Release: Xtags 2.15 for InDesign 2021-2023
This release adds support for various QuarkXPress 8 tags.
Release: Xtags 2.14.2 for InDesign 2021-2023
This patch addresses various licensing issues.
Release: Xtags 2.14.1 for InDesign 2021-2023
This patch fixes compatibility with Adobe’s InDesign 2023 18.1 Windows release.
InDesign 2023 plugins released
All of Em’s plugins are now released for InDesign 2023. We released WordsFlow and DocsFlow a week ago (a day after the 2023 release itself), and released InCatalog, InData and Xtags for InDesign today.
We do appreciate your patience with us on these releases. Normally we’re ready with all of them on the day of InDesign release (we’ve even been a bit early in recent years), but these releases include wrapping up some multi-month complex engineering efforts that took us right up to, and just over the wire.
You can download these latest releases, as ever, from each product’s main page, sidebar Downloads for InDesign. Individual release notes are coming right up.
Release: Xtags 2.14 for InDesign 2021-2023
This release mainly adds support for InDesign 2023.
Upcoming major licensing changes
Subscriptions finally come to Em Software
Be sure to read the section Auto-upgrades to subscriptions at the end for a very important note about using pre-2023 licenses with the new MAX 2022 (InDesign 2023) release plugins. Understanding what it says may save you time and expense.
With the upcoming plugins for InDesign 2023 that Adobe will release (as usual) at MAX 2022 (October 18th) — and for newly-released plugins under InDesign 2021 and 2022 (we only officially support the latest and 2 years back) — we are making a major change in how we license all our products. This will affect everyone going forward, so we’re giving you a heads-up a month ahead of the big change, and we will be attempting to contact every user via email, pointing to this message.
Release: Xtags 2.13 for InDesign 2020-2022
This release adds high resolution previews for auto-downloaded pictures.
Release: Xtags 2.12.2 for InDesign 2020-2022
This patch fixes a style toggling problem with some fonts.
Release: Xtags 2.12.1 for InDesign 2020-2022
This patch fixes a problem when working with HFS-style paths.
Release: Xtags 2.12 for InDesign 2020-2022
This release adds support for InDesign 2022 and fixes a couple of issues.
Release: Xtags 2.11.2 for InDesign CS6, CC2019-2021
This patch fixes a cross-references crash and problems with finding files.
Release: Xtags 2.11.1 for InDesign CS6, CC2019-2021
This patch fixes problems with URLs and Apple silicon machines.
Release: Xtags 2.11 for InDesign CS6, CC2019-2021
This release adds support for Apple silicon and allows imports with URLs.
Release: Xtags 3.17 for QuarkXPress 2020 (end-of-life)
This release removes support for QuarkXPress 2018 & 2019 and concludes development for QuarkXPress.
Release: Xtags 2.10 for InDesign CS6, CC2019-2021
This release adds support for InDesign 2021 and discontinues support for some older versions.
Release: Xtags 2.9.2 for InDesign CS6, CC2018-2020
This patch fixes a problem with the &it
tag.
Release: Xtags 3.16 for QuarkXPress 2018/2019/2020
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 2020 and discontinues support for QuarkXPress 2017.
Release: Xtags 2.9.1 for InDesign CS6, CC2018-2020
This patch corrects problems with saving or copying tags for anchored text frames.
Release: Xtags 2.9 for InDesign CS6, CC2018-2020
This release adds support for InDesign 2020 and discontinues support for some older versions.
Release: Xtags 2.8.5 for InDesign CS5–CC2019
This patch addresses issues with encodings, frame styles, and text styling.
Release: Xtags 3.15 for QuarkXPress 2017/2018/2019
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 2019 and discontinues support for QuarkXPress 2016.
Release: Xtags 2.8.4 for InDesign CS5–CC2019
This patch fixes a bug that was producing incorrect picture box tags.
Release: Xtags 2.8.3 for InDesign CS5–CC2019
This release adds tags for page break characters and improves text box compatibility with object styles.
