Manual TagIt XT 2.0 for QuarkXPress 3.32/Macintosh and QuarkXPress 4.0/Macintosh QPS related functionality only available when running with Dispatch XT 1.12 under Quark Publishing System 1.12 or Dispatch XT 2.0 under Quark Publishing System 2.0

Getting started in 12 steps
Setup
Step 1: Simple TagIt XT tag
Step 2: A more sophisticated TagIt XT rule
Step 3: Playing around with the more sophisticated TagIt XT rule
Step 4: Getting to know your document
Step 5: Styled text from tags?
Step 6: Setting or Limiting the character count in a tag
Step 7: Text from tables
Step 8: Tags from tags – nesting evaluations
Step 9: Sorry – for QPS folks only: QPS header fields
Step 10: Another function for QPS folks only: Inherit articles
Step 11: Yet another function for QPS folks only: List articles' header fields
Step 12: Two very specific functions

The user interface elements for TagIt XT
Menu commands
Dialog boxes and floating palettes

TagIt XT tags
Defining TagIt XT tags
Editing and removing TagIt XT tags
Attaching TagIt XT tags to text boxes
Detaching TagIt XT tags from text boxes
Updating text boxes based on attached tags
Keyboard shortcuts for attaching TagIt XT tags
Using TagIt XT with AutoPilot XT

Prologue
TagIt XT allows the user to attach tags to text boxes which can contain a combination of both variable and static text. This saves the user time keying in information which already exists from another source and is subject to change – such as date, time and issue number. TagIt XT is a very powerful tool because variables can be mixed with static text and both can be formatted by applying XPress tags.

TagIt XT tags are stored in the TagIt XT preferences and can be used for any number of text boxes in any number of documents. As TagIt XT tags are ‘sticky’ to text boxes, you may also pre-tag text boxes, put them – alone or as part of multiple XPress elements – into libraries and then later on drag’n drop such items onto your pages: your tags will already be tagged to the respective text box(es). Launch the menu command “Update TagIt XT tags...” – and the new text will flow into those text boxes.

Although the tagging is a manual operation, the update can be performed automatically on opening, printing or saving a document or driven in an unattended batch operation through callas software’s powerful automation XTension, AutoPilot XT.

TagIt XT has been tested with Mac OS versions from 7.6 through 8.5.1 on PowerPC and 68k machines.

Certain features of TagIt XT require that you have the ‘XPress tags’ XTension loaded. The ‘XPress tags’ XTension is included with every standard installation of QuarkXPress.

Important note
Please make sure you are using the correct versions of TagIt XT for the respective versions of QuarkXPress. When running TagIt XT with QPS 1.12 it is also important that you run…

…the 68k version of TagIt XT with the 68k version of Dispatch XT …the PowerPC version of TagIt XT with the PowerPC version of Dispatch XT. Mixing e.g. a 68k version of TagIt XT with the PowerPC version of Dispatch XT will lead to crash when launching XPress. You may though use the 68k version or PowerPC version of XPress without a problem.

Installing
Copy the correct version of TagIt XT into the ‘XTensions’ folder inside the XPress application folder and (re) launch XPress.

When TagIt XT is installed correctly and loaded by XPress, you will find two new menu items:
• under ‘View’ you will see a menu item ‘Show TagIt XT Tags’
• under ‘Utilities’ you will find a menu item ‘TagIt XT’ with three submenu entries, named ‘Update TagIt XT tags’, ‘Remove all TagIt XT tags’ and ‘Assign name’.

Getting started in 12 steps
Below is a guided tour which will walk you through the set up and use of TagIt XT within about 15 to 20 minutes and show you its power at increasing levels of sophistication.

Setup
Copy TagIt XT into your XTension folder and (re-) launch QuarkXPress.Under the “View” menu select “Show TagIt XT Tags” to open the floating palette that shows a list of already defined tags (in the ‘Tags’ tab) as well as the usage of tags in the current document (in the ‘Overview’ tab).

