ex DBLink
Automatically update QuarkXPress Documents from a database generated ASCII file
Everybody knows the scenario:
Your thousand page catalog is almost ready. The product images have been gathered and saved in the proper resolution, all text has been entered and edited for the appropriate articles, and the proper pricing has been allocated to articles. Unfortunately, the dollar course has adjusted, drastically, and your Euro prices have to be adjusted accordingly, before the Catalog is due to go into production. This probably won't be the last time the prices have to be adjusted for your quarterly catalog either. If this sounds familiar, ex DBLink maybe be the XTension you are looking for.
What to do?
With this useful QuarkXpress™ XTension, you can request a structured text file from your merchandise departments database, which contains the new pricing. After assigning place holders for the new pricing, and associating the unique article number to the placeholders, you can update your prices (and other attributes as well) quickly with a few clicks of a mouse, and then send your catalog to the printer. The time savings are enormous.
update with exDBLink = 1 hour!
Manually - withount ex DBLink = 3 Days..!
Here is how it works:
Within the QuarkXPress document, you assign a place holder to a unique article number from your structured Text file with the help of the ex DBLink pallette "Assign Price". This reference can be anything from a volume discount to a special code for the article. The following example shows a QuarkXPress™ document with an article number 37009 (a ballpoint pen), a unit price, number of pieces, and price for a box of 12 pens. These items have been exported from the merchandising database to the ASCII document under the unique article number 37009. You can define as many attributes as you require for an article number.
Afterwards you can actualise prices whenever you need to:
The new prices have been actualised in the QuarkXPress file. A Quark XPress document with 5000 entries that has been prepared in the way described above, will actualise in less than 5 minutes.
This XTension loads files from an external database through a structured ASCII document.
Place holders which represent a database entry are defined in the QuarkXPress™ layout . The place holders can be inserted anywhere in the document and move with the text. They are saved with the document to i.e. update price lists fast and efficiently. The characteristics of the structures ASCII file are defined using the ex DBLink preferences menu.