Release: Xtags 3.14.1 for QuarkXPress 2016/2017/2018
This patch fixes conditional picture imports and lets old-style Mac-Roman/Win-Latin files contain embedded utf-8-encoded Unicode characters.
Release: Xtags 2.8.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2019
This patch allows embedded utf-8-encoded Unicode characters in Mac-Roman/Win-Latin files.
Release: Xtags 2.8.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2019
This patch release fixes how poorly-encoded tagged text files are reported.
Release: Xtags 2.8 for InDesign CS5–CC2019
This release adds support for just-released InDesign CC 2019.
Release: Xtags 3.14 for QuarkXPress 2016/2017/2018
This release of Xtags removes support for obsolete bit-mapped frame styles.
Release: Xtags 2.7 for InDesign CS5–CC2018
This release adds a frame alignment parameter and removes support for bit-mapped frame styles.
Release: Xtags 2.6.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2018
This patch release addresses problems with applying character, paragraph, and object styles.
Release: Xtags 3.13 for QuarkXPress 2016/2017/2018
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 2018, discontinues support for QuarkXPress 2015, and fixes a problem with the macOS Universal Clipboard.
Release: Xtags 2.6 for InDesign CS5–CC2018
This release supports Quark’s new Conditional Style Markers (<\r>
), adds Frame Fitting parameters, and improves compatibility with object styles.
Release: Xtags 3.12 for QuarkXPress 2015/2016/2017
This release supports Quark’s new Conditional Style Markers (<\r>
).
Release: Xtags 2.5 for InDesign CS5–CC2018
This release adds support for just-released InDesign CC 2018.
Release: Xtags 2.4.4 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This patch release fixes box placement by name and origin tag generation.
Release: Xtags 3.11.1 for QuarkXPress 2015/2016/2017
This quick release addresses a problem with table creation.
Release: Xtags 3.11 for QuarkXPress 2015/2016/2017
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 2017, discontinues support for QuarkXPress 10, and fixes a minor problem.
Release: Xtags 2.4.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This quick release fixes problems when importing natively-encoded text.
Release: Xtags 2.4.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This patch fixes a Windows-only problem with the &it
tag.
Release: Xtags 3.10.1 for QuarkXPress 10/2015/2016
This release changes at-sign handling to improve the handling of email addresses.
Release: Xtags 2.4 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This release adds support for just-released InDesign CC 2017.
Release: Xtags 2.3.7 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release changes at-sign handling to better support email addresses and fixes a problem with negative pica values.
Release: Xtags 2.3.6 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release changes the default folder for importing and saving and fixes a problem with the lock flag.
Release: Xtags 2.3.5 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This patch fixes a potential Missing Plug-ins alert and includes an updated InFlow plug-in.
Release: Xtags 3.10 for QuarkXPress 10/2015/2016
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 2016, discontinues support for QuarkXPress 9, and fixes a minor problem.
Release: Xtags 3.9.5 for QuarkXPress 9/10/2015
This patch fixes a crash-on-quit problem in QuarkXPress 2015 on Mac OS X 10.11.
Release: Xtags 2.3.4 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release fixes a few long-standing problems with No Style style applications.
Release: Xtags 2.3.3 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release enables tagged file import and export under OS X El Capitan and fixes a number of OpenType tag issues (the <o(...)>
tag).
Release: Xtags 3.9.4 for QuarkXPress 9/10/2015
This patch addresses issues with the OpenType tag.
Release: Xtags 2.3.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This patch includes a fix for the @$p
tag and addresses issues with using posix-style paths on Mac OS X.
Release: Xtags 3.9.3 for QuarkXPress 9/10/2015
This patch release addresses a problem with importing from multi-page PDF files.
Release: Xtags 2.3.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This patch introduces our custom installers and addresses problems with licensing, relative box positioning, and picture link generation.
Release: Xtags 3.9.2 for QuarkXPress 9/10/2015
This quick release fixes an application shut-down issue when using Import with Xtags… and Save with Xtags… on Mac OS X.
