A Guide to XML Import_ QuarkXTensions Software

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XML Import software lets you do exactly that. Instead of creating the same column week after week, you can create it once, populate it with formatted placeholders, and then automatically import the list of books each week. Before you can understand how placeholders work, you need to understand how XML and DTDs work.

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A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software
Legal Notices ©2001 Quark Technology Partnership and Quark, Inc. as to the content and arrangement of this material. All rights reserved. ©1999–2001 Quark Technology Partnership, Quark, Inc., and their licensors as to the technology. All rights reserved. U.S. and foreign patents pending. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Quark Technology Partnership or its licensee, Quark, Inc. Use of the Quark Products is subject to the terms of the end user license agreement or other applicable agreements for such product/service. In the event of a conﬂict between agreements and these provisions the relevant agreements shall control. Quark Products and materials are subject to the copyright and other intellectual property protection of the United States and foreign countries. Unauthorized use or reproduction without Quark’s written consent is prohibited. Quark, QuarkXPress, QuarkXTensions and QuarkXPress Passport are trademarks of Quark, Inc. and all applicable afﬁliated companies, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. and in many other countries. Avenue.quark and the Quark logo are trademarks of Quark, Inc. and all applicable afﬁliated companies. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 2
Table of Contents Table of Contents Introduction 4 Minimum System Requirements 4 Installation Instructions 4 Understanding Placeholders 4 The Placeholders Palette 12 Using Placeholders 15 Placing Content 19 Permanently Replacing Placeholders 22 Exporting Web Documents with Placeholders 22 Contacting Quark 23 A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 3
Introduction INTRODUCTION XML Import QuarkXTensions™ software lets you place content from XML ﬁles in a QuarkXPress™ or QuarkXPress Passport™ document for print, HTML, or PDF output. MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS MAC OS AND WINDOWS QuarkXPress 4.1 or later I N S TA L L AT I O N I N S T R U C T I O N S To install XML Import QuarkXTensions software, follow these steps: FOR MAC OS 1 Quit QuarkXPress or QuarkXPress Passport. 2 Copy the “XML Import” ﬁle into the “XTension” folder within your QuarkXPress or QuarkXPress Passport application folder. 3 Launch QuarkXPress or QuarkXPress Passport to access the features of XML Import. FOR WINDOWS 1 Exit QuarkXPress or QuarkXPress Passport. 2 Copy the “XML Import.xnt” ﬁle into the “XTension” folder within your QuarkXPress or QuarkXPress Passport application folder. 3 Launch QuarkXPress or QuarkXPress Passport to access the features of XML Import. U N D E R S TA N D I N G P L A C E H O L D E R S Placeholders let you take content stored in XML format and automatically insert and format that content in a QuarkXPress document. This vastly simpliﬁes the process of generating large quantities of QuarkXPress documents that use the same template. HOW PLACEHOLDERS WORK Let’s say you create a weekly newspaper in QuarkXPress, and the newspaper contains a weekly column listing the top ﬁfty paperback books, including each book’s title, author name, and publisher name. Each week you receive this A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 4
Understanding Placeholders information by e-mail, and you copy and paste it into your magazine, format- ting each title, author name, and publisher name individually. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could automate this process? XML Import software lets you do exactly that. Instead of creating the same column week after week, you can create it once, populate it with formatted placeholders, and then automatically import the list of books each week. Before you can understand how placeholders work, you need to understand how XML and DTDs work. XML AND DTDS XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a way of labeling information and controlling its structure. LABELING INFORMATION XML lets you label (or “tag”) information by placing tags on either side of it. For example, a single book listing in XML might look something like this: Stars in the Sky Galileo Smith Copernicus Press Note that each part of the book’s description — the title, the author name, and the publisher name — is enclosed within a pair of bracketed . In effect, these tags say, “The information between these two points is of this type.” CONTROLLING STR UCTURE Note also that the title, author name, and publisher name are all enclosed between an opening tag and a closing tag. This is an example of how XML lets you control the structure of information. A DTD (document type deﬁnition) is a sort of blueprint that lets you specify the structure of an XML document. For our example, a “booklist” DTD might specify that each element must contain a element, an element, and a element, in that order. It might also deﬁne a element, which could contain a number of elements. A DTD is used as a guideline for creating a particular type of XML ﬁle. For example, the DTD described above could be used to create a number of XML ﬁles, each containing an appropriately tagged title, author name, and publisher name. To create DTDs, see A Guide to avenue.quark. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 5
