news

InDesign CS5.5 plug-ins now released

As promised (and explained), we’re happy to announce the release of all our plug-ins for InDesign CS5.5 in concert with our current CS4/CS5 releases.

When you download any of our plug-ins, and double-click the .zxp installer file in the Plug-ins for InDesign CS5 folder, Adobe’s Extension Manager will install the appropriate CS5 or CS5.5 plugin, depending on your most-recently installed version of InDesign. If you have both InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 installed, and would like to install the plug-in for use in CS5, you will need to manually start Extension Manager CS5 and use its File > Install Extension to select the plug-in’s .zxp installer file.

Thanks for your patience, if you were waiting!

Release: InData 6/7.1.8.1 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5

This release simply adds compatibility for Adobe’s 7.5.1 update to InDesign CS5.5.

Release: InFlow 6/7.2.2.3 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5

This release simply adds compatibility for Adobe’s 7.5.1 update to InDesign CS5.5.

Early DocsFlow beta feedback

There are already a couple of public responses to DocsFlow that might be helpful for others kicking its tires.

David Blatner gives his initial thoughts in an InDesign Secrets blog entry and emphasizes the “magic” part of DocsFlow, the document merging facilities. His tagline is “Em Software’s DocsFlow heralds a breakthrough in collaborative publishing!”

Haeme Ulrich calls it a “dream fulfilled” in his Ulrich Media blog entry (German; here’s a Google translation into English.)

Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1 for InDesign CS5.5

Last night we re-released the DocsFlow beta to include binaries for both InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 (including 7.5.1, the latest update).

You can download it from the sidebar on the right or from the (same) sidebar on the main product page. When you download and expand the linked .zip file, you’ll find an outermost folder Em DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1, containing the folder Plug-ins for InDesign CS5 & CS5.5, containing the actual installation file docsflow70b1_installer_mac.zxp, which you double-click to install.

(Adobe Extensions Manager will install the proper version (CS5 vs CS5.5) based on what you have installed on your system.)

Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1 for InDesign CS5

We’re delighted (and relieved) to announce that the first beta of DocsFlow, our brand-new product for connecting InDesign to Google Docs, is now available for public download and testing, at no cost during the beta test.

See the sidebar to download and for further information, such as the DocsFlow product overview (home page) and the user guide.

We’re first releasing the InDesign CS5 Mac OS version, with the CS5.5 Mac OS version coming later today. Then we’ll release the Windows versions over the next few days as we finish its integration process.

If you’re interested in testing, we strongly encourage you to learn more about keeping in touch via various methods, so you can hear about each beta release as it happens. At first, they’ll be coming pretty fast and furious, while we work out the bugs and glitches.

Thanks for any feedback you can give us, and we hope you find this new tool incredibly useful!

Updated plugins coming for InDesign CS5.5

Adobe recently released an InDesign 7.5.1 version (first minor version of CS5.5) which fixed the “bug” that CS5 plugins worked with CS5.5. Apparently, Adobe needed to require new CS5.5-specific versions of all plugins due to internal changes, but we somehow didn’t get the message ahead of time.

The result is that, if you do an auto-update of CS5.5 to the latest 7.5.1, InDesign will complain that there is a plug-in conflict with any one of our plugins.

We’re scrambling to release new versions of all our plugins that will work with CS5.5 specifically, and hope to have them sometime later this week. This is effectively a whole new release, even if it means no code changes, so we have a lot of repackaging, re-versioning, rebuilding, and re-releasing to do across all 4 plugins for MacOS and Windows.

We apologize for this mishap.

Xdata samples featured on Quark’s web site

Quark has recently featured a couple of Xdata samples on their web site.

The first, at Directories and Yearbooks: Automate the Publishing of Directory-style Documents, has the caption John Catt Educational‘s 2011 publications were created using Em Software’s Xdata XTension for QuarkXPress in conjunction with databases created by consultant Roger Fuller. (John Catt Educational is UK-based, and Roger Fuller can be reached at roger@data2page.co.uk; Roger is a long-term Em associate, and we can recommend him highly.)

The second, at Catalogs and Circulars: Limitless Design Flexibility, has the caption Mike Docker, Deputy Production Editor at Caterer & Hotelkeeper Magazine, said these guides involved a lot of coding at first but using Em Software’s Xdata XTension for QuarkXPress paid dividends for years afterwards.

(In both cases, you have to click on the embedded picture to see the samples.)