Release: Xtags 2.3 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release adds support for just-released InDesign CC 2015, abandons Extension Manager CC in favor of, for now, a manual installation procedure (see below), improves file path handling, and fixes a few additional problems.
Release: Xtags 3.9.1 for QuarkXPress 9/10/2015
This patch release fixes the output of Xcatalog link tags and enables the import of nested anchored boxes in QuarkXPress 10 & 2015.
Release: Xtags 3.9 for QuarkXPress 9/10/2015
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 2015 (both Windows and Mac OS X, woohoo!) and includes minor fixes.
The Xtags book, “Xtags Maximized,” now freely available
We’ve negotiated the rights with Darryl Keck to make his blockbuster Xtags book freely available, Xtags Maximized. The book has over 200 pages in 9 chapters, diving both deep and wide into using Xtags for serious production work.
QuarkXTensions porting to Mac OS QuarkXPress 10 and 2015
To paraphrase an old proverb about justice, “the wheels of Em Software development turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”
It’s been a very long time since we’ve released any news about our XTensions for QuarkXPress 10 under Mac OS X—the Windows port was done mid-last-year—, mostly because we had no good news to share. We’re a small 4-man company, severely engineering-resource-limited (there’s really only one engineer who could do the work, Chris Roueche). The QuarkXPress 10 Mac OS XTension porting work loomed as a mountain we couldn’t really start climbing until we had cleared away some major obligations (the ports involved converting all code from Carbon to Cocoa, which is a serious change). We kept having to make tough engineering resource decisions over the past year that we judged the best for our customers overall. The end result of those decisions was a major delay affecting some of our QuarkXPress customers, and we’re sorry for that.
Release: Xtags 3.8.4 for QuarkXPress 9/10
With this release of Xtags, we are pleased (and relieved!) to announce the addition of full support for QuarkXPress 10 on Mac OS X. Please note that with this release, our QuarkXPress 10 XTensions now require QuarkXPress 10.2 or later (both Mac OS X and Windows).
Release: Xtags 2.2.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release includes minor improvements to product stability and scripting.
Release: Xtags 2.2.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This patch release improves compatibility with the Electra LH font family.
Release: Xtags 2.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release adds a box fitting enhancement, improves PDF importing, and fixes an issue with inline frames and vertical justification.
Release: Xtags 2.1.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release adds compatibility with InDesign CC 2014 and a few minor fixes.
Release: Xtags 3.8.1 for QuarkXPress 9/10
This Xtags update fixes a problem when using Save with Xtags… on Windows. (Sorry, Xtags for QuarkXPress 10 is still Windows only at this point.)
Release: Xtags 3.8 for QuarkXPress 9/10
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 10 (Windows only, for the moment), discontinues support for QuarkXPress 8, and includes minor fixes.
Release: Xtags 2.0.3 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This patch release includes a fix for a problem that could cause InDesign to shut down in some OS X 10.6 and 10.7 configurations.
Release: Xtags 2.0.2 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This patch release fixes a problem with frame creation on master pages.
Release: Xtags 2.0.1 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This quick-patch release fixes a frame width problem introduced in the 2.0 release.
Release: Xtags 2.0 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This major update adds compatibility with InDesign CC, and also includes long-awaited support for object styles and lines. Yes, lines. Woot!
Release: Xtags 1.6.1 for InDesign CS5/5.5/6
This patch release of Xtags for InDesign provides fixes for tagged text importing and exporting, display updating, and the preferences dialog.
Release: Xtags 3.7 for QuarkXPress 8/9
This release of Xtags for QuarkXPress adds the ability to size anchored frames to their column and fixes problems with tags output.
Release: Xtags 1.6 for InDesign CS5/5.5/6
This release of Xtags for InDesign adds a progress bar and support for OpenType features, and addresses a couple of import issues.
Xtags helps CatBase automate imoderni catalogs
Pat Bensky of CatBase fame, describes how Xtags works with CatBase to produce imoderni‘s catalogs. (Also see the CatBase case study for Kellogs for another application of Xtags Pro.)