Setup 1: SimpleTagIt XT tag
Click on the “New” button in the “TagIt XT” floating window. A dialog box will open with various fields where you can enter text. Type “Static rule” in the name field, “My first TagIt XT rule” in the comment field, and “My name is Nancy” (or whatever your name is) in the tag code field. Save this tag by clicking on the “OK” button. In the “TagIt XT” palette you will now see a new entry “Static rule” under the tab ‘Tags’

Now create a new document, create an empty text box, and select that text box (it does not matter whether the object or contents tool is selected). While the text box is still selected, click on the entry “Static text” in the floating window “TagIt XT”.

Congratulations: You have just tagged your first text box with a TagIt XT tag. It will also be displayed in the floating palette “TagIt XT” under the ‘Overview’ tab which lists the name and location of any attached tag, eg.“Page 1: Static text”.

Now launch the submenu entry “Update tags” under the menu item “TagIt XT” under the “Utilities” menu. Confirm the dialog box “Do you really want to update all TagIt XT Tags in the current document?”. If everything worked ok, your previously empty text box should now contain the text “My name is Nancy” (or whatever you typed in earlier on).

Just in case you do not find this very exciting, well, you are probably right. You may want to try out the next step...

Step 2: A more sophisticated TagIt XT rule
Let’s create another tag. Click on the “New” button in the “TagIt XT” floating window. Enter “More sophicticated tag” as its name, “Something dynamic” as a comment. Type “This tag was last updated at ” into the tag code field. Click on the popup menu below the tag code field and select «Time»: as you will notice this just saved you writing «Time» into the tag code field yourself. Next add a ‘ by ’ after «Time» and insert «User name» from the token popup menu. Now click “OK” to save your new TagIt XT tag.

Note: For organizing your tags there is the possibility to create groups of tags. Each tag belonging to a given group will be listed under that group’s name. In the ‘Edit...’ dialog box, you can click on the Group popup menu to either create a new group (by specifying its name) or select one of the already existing group names to associate the currently edited tag with that group.

Create another empty text box. While that new empty text box is still selected click onto the “More sophicticated tag” entry in your “TagIt XT” floating palette. Note that in the “TagIt XT” floating palette’s ‘Overview’ tab there is now a second entry called “Page 1: More sophisticated tag”.

Now it is time to update: Select the submenu “Update tags” from the menu entry “TagIt XT...” under the “Utilities” menu, confirm the dialog box “Do you really ...” and watch your text boxes. The one you first created still says “My name is x”, whereas the second one now says something like “This tag was last updated at 2:31 PM by Nancy”. How do you like that?

Now you must wait for at least a minute before selecting “Update all tags”. Watch your text boxes: as you may have guessed already, the first box is still the same, but the second should now say something like “This tag was last updated at 2:32 PM by Nancy”.

This enables you to find out: the name of a user who updated a document and at what time of the day this took place to ensure that a publication goes out with the latest information.

Step 3: Playing around with the more sophisticated TagIt XT rule
As you may have noticed, there are more things than the «Time» tag – take your time and play around with them: Select “More sophicticated tag” in the “TagIt XT” floating window, click onto the “Edit” button. The “TagIt XT Edit” window will open.

Now click into the tag codes field right after the «Time» and «User name» tag, and select any of the other tags from the popup menu (do not use “Load XPress tags” for the moment; the same advice applies to the tags beginning with «QPS:..» for those working under QPS).

You do not have to actually apply tags before you can see what they will look like. Click the “Preview” button, and the white area on the right of the tag codes field will display the text as it would appear in a tagged text box.

Step 4: Getting to know your document
You may already have run into those powerful tags named «Fonts on page.space», «Plates on spread.space» etc. These tags will return a list of fonts, plates, etc. used on a page/spread or in the document. The ‘space’ after the dot indicates, that all entries returned by that tag will be separated by a space character from each other. The text can also be separated by a ‘tab’ or ‘return’.

