Changes

• Adds a non-centering Size to Fit w/o Distortion option to Preferences > General > Default picture position. Also adds aspectratiofitleft for use in prototypes, as in «set picpos to aspectratiofitleft».
• Fixes a problem introduced in 2.0.2 where .txt files were always disabled in InData’s File to Import dialog. (Mac-only)
• Fixes a problem where headers/footers on based-on masters were being ignored during header/footer updates.
• Fixes a problem which was sometimes leaving headers/footers in the wrong position after multiple updates in documents with facing pages. If pages in a facing-pages document have been inserted or deleted, or if a page’s master has otherwise changed, headers and footers from previous imports/updates are now properly replaced with any headers and footers from the page’s new master.

Changes

• Fixes a problem reintroduced in 1.1 where updating from a linked Excel document with deleted rows/columns could cause unexpected formatting changes.
• Fixes a problem where table styles applied to linked Excel documents could be lost during an update.
• Works around an InDesign limitation which was causing Word and Excel documents to lose their import options during updates.
• Fixes a problem where InDesign could shut down if a story was relinked to a file.
• Preserves the original import’s Import Options through a relink.

Changes

• Improves the handling of text differences where only the case has changed.
• Improves greatly the handling of tables, table movement, row/column movement, and cell movement and spanning during updates.
• Fixes a problem which was causing the Track Changes panel to display random time stamps after an update.
• Addresses an issue where index entries could, in rare instances, be lost during updates.
• Addresses an issue where updating a document containing cross-references could cause InDesign to shut down.
• Fixes a problem where table cell attributes could be lost during an update.
• Fixes a problem where updating with common changes in both the InDesign story and the linked document could cause InDesign to shut down.

This time, Joe Mathia and John Whitney will be there from Em Software. Joe was at PePcon 2011 in Alexandria with Chris Ryland (who was alone last year in San Francisco), but since Joe and John are both local Texas boys (Dallas and Austin, respectively), they get to have all the fun!

We’ll be showing our current data-driven publishing products, InData, InCatalog, Xtags for InDesign, and our newer editorial/workflow products WordsFlow and DocsFlow.

In particular, we’ll be showing the latest WordsFlow and DocsFlow versions with major table-handling improvements, and we hope to be showing some major new functionality in DocsFlow as well! (Hint: it might involve edits flowing in both directions. )

So please stop by and take a look at what’s new (and old).

See you there!

Notes

We’ve moved the main WordsFlow menu to the File menu and added dedicated Place with WordsFlow… and Place without WordsFlow… entries to help make which action you’re about to select a bit more obvious. This change allowed us to remove the toggling File > Place without WordsFlow… entry (or was it File > Place with WordsFlow…?), which should remove a major point of confusion when placing linked documents.

The File > Place… action continues to work as it did before: if the import produces a link (as determined by the document’s Create Links When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files preference), WordsFlow will manage that link. If it’s not clear what File > Place… will produce, then please use the Place options within the WordsFlow menu.

If you use the normal command/control-D shortcut for File > Place… and want to always use WordsFlow for placement, you can assign that shortcut to File > WordsFlow > Place with WordsFlow…. Or you can assign an alternate shortcut to the latter, so you can use both a non-linking place and a linking place with one keystroke.

Changes

• Moves the WordsFlow menu to the File menu and adds dedicated Place with WordsFlow… and Place without WordsFlow… actions.
• Improves the handling of text differences where only the case has changed.
• Improves greatly the handling of tables, table movement, row/column movement, and cell movement and spanning during updates.
• Improves the handling of updates with linked documents whose styling has been lost or reset by preserving the InDesign-applied styling.
• Fixes a problem where updates of unformatted Excel tables placed with drag’n'drop could fail.
• Fixes a problem where updating a copy of a linked Excel/Word document could produce unexpected results.
• Fixes a problem which was preventing stories placed from a loaded place gun into an existing frame from being managed.
• Addresses an issue where index entries could, in rare instances, be lost during updates.
• Addresses an issue where updating a document containing cross-references could cause InDesign to shut down.
• Fixes a problem where table cell attributes could be lost during an update.
• Fixes a problem where updating with common changes in both the InDesign story and the linked document could cause InDesign to shut down.