Print and ePublishing Conference 2011 (PePCon) report

Joe Mathia and I (Chris Ryland) provided Em’s presence at the (now apparently annual) InDesign Secrets Live! Print and ePublishing Conference designed and implemented by David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción. David and Anne-Marie are just plain great people, and were wonderful hosts for the conference. (They (and other speakers) very kindly pointed people to us several times in general and specific sessions.)

Three Trick Pony’s InData/Xdata showcase

Mike Docker of Three Trick Pony (UK) is now showcasing InData/Xdata on his web site.

These are beautiful applications of our tools, and should give you a good idea about what you can accomplish with the same set of tools.

Mike is available for consulting, and can be contacted via email from the footer of his site.

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: Xcatalog 8/9.3.5 for QuarkXPress 8/9

This release of Xcatalog adds support for QuarkXPress 9 to that for QuarkXPress 8 and drops support for both QuarkXPress 6 and 7.

Release: Xdata 8/9.4.3 for QuarkXPress 8/9

This release of Xdata adds support for QuarkXPress 9 to that for QuarkXPress 8, drops support for both QuarkXPress 6 and 7 and includes a couple of minor fixes.

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.

Release: InCatalog 6/7.2.8.4 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This maintenance release addresses issues with styled prices and ODBC connectivity.

Release: InData 6/7.1.8 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This release sees the addition of sister-product Xdata’s format() function, support for the &it tag in XPress Tags-styled text and compatibility with InCatalog 6/7.2.8.1 and later.

Adobe InDesign CS5.5 and our plug-ins

Adobe just announced InDesign CS5.5, which is a mid-cycle refresh of their flagship print publishing product with an emphasis on electronic publishing to tablets, e-books and more.

As far as we know, our CS5 plugins should continue to function well with this release, and we’d love to hear about your experiences with InDesign CS5.5, good or bad or in-between.

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.

Em exhibiting at the Print and E-Publishing Conference, May 23-24

We’re happy to announce we’ll be exhibiting at the InDesign Secrets Live Print and E-Publishing Conference, May 23rd and 24th, at the Westin Alexandria.

InDesign Secret’s own David Blatner gives an overview of the developer attendees and says kind things about Em.

If you’re an Em product user and will be at the conference, we’d love to talk and find out how you’re using our products and how we could make them better. If you’re not using them, we’d be glad to show them to you in person.

We hope to be showing an entirely new product as well that may be a killer solution for editorial workflow.

So do stop by our table–we’d love to see you!

InDesign Secrets podcast talking about InCatalog, InData

The latest InDesign Secrets podcast—from David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion—talks at some length about both InCatalog and InData. (The lead-in to our products starts around 11:00, but the whole podcast is gold for data publishers.)

These podcasts are always great, but this one is particularly relevant to anyone interested in our products.

One nit, though: David talks about InCatalog being the big brother of InData, which isn’t quite true: it’s more like a brother who does something fairly distinct but complementary. (InData builds, InCatalog links, very roughly.)

Release: InCatalog 6/7.2.8.3 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This minor release addresses an issue with scripted udpates.

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: InCatalog 6/7.2.8.2 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This release provides a UI fix for folks using the X qualifier and sets the default ODBC character encoding, if not otherwise specified by the % qualifier, to UTF-8.

Release: InCatalog 6/7.2.8.1 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This minor release addresses problems with subfields and tagged text and completes InCatalog’s adoption of Unicode.

Release: InData 6/7.1.7 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This release adds unfettered anchored box sizing and includes a couple of minor fixes.

Release: Xdata 6/7/8.4.2 for QuarkXPress 6/7/8

This release adds unfettered anchored box sizing, adds support for Arabic publishing, text anchors and hyperlinks, and includes a number of minor fixes.

Release: InCatalog 6/7.2.8 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This release adds picture positioning options, improves compatibility with legacy documents and fixes issues with nested styles, scripting and the tagger palette.

Release: Xcatalog 6/7/8.3.4 for QuarkXPress 6/7/8

This release adds picture positioning options, improves compatibility with legacy documents and fixes issues with subfields and the ODBC Login dialog.

Release: InFlow 6/7.2.2.2 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This release addresses an issue with the front-to-back ordering of threaded frames after a master page application.

Release: InCatalog 6/7.2.7.1 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This minor release adds control over master pages updating, improves type on a path support and addresses UI issues.

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.