Try this out with fonts: create a new text box in your document, enter some text, and format three portions of that text with different fonts for each portion. Now click “New” in the “TagIt XT Tags” floating window, enter a name “Fonts used in document” for your new tag, fill in a comment “Lists all fonts separated by a return” and click into the tag code field. Select «Fonts in document.space» from the popup menu. Select the letters ‘space’ and type in ‘return’. Now click on the “Preview” button: The three fonts you have used in your text box now should show up in the white area on the right of the tag codes field, nicely listed below one another.

Do not hesitate – try it out and use this tag for another new empty text box you create in your document. How is that?

Step 5: Styled text from tags?
You may have already noticed the following: text found in a text box updated by TagIt XT always has the same text style as text which had been manually entered into that text box. All characters will be styled the same, same font, same size, etc. What about characters – or even paragraphs – styled differently from each other? TagIt XT has something to offer here as well: It ‘understands’ XPress tags. And: You do not need to memorize XPress tags either.

Create another new text box, enter the text “One Two Three”. Format the word “One” with the Helvetica font at a size of 9 points. Next, format the word “Two” with the font Chicago at a size of 12 points. Finally, format the word “Three” with the font Geneva at a size of 18 points, and apply the style ‘Small Caps’.

Now – while this new text box is still selected – click onto the “New” button in the “TagIt XT” floating window, enter the name “Styled text” and the comment “Talking XPress tags” in the “TagIt XT Edit” dialog box. Click into the tag code field and select “Load text as XPress tags” from the popup menu.

You will see quite a number of characters flowing into the tag code field that may or may not look familiar to you: this is XPress tags code. All those character sequences ‘remember’ how the text in your text box was styled. Scroll to the end of this ‘gibberish’ and locate your words “One”, “Two” and “Three”. Select the word “Two” and press the backspace key to remove this text. Now select the entry «Time» from the popup menu. Click “OK” to confirm the dialog box.

Create a new empty text box and tag it with the newly created tag named “Styled tag”. Run the TagIt XT update. What do you see?

Step 6: Setting or limiting the character count in a tag
There are situations when you want to constrain the length of a certain string, e.g. only the first five characters of a document’s name: In TagIt XT – in the edit tags dialog box – you would insert the «Document» tag, and then change it to «Document.5». The ‘dot five’ means that only the first five characters will be displayed. If the document name were only three characters long, only three characters would be displayed. If the name must contain 5 characters the tag should be modified to «Document.5!» (i.e. with an extra exclamation mark at the end of the tag). If the name is shorter than five characters it will be padded with underscores – unless it is a name with only digits: in this case leading zeros will be added.

Additionally, you can optionally pick a certain range of characters: «Document.3-5» will display the third through to the fifth character of the document name.

Step 7: Text from tables
Imagine a situation where your documents are always coded in a way where the first two characters indicate the month – e.g. ‘05’ for May – and the third and fourth character indicate the day – e.g. ‘11’, so that ‘0511’ would mean May 11. How would you derive this information – or the name of the respective weekday – from those plain numbers?

The answer is: You use the Tables feature of TagIt XT. You would have to set up a certain kind of table once (an easy task from within ClarisWorks or Microsoft Excel – simply export a spreadsheet table as tab delimited ASCII) and place it in the ‘Tables’ folder inside the ‘TagIt XT ƒ’ inside the XTensions folder. Lets look at a simple table that has been saved as ‘My 1st table’ in the ‘Tables’ folder:

Key | Date | Weekday
0510 | May 10 | Monday
0511 | May 11 | Tuesday
0512 | May 12 | Wednesday
0513 | May 13 | Thursday
0514 | May 14 | Friday
The tag «Table:My 1st table:0511:Weekday» would return ‘Tuesday’ once evaluated. In the same way, «Table:My 1st table:0511:Date» would return ‘May 11’.

