Character Formats

[1] These codes act as toggle switches; the first time they're encountered, the format is activated. The second time, the format is deactivated. Note the similarity to formatting keystrokes.

Plain

<P>

Bold

<B>

Italic

<I>

Outline

<O>

Shadow

<S>

Underline

<U>

Word underline

<W>

Strikethrough

</>

All caps

<K>

Small caps

<H>

Superscript

<+>

Subscript

<->

Superior

<V>

Apply type style of current paragraph style sheet

<$>

Apply type style of current character style sheet

<$$>

Reapply type style of paragraph's character style sheet

<a$>

Reapply type style of the current character style sheet

<a$$>

Character Formats (cont.)

[2] In these codes, "#" should be replaced with a number. This number can be set to the same precision as QuarkXPress's measurements (tenths, hundredths, or thousandths of a unit). The measurement units used are shown. If you replace "#" or any other code value with a dollar sign ($), QuarkXPress uses the formatting of the current style sheet. For Kern, Track, and Baseline Shift, the numbers can be either positive (no sign) or negative (use hyphen for negative sign). Positive Kern and Track values make the type looser; negative Kern and Track values make the type tighter. Positive Baseline Shift values shift up; negative Baseline Shift values shift down.

Typeface

<f"name">

Name of font, exactly as it appears in QuarkXPress's font menu

Size

<z#>

Points

Color

<c"name">

Name of color (you can specify with C, M, Y, K, and W, without quotes, as in <cY>). Color must already be created in document.

Shade

<s#>

Percentage

Horizontal scale

<h#>

Percentage

Vertical scale

<y#>

Percentage

Kern

<k#>

1/200 em

Track

<t#>

1/200 em

Baseline shift

<b#>

Points

Paragraph Formats

[3] In these codes, "#" should be replaced with a measurement in points. If you replace "#" or any other code value with a dollar sign ($), XPress uses the formatting of the current style sheet. If the code requires multiple values, every value must be present and delineated by a comma up until the last code you wish to specify (i.e., if you only wanted to specify Left Indent, you could just type <*p(2p)>; you wouldn't have to type <*p(2p,$,$,$,$,$)>.)

[4] Align on is specified by replacing the alignment number by the one or two characters contained within quotation marks.

Left-align

<*L>

None

Center-align

<*C>

None

Right-align

<*R>

None

Justify

<*J>

None

Force-justify

<*F>

None

Paragraph attributes

<*p(#, #, #, #, #, #, G or g)>

Left Indent, First Line, Right Indent, Leading, Space Before, Space After, Lock to Baseline Grid (G = lock, g = don't lock)

Drop cap Count

<*d(chars, lines)>

Character Count and Line

Keep With Next ¶

<*kn1> or <*kn0>

1=keep with next, 0=don't keep with next

Keep Lines Together

<*kt(A)> or <*kt(start, end)>

"A"=all; start and end are number of lines

Set Tab Stops

<*t(#,#,"character")>

Position, Alignment (0=left, 1=center, 2=right, 4=decimal, 5= comma), Fill character or characters[4]

H&J

<*h"name">

Name of H&J specification

Rule Above

<*ra(#,#,"name",#,#,#,#)>

See "Rule Below"

Rule Below

<*rb(#,#,"name",#,#,#,#)>

Width, Style (from 1–11), Name of color, Shade (percent), From Left, From Right, Offset (if Offset is a percentage, add a percent sign). Enter T in front of Left Indent value to base rule length on length of text.

Special Characters

Soft return ("new line")

<\n>

[5] Precede these codes with an exclamation point to make them nonbreaking. For example, <\!-> for a non-breaking hyphen.

[6] The QuarkXPress documentation continues to insist on incorrectly calling this a "1/4-em space." It can conceivably be defined as such, of course, but it's totally user-configurable.

[7] Note that the number sign (#) must precede the ASCII value. See Appendix G for codes on Windows.

[8] You can also type the character itself on the Macintosh.

Discretionary return

<\d>

Normal hyphen

<\->[5]

Discretionary hyphen

<\h>

Indent Here

<\i>

Previous text box page #

<\2>

Current text box page #

<\3>

Next text box page #

<\4>

New column

<\c>

New box

<\b>

@

<\@>

<

<\<>

\

<\\>

Standard space

<\s>[5]

En space (figure space)

<\f>[5]

Em space

<\f ><\f >[5]

Flex space [6]

<\q>[5]

Punctuation space

<\p>[5]

ASCII character

<\#decimal value>[5][7]

En dash

<\#208>[5][7][8]

Em dash

<\#209>[5][7][8]

Open double quotes

<\#210 >[5][7][8]

Close double quotes

<\#211>[5][7][8]

Open single quote

<\#212>[5][7][8]

Close single quote or apostrophe

<\#213>[5][7][8]

Return (new paragraph)

<\#13>[5][7][8]

Tab character

<\#9 >[5][7][8]

Right-align tab character

<\t>

Paragraph Style Sheets

Define style sheet

@name=

Name of style sheet[9]; follow the equal sign with definition, just as if you were inserting "manual" or "local" formatting in the text stream

[9] You cannot use these symbols in the name: @, ", :, or =

Based on/next style

@name=[S"based-on_name","next style name"]

Name of based-on style sheet, followed by definition

Apply style sheet

@name:

Name of style sheet

Apply "Normal"

@$:

Apply "No Style"

@:

Character Style Sheets

These style sheets do not have paragraph formatting but can change character styles WITHIN a paragraph.

Define style sheet

@name=

Just like defining a paragraph style sheet, except (of course) don't specify any paragraph attributes

Apply style sheet

<@name>

Name of style sheet

Apply Normal character style

<@$>

Apply "No style"

<@>

Return to character style sheet that "belongs" to current ¶ style sheet

<@$p>

General Codes

CODE

MEANS ...

<v#>

XPress Tags filter version number. XPress 3.2's filter is version 1.6; XPress 3.3's is version 1.7; XPress 4.0's is version 2.0; XPress 4.1 is 2.05. QuarkXPress 5.0 is version 3.0. You can typically ignore this tag.

<e#>

Platform number: 0=Mac, 1=Windows; 2=ISO Latin 1. These control the character sets for special characters; you can ignore these unless you're moving XPress Tags files from one computer platform to another.

Indexing

Entry marker[10]

<XI,"first level index entry","second level entry","sort as", "character style", scope code, additional info code,"x-ref">

Entry start range

<XO>

Entry end range[10]

<XC,"first level index entry","second level entry","sort as", "character style", scope code, additional info code,"x-ref">

[10] You can leave any of the strings blank, except for the first level index entry. For instance, <XI,"Fish","","","",0,0,""> means place an index entry called "Fish" here without any sort as, special character style, or x-ref.

Scope code: 0 = Selection Start; 1 = Selection Text; 2 = To Style; 3 = Number of paragraphs; 4 = To End Of; 5 = Suppress Page Number; 6 = X-Ref.

Additional info code is based on the Scope code: If Scope equals zero or one, then the additional info code would be the same; if Scope = 2, then the additional info code should be "stylesheetname"; if Scope = 3, then the additional info code should be the number of paragraphs; if Scope = 4, then type 0 for Story and 1 for Document; if Scope = 5, then type 0 for the additional info code; if Scope = 6, then type 0 for "See", 1 for "See also," and 2 for "See herein".