Poster Presentation at HighEdWebDev Conference 2007, Rochester, NY
Susan Greene, HCC Webmaster, sgreene@hcc.commnet.edu
Please note: This article/tutorial is for publications created with QuarkXPress. At the conference I had many inquiries about using InDesign. I will be looking into it and will post the information here.
Preparing an online database for print publications
Does your web data also appear in your printed catalog? Do you need to reformat all those ASP pages or prepare a report for your catalog designer to ensure that both the web and the printed catalog have the same data? If you have ever had to format repetitive text for a print document you know how tedious it can be. Besides the fact that it is time consuming, all of the “handling” of the content can lead to errors or even deletions.
The most efficient way to format text in a print layout application such as Quark XPress is to use style sheets and then assign the styles to text. This is the same basic concept as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) on the web. Similar to CSS in a web page, Quark XPress text is marked-up with style sheet tags that are invisible to the designer in the document. These styles can be assigned in Quark by selecting text and choosing a style from the document’s style sheets. However, this can be very tedious and error prone. A better method is to import the content into Quark using a plain text file that has been “marked-up” with XPress Tags that assign the style names and/or formatting styles and attributes. See how to create an XPress Tag document from your ASP page that can be imported and formatted in no time! Unlike some third-party solutions that can cost hundreds of dollars, this method simply requires ASP pages, an online database, and some basic understanding of XPress Tags. Save time, save money, and reduce errors!
A note about this tutorial...
Although I try to cover everything you need to know to format web data for importing into QuarkXPress there is a lot about this process that is assumed.
- I assume that you (or someone that you work with) know how to create dynamic web pages using a database and recordset.
- I assume that you (or someone that you work with) know how to create a QuarkXPress document and create and edit Style Sheets in QuarkXPress.
If you are experienced in one area and not the other then you might want to find a partner to fill the gap. I am currently the webmaster at our college but I began as the publication designer as well. When I implemented this procedure and taught our current publication designer how to import pre-styled text he was ecstatic (or at least quite pleased)! He has shaved days off the time he must devote to formatting our 45 academic programs and 400+ course descriptions.
Good luck!
Susan Greene