Step 8: Tags from tags – nesting evaluations
You noticed it: Setting up a tag like «Table:My 1st table:0511:Weekday» is not the real thing – it would always return the same day’s info. Lets make it more dynamic:

«Table:My 1st table:«Document.4»:Weekday» – assuming our document had a name of ‘0511Titlestory.p01’, you’d get Tuesday as well. But the next day, you’d probably work on an XPress document named ‘0512OtherTitlestory.p01’ – and this time you would see ‘Wednesday’.

Tables in TagIt XT are not limited to dates or weekdays. You can use anything as a key, and retrieve something else based on that key. The key must always be in the first column of the table. The actual value is retrieved by indicating the desired column. The names of the columns are always written in the first row of such a table.

You may have as many tables as you need. Each table will show up with its file name in the list of Table tags TagIt XT offers you.

Step 9: Sorry – for QPS folks only: QPS header fields
Those who are working under QPS will see a few extra tags – they can retrieve any QPS header field contents of the current XPress document (given it has been checked in before). These tags always begin with ‘QPS:’ and then carry the name of the respective QPS header field, e.g. ‘Status’ or ‘Routed to’.

Step 10: Another function for QPS folks only: Inherit articles
One of the limitations of QPS to be overcome with version 2.0 of QPS is the fact that any article can only be attached to one layout. TagIt XT offers to go beyond this: The contents of a text box may be inherited from the contents of any article in the current publication – be it attached or not. The same article tag may even be used multiple times in the same layout, even if that same article hapens to be attached to that layout.

This function is called by the «Article:section:name» tag (for QPS 2.0 it’s called «Article:pubication:section:name»), where proper values for ‘section’ and ‘name’ (and ‘publication‘ for QPS 2.0) have to be filled in manually. This article tag is the only case only this one tag is allowed for setting up a TagIt XT rule.

Step 11: Yet another function for QPS folks only: List articles’ header fields
The «Articles: ...» tag as well only works under QPS. It displays a list of the values for a given QPS header field for all articles that are attached to the current XPress file. As an example you might think of a header field ‘Author’ for articles. Each article may have its own author. If you were in need to list all the authors that have contributed to a given layout you could achieve this by using the tag «Articles:Author.space» which would return the athuor’s names, separated by a space character.

Step 12: Two very specific functions
If you check the check box ‘Is import tag’ in the ‘Edit...’ dialog box for defining a TagIt XT tag, this will tell TagIt XT to regard the tag as a rule for importing a picture into a tagged picture box or imoorting a text into a tagged text box whenever TagIt XT tags are updated. In order for this to work properly, you will have to set up a tag rule that returns a valid path and file name, referencing a picture or text that shall be imported into a box that has been tagged with this tag. callas software offers certain XTensions that need to ‘recognize’ a specific box in an XPress file. One of these XTenions is ‘PictImport XT’ that offers dynamic automatic import of pictures into picture boxes. In order to direct that import function to a specific picture box, picture boxes canbe named, using the ‘Assign name...’ sub menu item under the ‘TagIt XT’ menu item under the Utilities’ menu of TagIt XT – simply select a box, choose this menu item, and enter the desired name. Such a name will also show up in the ‘Overview’ list of tagged boxes in the floating palette.

The user interface elements for TagIt XT

Below are the user interface elements you may encounter when using TagIt XT.

Menu commands

Menu command under submenu “Preferences...” under the “edit” menu – this menu item adisplays TagIt XT’s preferences dialog box.

There is a TagIt XT menu commands which lets you display or hide its floating palette.

Menu command under the “View” menu for accessing the TagIt XT floating palette: “Show/Hide TagIt XT tags”

Dialog boxes and floating palettes

There is one floating palette for TagIt XT with two tabs in it. One tab named ‘Tags’ displays a list of available rule tags, whether they are being used in the current document or not. This tab will usually be used to access the definitions for existing rule tags and to create new ones.