Release: InCatalog 6/7.2.7 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This release of InCatalog for InDesign adds support for InDesign CS5 to that for CS4, drops support for CS2/CS3, adds full XPress-tagged text support bi-directionally without needing our Xtags product, adds anchored text frame support in Xtags, changes the link markers to display as brackets (like in Xcatalog), adds link markers for tagged page items, merges the Pro and non-Pro binaries, adds support for abitrary per-field or all-field WHERE clause prefixes when using ODBC, adds full Unicode support when communicating with FileMaker, and fixes some long-standing bugs.

Release: InFlow 6/7.2.2.1 for InDesign CS4/CS5

These are the release notes for the InFlow 6/7 series.

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!

Fall 2010 newsletter

We’ve just sent our Fall 2010 newsletter with the latest news of InDesign CS5 upgrades for Xtags and EmData.

You can view it online at Em Fall 2010 Newsletter, if you didn’t receive a copy as a customer or subscriber.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for future very occasional news, or, for all your options, visit our information about keeping in touch.

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.

Keeping in touch

We’ve fleshed out our support page about “keeping in touch” quite a bit.

We’re trying to make it easy for you to keep up with our progress on the products and on the web site (new and updated tutorials, documentation, etc.) that are coming in the future.

In particular, you can subscribe to our news using RSS (e.g., in a news reader like NetNewsWire or Google Reader), via email, via Twitter updates, and via our very occasional company email newsletter.

We intend to use Twitter both to update you when any new articles appear, and when there are non-trivial changes to the more static parts of the site. And, we’re happy to interact over Twitter for quick back-and-forth kinds of communications.

We’re also going to provide more specific news/email news feeds, for things like following the progress of a single product, or a group of related products.

So, if you’re interested in staying in touch, we urge you to try one of these methods.

And please let us know how we could improve in this effort, via email to webmaster@emsoftware.com. Thank 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: InData 6/7.1.6 for InDesign CS4/CS5

This release of InData for InDesign adds support for InDesign CS5 to that for CS4, drops support for CS2/CS3, adds support for Xtags styled text without requiring the Xtags plugin, adds support for inline picture frame tags in Xtags styled text, and allows you to choose which format of styled text you’re using (Xtags or InDesign Tags) on a per-use basis.

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.

Welcome

Welcome to our new site!

We’ll be building it out over time with FAQs, tutorials, screen casts, online manuals, new products, etc., but we first had to convert our creaky old site to a new, solid foundation for future expansion.

If you have any questions about or problems with the site, or suggestions for how we might improve it to better serve you, please contact us via email to webmaster@emsoftware.com. In particular, we’d love to hear about anything you find confusing or missing.

Thanks!

Release: InCatalog 4/5/6.2.6.7 for InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4

These notes cover all the InCatalog 4/5/6 release series.

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: InData 4/5/6.1.5 for InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4

This release of InData for InDesign adds support for missing pictures, and fixes a bug with importing from the clipboard.

(This 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: Xcatalog 6/7/8.3.3.2 for QuarkXPress 6/7/8

This set of release notes covers the whole Xcatalog 6/7/8 series.

Important: versions prior to 6/7/8.3.2 will not recognize or display links created in 6/7/8.3.2 (or later) due to the addition of full Unicode support in the 6/7/8.3.2 release. This means that if one person updates from 6/7/8.3.1 (or older), everyone with whom they share documents will need to update their copy of Xcatalog as well.

Release: Xdata 6/7/8.4.1.2 for QuarkXPress 6/7/8

These notes cover all the 6/7/8-series Xdata releases.

Release: InFlow 4/5/6.2.1.3 for InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4

These are the release notes for the InFlow 4/5/6 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: InCatalog 4/5.2.5.2 for InDesign CS2/CS3

These notes cover all the InCatalog 4/5 series releases.

Release: InFlow 4/5.2.0.2 for InDesign CS2/CS3

These are the release notes for the InFlow 4/5 series.

Release: InData 3/4.1.2 for InDesign CS/CS2

This release supports InDesign CS2 as well as CS, and features a small set of additions and fixes.

Release: InFlow 3/4.1.2.4 for InDesign CS/CS2

These are the release notes for the InFlow 3/4 series.

Release: InCatalog 3/4.2.4.1 for InDesign CS/CS2

These notes cover all the InCatalog 3/4 release 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: Xcatalog 6/7.3.0.9 for QuarkXPress 6/7

This set of release notes covers the whole Xcatalog 6/7 series.

Release: Xdata 6/7.3.0.5 for QuarkXPress 6/7

These notes include all releases in the Xdata 6/7 series.

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.

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