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Diary Generation Options - General DTP Options

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The DTP diary generation options below are used to tweak the way QuarkXPress and InDesign behave during diary generation and correspond to the similarly-names options tab of the generation options property.

 

Left side

 

Ignore Invisible Layers

If checked, this option tells Q++Studio to ignore all the objects placed on layers that were left as invisible when the GridTemplate was saved. This option's default is true.

 

This option is available for QuarkXPress versions 8-2025 and InDesign 2020-2025.

 

InDesign

 

When using InDesign, care must be taken not to save your template with a selected object on an invisible layer, as this will prevent InDesign from deleting that invisible layer, prior to the template being included in the output file, as shown in the example on the right.

Use Main Grid as seed for generation

This option, if turned on (the default), ensures that the generated output file of a script uses the Main Grid of that script instead of blank pages as the seed template from which the diary is built. This means that the QuarkXPress or InDesign preferences of your Main Grid (such as superscript values, em-spaces, ...) are applied automatically to the generated output file.

 

This option may need to be turned off in some rare cases when the preferences of the Main Grid template conflict with the default preferences of QuarkXPress or InDesign on your PC, or with the preferences of other GridTemplates used by the same script.

 

InDesign

 

When using InDesign, this option cannot be combined with the facing pages option, for templates that contain an odd number of pages.

Multi-pass token replacement

When this option is set to true, Q++Studio will start at the beginning of each textbox for each text replacement of tokens.

 

It is needed for case when complex recursion of tokens involving attributes (bold, italic, symbols, ...) lead to a cannot find text ... run-time message, although the text was indeed present in the textbox. This occurs because Q++Studio searches through each textbox in a single-pass, assuming that text replacements are generated in the proper order. The single-pass saves time, but if the search/replace commands are in the wrong order (extremely rare) then some text to be replaced is missed.

 

Setting Multi-Pass to true is therefore only truly necessary if you generate a lot of text, with varying attributes, from a single token. However, the speed reduction from setting this option to true is minimal and therefore we recommend to always set this option to true to be safe.

Keep Master Pages' vignette names

This option is useful in scripts that contain many different templates. It ensures that the master pages of the output file maintain any special name that you may have given them in the original GridTemplate.

 

In the example below, we have give descriptive names (left image) to the master pages of one of the templates used in a script that contains 11 different templates. With the present option set to false, the master pages of the output file simply refer to the number of the template and its page number (middle image). But when we set the present option to true, then the master pages of the output file keep these vignette names, making it easier to locate individual pages.

 

output file with option set to FALSE

output file with option set to FALSE

GridTemplate with custom vignette names

GridTemplate with custom vignette names

output file with option set to TRUE

output file with option set to TRUE

 

Note that the use of the option use main grid as seed for generation will cause the vignette names of at least the Main Grid master pages to be carried over to the output file.

 

Also, using the disambiguate master pages option when using InDesign, overrides any value chosen for the keep master pages' vignette names generation option

 

Recommended default: none, as it is a matter of preference.

Unlink and relink textboxes

This option is sometimes needed when complex typographical changes in a chain of linked textboxes can confuse QuarkXPress or InDesign and cause it to crash during diary generation.

 

When this option is set to true, before processing each textbox, Q++Studio checks if the textbox is linked and then breaks the link with the other textboxes so that all text replacement is done in one box. Then after all the token and text replacements are performed, the textbox chain is relinked.

Remove Hyphenation

QuarkXPress

 

Recommended default: true.

 

Complex typographical changes, as occurs in many GenTokens, can confuse QuarkXPress and cause it to crash during diary generation. When this option is set to true, before processing each token, Q++Studio removes the automatic hyphenation for that token text. This is equivalent to setting the H&J Format value to No Hyphenation.

 

Note that you can have some H&J assets' hyphenation setting be kept, by including "HYPH" (in uppercase, without the double-quotes) in the name of one or more H&J assets.

 

InDesign

 

This option does not apply to InDesign.

Remove Runaround

QuarkXPress

 

This option has Q++Studio automatically remove runaround from all objects in your output file, and thus get around a bug in QuarkXPress versions 8 and 9 whereby spurious text overflow warning is triggered in objects on the right page whenever another object with overlapping XY coordinates and runaround is located on the left page.

 

InDesign

 

This option does not apply to InDesign.

Turn off deletion optimization

Recommended default: false.

 

Since the end of November 2021, scanning with QuarkXPress 2016-2025, or InDesign, records the ID of the layer of each scanned object, as well as the ID of any group that that object might belong to.

 

This information is then used during diary generation to remove token processing instructions that operate on objects that will be deleted either as part of a layer deletion or group deletion. This new process greatly speeds-up the generation of diaries with multiple layers and groups being deleted.