Understanding Placeholders ∫ If an XML ﬁle follows the rules set by a DTD, it is said to be a valid XML ﬁle. E L E M E N T PAT H S Every element in an XML ﬁle has a path that speciﬁes where it is in the structure of the XML document. For example, in the following fragment of XML, the path of the bold element is & & . Stars in the Sky Galileo Smith Copernicus Press PLACEHOLDERS A placeholder is a token that represents a particular type of element with a particular element path. For example, in creating our list of books, you want to be able to automatically import each book’s title, author name, and publisher name. That means you need placeholders for each of these elements. In a DTD, a particular type of information is called an element type. The DTD for our book list includes element types for , , , , and . When you use XML Import QuarkXTensions software to view this “booklist” DTD, it looks like this: The DTD from a “booklist” XML ﬁle, displayed in the Placeholders palette. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 6
Understanding Placeholders To create a placeholder from an element type in this DTD, drag that element type to a QuarkXPress text box. For example, if you dragged the element type to a text box, it would look like this: A placeholder representing the element type. The word “title” — corresponding to the element type — is the place- holder in this picture. The two gray icons are brackets; for now, all you need to know is that they display on either side of a placeholder. Now, what if the DTD you’re using has both elements and elements, and both contain elements? How do you know which kind of element a placeholder refers to? To ﬁnd out, click the Show Markers button in the Placeholders palette. This button displays labeled gray markers that represent the parent elements of the placeholder. By looking at the markers in the following screen shot, for example, you can determine that the path of the placeholder is & & : A placeholder representing the element type, with markers displayed. P L A C E H O L D E R S F O R M U LT I P L E E L E M E N T T Y P E S To create the book list, you need placeholders for each book’s title, author name, and publisher name. To display the placeholders, drag the whole element type from the Placeholders palette to the text box. The results look like this (with markers showing): Placeholders for the , , and element types. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 7
Understanding Placeholders Now that you have your placeholders, you can format them. First, you’ll insert hard returns after the , , and placeholders. Then you can format all three placeholders the way you want to. The results might look something like this: Formatted placeholders for the , , and element types. ∫ Why are the returns inside the brackets? Anything inside a placeholder’s brackets is displayed only if there is content to match the placeholder. So if you replace these placeholders with a element that does not contain a element, neither the element nor the return inside its brackets displays. If you put the return after the element’s closing bracket, that return would display regardless of whether there was content to match the placeholder, and you might end up with a blank line. Now that you’ve formatted your placeholders, putting an actual book name into the text box is as easy as clicking a button on the Placeholders palette and pointing to a well-formed XML ﬁle that contains matching , , and elements. Then just click the Toggle Placeholders/Content button, and XML Import QuarkXTensions software replaces the placeholders with every instance of corresponding content from the XML ﬁle, resulting in something like this: XML content that has been placed using the formatted placeholders. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 8