The second tab in the floating palette named ‘Overview’ gives an overview of TagIt XT rule tags which are being used in the current document. It makes it easy to figure out which rule tag is being used where, and if there are any extraneous or missing ones.

TagIt XT floating palette – left, the “TagIt XT” window with a list of all currently defined TagIt tags. It has buttons to create new tags and modify or remove existing ones not needed anymore. Right, the ‘Overview’ tab in the “TagIt XT” window lists all instances of TagIt XT tags used in the current document. A double click on the respective entry will jump right to the text box which carries the tag.

The preferences for TagIt XT control, if and when TagIt XT tags are to be updated automatically: Depending on the chosen options this may happen whenever a document is opened, saved, printed or a page saved as an EPS. When running under QPS this option can also be set for checking a document out or in or saving a revision of the document. Usually a dialog box will be displayed before the update happens. This dialog box can be canceled. If you always want to update automatically without any dialog box being displayed, please check the check box ‘Don’t ask’.

TagIt XT tags

Defining TagIt XT tags

In order to create TagIt XT tags you have to have the floating palette “TagIt XT” open (cf. menu command “Show TagIt XT” under the “View” menu).

Click on the “New...” button in the TagIt XT floating palette, and a dialog box for defining TagIt XT rule tags will be displayed.

Dialog box for editing a TagIt XT tag (still completely empty)

This dialog box consists of the following areas:
• In the upper area you see text fields where you can enter a name and a comment for the TagIt XT tag to be created.
• Below the name field is a text field called “Tag code:” where the actual tag will be defined. Here you also can see a check box ‘Is import tag’ for dynamically importing pictures or texts whenever tags are updated.
• There are also two popup menus ‘Token’ and ‘Group’. The ‘Token’ popup menu lets you enter so called tokens (or variables) into the Tag code text edit field. The ‘Group’ popup menu lets you associate the currently edited tag with a tag group.
• Below the comment field is an empty white space called “Result:” which will be filled with text once you have defined a tag and click on the “Preview” button.
• Finally in the lower area there is a field called “Keyboard shortcut:” it is possible to assign a keyboard shortcut for the TagIt XT tag – if you use this shortcut later on, the TagIt XT tag will be tagged onto the currently selected text box.

Let’s assume we have entered an appropiate name and a comment. Next the TagIt XT tag itself will have to be defined. Play around with it yourself: Write some static text into the “Tag code” field, add one of the tokens like «Date» or «User name» here and there. All the tokens (also called variables) are enclosed in guillemets (e.g. «Date» for the ‘Date’ variable) and can be inserted by using the Token popup menu in the dialog box (simply typing them yourself is possible, but any spelling error will result into a token that cannot be evaluated by TagIt XT).

Dialog box for editing a TagIt XT tag – with “Token” popup. Tokens – or variables – are used to define dynamic tags

Dialog box for editing a TagIt XT tag (with a simple tag)

At any time while editing a TagIt XT tag you can check out what it would look like. This requires you to have a (when working under QPS: checked out) XPress file which is open. Clicking on the ‘Preview’ button will list the evaluated information that would be inserted into the respective text box.

Last but not least there is an option to associate a keyboard shortcut with this TagIt XT rule tag: click into the respective text field and issue whatever keyboard short cut makes sense for you.

Editing and removing TagIt XT tags

In order to modify existing TagIt XT tags, first select the respective entry in the “TagIt XT” floating palette and then click on the “Edit...” button, and make your modifications in the dialog box “Edit TagIt XT Tag”.

Attaching TagIt XT tags to text boxes

In order to remove a TagIt XT tag, select the respective entry in the “TagIt XT Tags” floating palette and then click on the “Remove...” button.

