Two useful free XTensions from Badia Software add good functionality; must-have XTensions
Badia Software (http://www.badiaxt.com) is a creator of XTensions, those add-ons that bring increased functionality to QuarkXPress. As a way of getting XPress users to look over their range, they offer not just one or two but four free XTensions, which are available by going to their website and clicking on the “Freebies” section.
Two of these freebies, “Vistas” and “ReplaceInPlace”, provide such great functionality and work so well, you’ll think you’re getting away with something. But you really are getting something good for nothing.
Badia Vistas
Badia Vistas is an extension that provides a graphical navigation palette, somewhat reminiscent of InDesign’s Navigation Palette, to XPress. Badia’s own copy proclaims it “elegant and easy to use”, and they don’t oversell: the layout is clear, controls simply laid out and intuitive to use (limited to a “previous view” button, a slider that controls a very lively live-zoom, and a pulldown allowing instant jumps to any other spread in the document).
Vistas also provides not-so-obvious-but-powerful panning and recentering of the view by simply clicking on the preview thumbnail, and a very quick zoom by the dragging of a box on the preview.
Accessing the palette is accomplished by Window>Show Badia Vistas.
Badia Vistas is a free download which works with QuarkXPress versions 4.1–6, for both Windows and Macintosh platforms.
Badia ReplaceInPlace
InDesign users are familiar with updating images quickly by using the Place command and checking the Replace box. QuarkXPress doesn’t have this functionality-that is, until you install Badia’s ReplaceInPlace XTension.
As with the Vistas XTension, the interaction with XPress is simple, direct, and intuitive. ReplaceInPlace adds a new tab to the Get Picture (CMD‑E) dialog, titled “Replace in Place”. Revealing the tab shows just one check box, “Retain Previous Picture Attributes”, giving the XPress user the highly desirable ability to, for example, replace a low-res version of a picture with a high-res version without having to resize and move the content.
Badia ReplaceInPlace is a free download as well, but only for XPress 6.x users on the Mac platform-sorry, Wintel users.
Both Vistas and ReplaceInPlace work well and are pleasures to use. In testing them out I found no problems or hitches in use.
Badia's XTension Range
Vistas and ReplaceInPlace aren’t the only freebies on the Badia site, however. PageFrame allows the layout artist to print a frame around the page or spread; simple controls allow specification of color and line style; OpenNow not only gives picture file information at a simple double-click, but allows quick editing in the original application, similar to InDesign’s “Edit Original” command.
Their for-price product list shows a selection of worthwhile software as well. Most interesting seems to be the FullMeasure XTension, which provides an improved version of XPress’s Measurements Palette, giving tabbed access to an enormous amount of XPress functions and commands. It’s XPress’s Measurements Palette on steroids.
Prices go from $49.99 to $99.99 for Badia’s product line, with upgrade pricing available for current owners of older versions of thier XTensions and 5- and 10-user licenses available.
Badia’s selection of XTensions provide clear value to the XPress-based layout artist, and thier freebies are definite must-haves.
To grab the freebies, go to http://www.badiaxt.com/freebies.html and select from the list. To examine their product line, go to thier home page.
If someone has had chance to work on Xpress 7, please update all of us.
Ooops, You are wrong. Badia Replace In Place XT conflicts. I saw many problems my customers using the Replace in Place XT, causing images not being updated, when changig dimension to the image.
(Like placed image was 72 dpi, changed in photoshop to 300dpi, dimension must change in picture box now, but with the presence of the Badia XT, the image was not updated.)
One had to open quark doc whit option key to correct.
Quoting Thomas:
That is an interesting problem.
For the record, I test things like this on my home system. My configuration is:PowerMacG4, 1.25GHz; Mac OS X 10.3.7; QuarkXPress 6.5.
When I tried out the XTension, the picture dimensions didn’t change either; however I understood that that was the point of ReplaceInPlace-to reinsert a picture without having to resize and reposition it. That’s where I see the value in it, anyway. Of course, if you’d like tofollow up to clear me up on exactly what what meant (If I missed your point) feel free to do just that. In the meantime, I’ll do a little more playing around with it.
I still recommend this XTension (it’s free, and if it doesn’t work you can always trash it), but I would advise readers to take Thomas’s comment into account, and remind everyone that while I can tryout any given XTension to a certain degree, I cannot guarantee that any XTension will necessarily work without flaw on your setup. As always, caveat emptor.