Understanding Placeholders ∫ A well-formed XML document begins with an XML declaration and has a root element that contains all of the other elements; each element in the document is also required to have a corresponding end tag. For information about well- formed XML documents, see A Guide to avenue.quark. CONTROLLING PLACEHOLDER ORDER You can think of placeholders as search parameters that tell XML Import to grab speciﬁc kinds of content from an XML ﬁle and put that content in a text box in a speciﬁc order. In the example you’ve dealt with so far, the set of placeholders tells XML Import to look for all occurrences of , , and elements nested within elements that are inside elements. The and markers are necessary because there might be occurrences of , , and elements in other parts of the DTD, and you may not want those occurrences. The example also tells XML Import the order in which to display the , , and elements, but you don’t have to leave them in that order if you don’t want to. For example, you could place before and remove entirely, simply by moving the placeholder and markers for (by cutting and pasting) and deleting the placeholder and markers for . The result might look something like this: Rearranged placeholders for the and element types, with the placeholder removed. Markers are displayed in the picture above to emphasize the fact that you can rearrange placeholders only within the branch where they belong. For example, you can put the placeholder anywhere between the markers, but you can’t put it between the marker and the marker, because the DTD doesn’t allow elements as direct children of elements. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 9
Understanding Placeholders ∫ “Parent” and “child” (or “children”) refer to the hierarchical order of the ele- ments. The parent element always contains the subset of the children elements. If you want to use sets of placeholders like the one in this example, be sure to drag the parent element, rather than dragging the child elements over one at a time. In the above example, you dragged the element type, which contains the and element types. If you had dragged the and element types separately, you would have gotten something like this: If you drag element types over separately, all matches for each are inserted. READING MARKERS One purpose of markers is to show you the path that XML content must have in order to match a placeholder. Let’s consider a marker based on a DTD that looks like this in the Placeholders palette: A sample DTD, viewed in the Placeholders palette. Let’s say that when you create a placeholder for the element type, it looks like this: A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 10
Understanding Placeholders Keeping in mind that markers always come in pairs, you can determine all of the following from the set of markers shown above: • Because the placeholders here are X and Y, you know that only or elements can match these placeholders. • The two outermost “root” markers tell us that in order to match one of these placeholders, an element’s path must begin with . • The “item” markers tell us that to match one of these placeholders, an element’s path must begin with and . • The sets of “A” and “B” markers, joined in the middle by a vertical line, tell us that to match one of these placeholders, an element’s path must begin with either and and , or and and . (You can’t insert text between the closing “A” marker and the opening “B” marker because the DTD doesn’t allow an element to contain more than one child.) å When two brackets are merged (represented by this icon: ), it means there is an OR relationship between the elements on either side. This means an XML element may contain either what’s on one side of the merged brackets or what’s on the other. Therefore, it would not make sense to put text between these two placeholders. The placeholders inside the “A” markers tell us that to qualify as a match, an element’s path may be either and and , or and and and . The placeholders inside the “B” markers tell us that to qualify as a match, an element’s path may be either and and , or and and and . So, for example, the following element is a match: Here is some A content. However, this next would not match, because the path to the element does not include : Here is some A content. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 11
Understanding Placeholders å If you’re curious, the actual DTD looks like this. (For information on how to read a DTD, see A Guide to avenue.quark.) T H E P L A C E H O L D E R S PA L E T T E The Placeholders palette lets you view the DTD from an XML ﬁle, drag placeholders from that DTD into a QuarkXPress document, and populate the document with content from XML ﬁles that adhere to that DTD. To view the Placeholders palette, choose View & Show Placeholders. Placeholders palette S E L E C T X M L O R X M T F I L E C O N TA I N I N G D T D ( B U T T O N ) View & Sho w Placeholders The Select XML or XMT File Containing DTD button displays the Select XML or XMT File Containing DTD dialog box, which lets you select an XML ﬁle or avenue.quark template ﬁle. The ﬁle you choose must include a DOCTYPE statement and an internal DTD. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 12
