog so that a product serial number may be entered or changed at any time.

• Sped up picture importing. (6.x only)

• Include the actual operating system error code when a picture fails to load, instead of the generic "XPress doesn't understand this picture format". (6.x only)

Alerts
•	Xdata 4.3/6.3 beta 4 released
•	Xdata 4.2/6.2 released
	(more...)

Reviews
•	Xdata/InData MacWorld article
•	Xdata / InData reviewed in SVM Mac (French)
•	Xdata mention in MacWorld
•	Xdata brief review in MacWorld
	(more...)