The entire document was built automatically, with minimal intervention from the user, telling InDesign to create the table of contents, for example.
(Click on the graphic to see the full pdf.)
- The data is maintained in CatBase. This includes all the details, picture names and sizes, etc.
- The customer selects which products to publish (e.g., all products for one manufacturer, as in the attached example; all products of a certain type, such as sofas; all products that a certain dealer sells; all products in a certain collection; etc.).
Release: Xtags 1.5 for InDesign CS5/5.5/6
This release of Xtags for InDesign adds the ability to size anchored frames to their column and includes several other improvements and fixes.
Xtags streamlines production process for hundreds of newspapers and magazines with Pre1
Mark Jockin, CEO of Pre1 Software in Portland, Oregon explains how Em Software’s Xtags product became a backbone of the Pre1 newspaper software sold to hundreds of publications across the Americas.
In 1999, Pre1 first sold its newspaper software to an alternative newsweekly in Portland, Oregon. Today, more than 400 titles are printed using Pre1’s SmartPublisher, with more coming online each month. By now, literally millions of ads have been converted into print. Xtags made it all possible.
Pre1’s mission is to streamline workflow for publications by integrating into one product multiple business processes vital to newspaper and magazine publishers. For the most part, every publication works the same. The sales reps sell ads, the accountants collect money, and the production department builds the ads. When deciding how to unite these various disciplines in a single software product for newspapers and magazines, Pre1’s challenge was which technologies to count on to get the job done.
Release: Xtags 8/9.3.6 for QuarkXPress 8/9
This release of Xtags adds support for relative line sizing and POSIX paths, and fixes some minor box-creation issues.
Release: Xtags 6/7/8.1.4.3 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5/6
This release of Xtags for InDesign adds support for InDesign CS6, officially ends support for CS4, improves compatibility with InDesign’s Smart Text Reflow and fixes an issue with the &it tag.
Beta release: Xtags 8.1.4 beta 1 for InDesign CS6
We’re happy to announce the immediate availability of Xtags 8.1.4 beta 1 for Adobe InDesign CS6.
Server plug-ins for InDesign CS5/5.5 Server
We’re pleased to announce that we now have server versions of our popular, field-proven data publishing solutions available for Adobe InDesign CS5 Server and Adobe InDesign CS5.5 Server.
Release: Xtags 6/7.1.4.2 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5
This patch release of Xtags for InDesign addresses a couple recently found scripting issues.
Release: Xtags 6/7.1.4.1 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5
This patch release of Xtags for InDesign addresses tab composition compatibility.
Release: Xtags 8/9.3.5.1 for QuarkXPress 8/9
This patch release of Xtags addresses a minor serialization issue.
Release: Xtags 6/7.1.4 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5
This release extends script label support and includes several critical fixes.
Release: Xtags 6/7.1.3.4 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5
This release adds compatibility for Adobe’s 7.5.1 update to InDesign CS5.5 and fixes problems with scripted object exports.
Release: Xtags 8/9.3.5 for QuarkXPress 8/9
This release of Xtags adds support for QuarkXPress 9 to that for QuarkXPress 8 and drops support for both QuarkXPress 6 and 7.
Release: Xtags 6/7.1.3.3 for InDesign CS4/CS5
This maintenance release addresses issues with frame corners and the &it tag and introduces support for character leading.
Em 9.x XTensions now available for QuarkXPress 9
Quark announced recently that QuarkXPress 9 is set to ship on April 26th (later this month), with a “test drive” version available until then on the Quark web site.
We’re delighted to announce that the 9.x versions of our XTensions–compatible with the final QuarkXPress 9 release–are now available from the right sidebar of this post, and from the respective product pages.
Release: Xtags 6/7.1.3.2 for InDesign CS4/CS5
This release provides a fix for the positioning of imported pictures and adds compatibility with InCatalog 6/7.2.8.1 and later.