The Placeholders Palette SHOW MARKERS, HIDE MARKERS (BUTTONS) View & Sho w Placeholders The Show Markers and Hide Markers buttons turn placeholder mark- ers on and off. Click the Show Markers button if you want to see the full tree structure of the placeholders in the active QuarkXPress document. SELECT XML FILE (BUTTON) View & Sho w Placeholders The Select XML File button displays the Select XML File dialog box, which lets you select an XML ﬁle for use with the active QuarkXPress document’s placeholders. SELECT XML FOLDER (BUTTON) View & Sho w Placeholders The Select XML Folder button displays the Select XML Folder dialog box, which lets you select a folder containing XML ﬁles. When you click the Toggle Placeholders/Content button , content from the ﬁrst XML ﬁle in the folder is placed in the active QuarkXPress document, as indicated by any placeholders you have created. PREVIOUS XML FILE (BUTTON) View & Sho w Placeholders The Previous XML File button ﬁlls placeholders with content from the previous XML ﬁle in the selected folder. NEXT XML FILE (BUTTON) View & Sho w Placeholders The Next XML File button ﬁlls placeholders with content from the next XML ﬁle in the selected folder. TOGGLE PLACEHOLDERS/CONTENT (BUTTON) View & Sho w Placeholders The Toggle Placeholders/Content button changes depending on whether placeholders or XML content are displayed in the active QuarkXPress document. • If placeholders are displayed, the button ﬁlls them with the appropriate content from the selected XML ﬁle. • If XML content is displayed, the button removes that content and shows the placeholders. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 13
The Placeholders Palette C O N V E RT P L A C E H O L D E R S T O T E X T ( B U T T O N ) View & Sho w Placeholders The Convert Placeholders to Text button permanently replaces the placeholders in the active document with text from the XML ﬁle identiﬁed in the File Name ﬁeld. FILE NAME (FIELD) View & Sho w Placeholders The File Name ﬁeld displays the name of the selected XML ﬁle. If no XML ﬁle is selected, this ﬁeld is blank. File Name ﬁeld DTD TREE (LIST) View & Sho w Placeholders The DTD Tree list displays the structure of the selected DTD. You can display and hide the contents of element types by clicking the > and ‚ disclosure triangles (Mac OS) or the and disclosure boxes (Windows). You can drag element types from the list into a QuarkXPress text box or text path to create placeholders. DTD Tree list ∫ If an element in the DTD Tree list is bold, that means it can contain text and may be dragged to a text box or text path to be used as a placeholder. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 14
Using Placeholders USING PLACEHOLDERS XML Import QuarkXTensions software lets you view an XML document’s DTD, create placeholders from element types in that DTD, format the placeholders, and place content from XML ﬁles in a QuarkXPress text box or text path. A placeholder is a token that can be replaced by matching content from an XML ﬁle. This section explains how to create, format, and delete placeholders. C R E AT I N G A P L A C E H O L D E R Each placeholder corresponds to a particular element type in a DTD. To create a placeholder: 1 Choose View & Show Placeholders to display the Placeholders palette. 2 Click the Select XML or XMT File Containing DTD button . The Select XML or XMT File Containing DTD dialog box displays. The Select XML or XMT File Containing DTD dialog box lets you specify an XML ﬁle or avenue.quark template that contains or references a DTD. 3 Select an XML ﬁle or avenue.quark template that uses or references the DTD you want; click Open. The structure of the DTD, with the root element indicated by the DOCTYPE statement, displays in the DTD Tree list. Bold element names indicate element types that may be used as placeholders (that is, placeholders that may contain text). The DTD Tree list in the Placeholders palette displays a DTD and lets you create placeholders. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 15
Using Placeholders 4 With the Content tool E, select a text box or text path in the active QuarkXPress document. 5 Click the > and ‚ disclosure triangles (Mac OS) or the and disclosure boxes (Windows) to display all the element types you want to use as placeholders. Remember that only bold element types can be used as placeholders. ∫ Child PCDATA and mixed-content elements in a closed (>, ) branch are not included when you create placeholders. 6 Click and drag the name of an element type from the DTD Tree list to the text box or text path. When you release the mouse button, the appropriate placeholders are inserted at the text insertion point i. This text box contains a placeholder for the element type. If you want to insert placeholders for a number of element types that are all members of the same branch of the DTD tree, drag over the element type that contains the entire branch. If you don’t want all the element types in a branch to be placeholders, you can delete the placeholders for any element types you don’t want. F O R M AT T I N G A P L A C E H O L D E R A placeholder can be formatted just like regular text. With the Content tool E, select the placeholder and then format it using the commands in the Style menu (or their equivalent keyboard commands or buttons). This placeholder has been formatted to display bold and centered. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 16