 

But, should you encounter any issues (such as tokens remaining unprocessed), you can use the Turn off deletion optimization option.

 

Linked boxes

 

One issue that can arise, when using this option is due to grouping only the first box of a chain of linked boxes. If you group any of the textboxes of a chain of linked textboxes, then make sure that all the boxes of the chain of linked textboxes are grouped.

 

Right side

 

Warn of inconsistent Colors

 

QuarkXPress

2015-2025

QuarkXPress

 

When generating a diary, if one of the QuarkXPress or InDesign templates of the script has the same-name color as another of the templates of the script, then the warning message Input file contains same name Color asset defined differently will be generated for all the colors you have defined yourself if the CheckBox is grayed or if the CheckBox is checked then the same message will also be issued if an inconsistency is noticed for default colors (CMYK plus white plus registration). A design-time message is also available, which can be turned on/off in the preferences.

 

InDesign

 

This is a design-time message when using InDesign, and it can be turned on/off in the preferences.

Warn of inconsistent Text Style Sheets

 

QuarkXPress

2015-2025

QuarkXPress

 

When generating a diary, if one of the QuarkXPress templates of the script has the same-name text style sheet as another of the templates of the script, then the warning message Input file contains same name CharStyle asset defined differently will be generated for all the text style sheets you have defined yourself if the CheckBox is grayed or if the CheckBox is checked then the same message will also be issued if an inconsistency is noticed for the default text style sheet (ie. the Normal text style sheet). A design-time message is also available, which can be turned on/off in the preferences.

 

InDesign

 

This is a design-time message when using InDesign, and it can be turned on/off in the preferences.

Warn of inconsistent Paragraph Style Sheets

 

QuarkXPress

2015-2025

QuarkXPress

 

When generating a diary, if one of the QuarkXPress templates of the script has the same-name paragraph style sheet as another of the templates of the script, then the warning message Input file contains same name ParaStyle asset defined differently will be generated for all the paragraph style sheets you have defined yourself if the CheckBox is grayed or if the CheckBox is checked then the same message will also be issued if an inconsistency is noticed for the default paragraph style sheet (ie. the Normal text style sheet). A design-time message is also available, which can be turned on/off in the preferences.

 

InDesign

 

This is a design-time message when using InDesign, and it can be turned on/off in the preferences.

Warn of inconsistent H&Js

 

QuarkXPress

2015-2025

 

Not available for InDesign

QuarkXPress

 

When generating a diary, if one of the QuarkXPress templates of the script has the same-name H&J style as another of the templates of the script, then the warning message Input file contains same name H&J asset defined differently will be generated for all the H&J styles you have defined yourself if the CheckBox is grayed or if the CheckBox is checked then the same message will also be issued if an inconsistency is noticed for all default H&J styles.

 

InDesign

 

Does not apply to InDesign.

Warn of inconsistent Dashes & Stripes

 

QuarkXPress

2015-2025

 

Not available for InDesign

QuarkXPress

 

When generating a diary, if one of the QuarkXPress templates of the script has the same-name dashes/stripes as another of the templates of the script, then the warning message Input file contains same name Dashes/Stripes asset defined differently will be generated for all the dashes/stripes you have defined yourself if the CheckBox is grayed or if the CheckBox is checked then the same message will also be issued if an inconsistency is noticed for default dashes/stripes (all 11 styles from All Dots to Triple).

 

InDesign

 

Does not apply to InDesign.

Keep Minical boxes

This is a debugging option used when testing dates framing and shading.

Keep Deleted Pages

Use this option to delete all objects on the page, instead of deleting the actual page, when using Zap tokens, Conditional tokens, Macros and Saras to delete pages.

 

A marker is then created on each would have been deleted page, as shown on the right.

 

Note this is a testing/debugging option whose value is not saved from one diary generation to the next.

Break on NULL char

This option is internally set to always true, for the moment, and is used to warn of spurious NULL characters which can caused unexpected crashes of QuarkXPress and InDesign.

Keep DTP software visible

When this option is checked, QuarkXPress or InDesign is not hidden during diary generation.

 

This is useful in cases when QuarkXPress or InDesign seems to freeze, without any error message or visible crash, to show any QuarkXPress or InDesign modal dialog which may be waiting for a response and therefore blocking further processing.

 

One such dialog is the Cannot Find Job Jacket QuarkXPress dialog of QuarkXPress.

 

Note this is a testing/debugging option whose value is not saved from one diary generation to the next.

 

If you want any of the above settings values to be standard for all new script created in the future, then you can change the default values of all the diary generation options that correspond to script line property by going to the execution preferences.

 

See also: other diary generation options.

 


Topic 177211, last updated on 08-Jun-2024