Changes

• Adds support for placing Google Drive documents and spreadsheets via both drag’n'drop and the File > Place... dialog, once you have Google Drive installed under Mac OS or Windows.

  Note that this feature, coupled with the next below, enables a much more powerful workflow by providing access to Google Drive’s native support for folders. You can now use the Import Options dialog (see below) to preset your document’s import options and style mappings. Once those are set, you can navigate complex GDrive hierarchies using your normal operating system file explorer (Windows Explorer or Finder) to drag and drop selected GDrive files into InDesign, or to place them with the normal InDesign File > Place… dialog. Both of these result in a normal DocsFlow GDocs-linking placement, using the import options that have been set for the document.

  The existing File > Place with DocsFlow… dialog is still present and works the same as before, with no need for a Google My Drive installation.

• Adds access to the default DocsFlow import options via a new sub-menu File > DocsFlow > Set Import Options. This dialog is available when there is either no document open (for global settings that will be adopted only by new documents) or there is no selected item in an open document (for document settings that will be the default for each new placement).
• Adds support for cross references and bookmarks within imported stories.
• Adds conversion of Google Docs page breaks to InDesign frame breaks.
• Adds support for drag’n'drop from Google Apps accounts.
• Adds new import options Convert leading tabs to first line indent, Ignore space before/after paragraph, Ignore left/right indent, and Ignore first line indent, to give more control over the document conversion details.
• Improves the quality of tables and document updating.
• Prevents update failures in some uncommon situations.
• Fixes a problem where InDesign styling was being removed if styles were lost in the external document.
• Fixes a problem where errors resulting from a drag’n'drop operation weren’t being displayed in Mac OS X.

Changes

• Adds .mer as a valid snapshot file extension to better support FileMaker Pro 12.

Changes

• Adds a new C code letter for the sizing specs field of an anchored or as-anchored box tag’s width and height parameters. C may not be combined with S or R but may be used with F to size the box’s contents to the column as well. Sizing-to-column is allowed for anchored box tags, as-anchored box tags (unanchored, but with both x and y parameters left empty), and line tags.

  Unlike S, which is only allowed to shrink a box, C is only allowed to grow a box to fit its column. Thus, its initial size is its minimum size, and what was the minimum (4th) parameter therefore becomes the box’s maximum size.

  For example, <&pb((32pt,CF),(128,S),,,,,,,,,C,,,,,,,”p1234.jpg”)> would create an anchored frame with its width sized to the insertion point’s column, with the picture’s width scaled to the frame’s (and therefore the column’s) width, and with the frame’s height set to that of the picture.

• Removes Xcatalog’s link marker guard characters (for Xcatalog’s enhanced text link editability feature) from copied/saved tagged text so that tags for catalog links aren’t littered with unnecessary <\z>‘s.
• Fixes a problem where OpenType features tags (o(...)) were being generated with incorrect feature names.

Issues

We know of a problem introduced in this release which prevents anchored frames from shrinking to their contents. If this could affect you, please delay updating until a newer release becomes available. Feel free to contact Em Software Support for an interim solution if you need any of this version’s changes (below).

Changes

• Adds a progress bar for long imports.
• Adds support for the OpenType Features tag, o(...), that was introduced in QuarkXPress 7.
• Improves compatibility with CS6′s Primary Text Frame autoflow machinery.
• Fixes a problem where importing an anchored box tag with a non-zero frame width parameter via File > Place could cause a crash.
• Fixes an issue with character style tags, where they weren’t removing active character-level overrides. For example, in previous releases the tags <z7>small<@24PtStyle>big would incorrectly style “big” as 7pt text. Now, applying a character style will reset all overrides such that the same tags will produce “big” in 24pt text. (The z7 is removed when 24PtStyle is applied, which is what our Xtags for QuarkXPress sister-product has always done.)

Changes

• Addresses a problem where CS6 wasn’t adding pages for overset text imported into a Primary Text Frame story before InData was attempting to auto-update headers/footers by giving CS6′s autoflow machinery a solid nudge after importing the last record (and before continuing with header/footer updating).
• Fixes a problem seen in some CS6 layouts where overridden master header/footer frames were being shifted horizontally on the document page.