Release: Xtags 6/7/8.3.4 for QuarkXPress 6/7/8
This release of Xtags for QuarkXPress adds tags for hyperlinks, a speed-up for anchored boxes and, in the server XTension, support for multiple imports into named boxes.
Using Xtags with Drupal
Here and here are a couple of articles from the University of Kent CMS blog, providing a brief overview of how they use Xtags to drive printed output in a Drupal environment, and their experience with the process.
An Xtags overview from DPCI
There’s a great article on Xtags here, on the DPCI (Database Publishing Consultants, Inc.) website.
It covers a bit of history, the target audience for Xtags, gives a simple workflow example, and then talks about using the same tags for InDesign as for QuarkXPress, and the issues you might encounter.
Overall, an excellent overview of Xtags!
Hyperlink support in Xtags 6/7 for InDesign CS4/CS5
Since we forgot to include documentation for one major new feature in our original release notes for Xtags 6/7 for InDesign CS4/CS5 (now fixed), we thought we should call attention to it separately: Xtags now boasts new tags for hyperlinks, cross-references and text anchors. See the updated release notes.
These tags have long been requested, and we’re glad to finally deliver them with this release. Let us know how they work for you.
InData and Xtags CS5 updates now available
We’re delighted to announce that both InData and Xtags for CS5 (and CS4) are now officially released, and available for download and purchase from their respective product pages:
InData for InDesign CS4/CS5
Xtags for InDesign CS4/CS5
InCatalog for CS5 is coming to life in the labs, but is probably still a couple of weeks away from beta test.
Release: Xtags 6/7.1.3.1 for InDesign CS4/CS5
This release of Xtags for InDesign adds support for InDesign CS5 to that for CS4 (dropping support for CS2/CS3), adds tags for hyperlinks, cross-references and text anchors, adds support for Xtags import and export through the standard InDesign place/export dialogs as well as drag’n’drop, for above-line and custom positioning of anchored frames, for anchored frame position locking, and improves missing picture handling.
Release: Xtags 4/5/6.1.3 for InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4
This release of Xtags for InDesign adds standard white and black color names for XPress cross-compatibility, and adds more intelligent handling of non-style-applying @ characters in text (e.g., as used for email addresses).
(This release includes all release notes back to the beginning of the CS2/CS3/CS4 series.)
Release: Xtags 6/7/8.3.3.5 for XPress 6/7/8
This set of releases includes a huge set of bug fixes, and such features XPress 8 support, XPress Server 7/8 support, as intelligent @-sign handling, improved missing picture handling, Xtags Pro (table) handling improvements, a massive performance speed-up when placing unanchored boxes (up to 10X), “version 2” variants of all the anchored box tags, new “none” box tags, box background blend support, auto-shrinking of text boxes horizontally and in the face of multiple columns, box background and frame opacity support, blends in table, row, and cell tags, and much more.
Note that this covers all releases back to the start of the XPress 6/7/8 series.
Release: Xtags 4/5.1.1 for InDesign CS2/CS3
This set of releases fixes a huge range of bugs and adds improved bold/italic font handling, layer support, object-level scripting support, hierarchical styles, no-content (“none”) frames, updated anchored frame variants with more control, full runaround types on frames, translation tables, macros, tagged text output, and much more.
(This includes all release notes back to the beginning of the CS2/CS3 series.)
Release: Xtags 3/4.0.2 for InDesign CS/CS2
These early releases of Xtags added quite a few small features, but mostly fixed bugs in the initial release.
Note that this includes all release notes back to the original Xtags 3.0 for InDesign CS.
Release: Xtags 6/7.3.1.1 for XPress 6/7
This set of releases includes a whole slew of bug fixes and adds many features, including additional picture box runaround type support, box placement relative to another named box, PDF page and cropping support on import, Unicode import/export in XPress 7, support for layers on box creation, and much more.
Release: Xtags 4/6.2.1 for XPress 4/6
This release fixes a few bugs and adds new features such as full XPress index tag support and more.