Using Placeholders SHOWING AND HIDING MARKERS To show markers, click the Show Markers button . This button displays labeled gray markers that indicate the path to each placeholder. You can insert returns and text between most markers. Placeholders with markers displayed. To hide markers, click the Hide Markers button . Placeholders with markers hidden. ADDING TEXT TO A PLACEHOLDER You can insert returns, characters, and other text before and after a placeholder. For example, let’s assume you have a DTD that describes a element type that may contain one or more elements: The DTD displayed in the Placeholders palette If you create a placeholder from the element type, it looks like this (assuming markers are visible): These nested placeholder tags indicate that the placeholder has a child element type called . A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 17
Using Placeholders If you insert content from an XML document right now, it may not look the way you expect it to. For example, unless each element contains its own hard return, all the elements in the element will run together into one huge paragraph. A element containing a series of elements without any hard returns inserted between them. To solve this sort of problem, you can insert a paragraph return before or after the placeholder (but still within its brackets). For example, to add a paragraph return after each element, enter a paragraph return immediately after the placeholder, like this: The hard return after the placeholder causes returns to be inserted after each of content placed from an XML document. You can also insert characters other than paragraph returns. For example, if you wanted to add bullets to a list of elements in an XML ﬁle, you could add the bullets to the placeholder, like this: A bullet and a space before the name of the placeholder, with a return after the placeholder, turns a series of elements into a bulleted list. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 18
Using Placeholders You can also insert text between two elements. For example, if you wanted to add a headline above a list of elements in an XML ﬁle, you could add the headline between the parent element’s closing marker and the child element’s opening bracket, like this: Text between the marker and the opening bracket of the placeholder is inserted at the beginning of the bulleted list. ∫ If there is no content in an element, nothing is displayed in place of the placeholder representing that element; any extra text you’ve inserted inside the placeholder’s brackets is ignored. DELETING A PLACEHOLDER To delete a placeholder from a QuarkXPress text box, select it as you would any single character and then press Delete (Mac OS) or Backspace (Windows). PLACING CONTENT A placeholder indicates where XML content should go and how it should be formatted. Once you’ve created your placeholders, XML Import makes it easy to replace them with content from an XML ﬁle. Then you can output the document with the new content in any way you like. ∫ All the tasks in this section assume that you have already created a QuarkXPress document containing placeholders, and that you have at least one XML ﬁle that includes elements that match the placeholders. An XML ﬁle must be well formed to be used with the XML Import QuarkXTensions software; however, it does not need to be valid. As long as at least one element name and path in the XML ﬁle matches at least one element type and path in the DTD, the XML ﬁle will work. A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 19
Placing Content PLACING THE CONTENT OF AN XML FILE To place content from one XML ﬁle into the active QuarkXPress document: 1 Choose View & Show Placeholders to display the Placeholders palette. 2 Click the Select XML File button . The Select XML File dialog box displays. The Select XML File dialog box lets you select an XML ﬁle containing content that matches placeholders in the active QuarkXPress document. 3 Select the XML ﬁle you want to use and then click Open. The name of the XML ﬁle displays in the File Name ﬁeld. 4 Click the Toggle Placeholders/Content button . Content from the XML ﬁle is substituted for the appropriate placeholders in the active QuarkXPress document. At this point, you can print the document to a printer, print it to a PostScript ﬁle, export its content in a different format, export the document as a PDF ﬁle, or output the document in any other available manner. 5 To remove the placed content and view the placeholders again, click the Toggle Placeholders/Content button . PLACING THE CONTENT OF A SERIES OF XML FILES You may need to place the content of a series of XML documents into the active QuarkXPress document, one XML ﬁle at a time. To place the content of several XML ﬁles in the active QuarkXPress document: 1 Choose View & Show Placeholders to display the Placeholders palette and verify that the appropriate DTD is displayed. (If the appropriate DTD is not displayed, see “Using Placeholders” in this document.) A Guide to XML Import QuarkXTensions Software 20