In order to associate a text box in an XPress file with a TagIt XT tag you have two options:
• either do it in a way similar to applying a color to box – while the TagIt XT Tags palette is visible, select a text box first, and then click on the respective entry in the TagIt XT Tags floating palette. The tag will be immediately attached to that text box. In order to control what actually happens, you may want to look at the ‘Overview’ tab in the TagIt XT: The ‘Overview’ lists all instances of TagIt XT tags currently associated with text boxes in the current document.
• the quickest way to attach a TagIt XT tag to a text box is to select the text box and use the assigned keyboard shortcut.

VERY IMPORTANT: When associating an TagIt XT tag with a text box, only the name of the respective TagIt XT tag is attached to the text box as hidden information. At runtime – that is when a text box will get filled with text resulting from the evaluation of the respective TagIt XT rule – TagIt XT will look up the actual TagIt XT tag based on this name as attached to the text box. This means that if the tag known under that name had been changed since tagging the text box, TagIt XT will use the current TagIt XT tag definition as stored in the TagIt XT preferences. This makes it possible to easily apply overall changes to TagIt XT tags as only the preferences of TagIt XT have to be changed (and distributed if TagIt XT is used on more than workstation).

The TagIt XT Preferences consist of the folder named “TagIt XT ƒ” including all its contents. Always copy the whole folder for backup purposes or for distribution for use on other machines. The “TagIt XT ƒ” folder always has to be copied into the “XTension” folder.

Detaching TagIt XT tags from text boxes

In case you want to remove an TagIt XT tag from a certain text box, select that text box and click on ‘<No tag>’ in the TagIt XT Tags floating palette. If you want to start over and remove all TagIt XT tags in the current document, choose the menu command ‘Remove all tags’ from the submenu under the ‘TagIt XT...’ menu entry under the ‘Utilities’ menu.

Updating text box contents based on attached TagIt XT tags

Once TagIt XT tags have been attached to text boxes the actual updating of the contents of such text boxes can be carried out. In order to do so manually, please use the submenu ‘Update all tags’ under the menu entry ‘TagIt XT’ under the ‘Utilities’ menu.

This menu command will cause the following: all text boxes carrying a TagIt XT tags will be emptied and then filled with data defined by the respective tag.

Keyboard shortcuts for attaching TagIt XT tags

Every TagIt XT tag can be associated with a keyboard shortcut: Simply click into the keyboard shortcut text edit field in the “Edit” dialog box for TagIt XT tags. Two details may be important for using tags as easily as possible:
• the predefined <No tag> can as well be associated with a keyboard shortcut
• keys on the number pad are ‘different’ from the numbers in the main area of the beyboard
• we recommend you use combinations of keys with at least two modifier keys (Shift, Option, Command, or Control) to avoid inadvertent attachments of tags to text boxes that happen to be currently selected.
• it has to be made sure that there are no conflicts between keyboard shortcuts for TagIt XT, XPress style sheets or other keyboard shortcuts from tools like QuickKeys and the like. It would have been too complicate to build a software that would detect all possible conflicts. Usually it is not possible to tell which shortcut will ‘win’ (in case the same shortcut is associated with two or more ‘actions’), and depending on the current setup and situation on a workstation, this may even vary over time.

Using TagIt XT with AutoPilot XT

There is only one command for TagIt XT which can be called through the AutoPilot XT calling convention:
• “Update information” with the Parameter “For all boxes”, which will do more or less the same as the respective manual command.

© 1996-1999 by callas software gmbh, Berlin, Germany All rights reserved
Portions Copyrighted by Quark, Inc.

Idea: Olaf Drümmer and Joe Bachana Implemented by: Axel Emanuel · Thomas Wohlert · Ulrich Frotscher · Michael Fielitz Quality assurance: Joe Bachana, Don Cooper and Olaf Drümmer Manual: Olaf Drümmer

Special thanks to Joe Bachana, Nancy Bowers, Heidi Hoover and I.M.A.G.E. Inc.

Last modified: 3 June 1999 © 1996-1999 callas software gmbh · Berlin · Germany All rights reserved