OK. I finally got to work today. I only have one quickie job I need to do before I go home (and the week's paperwork). I am semi-retired as goes layout work. I still do between 100 and 120 jobs a year, a few are large documents that range from software manuals to books. A few catalog a year that aren't overly large (one is, it's a class syllabus) and smallish catalog supplements. The rest of the jobs are a mix of ads, some web assets, price lists, etc.

Today it's a simple price list. It'll run somewhere above 10 pages, less than 20 I suspect looking at the Excel file. The tab-delimited data is like this:

Baking 8 Arrowroot Powder 1-lb 2.55 2.30 2.17
Baking 192 Bacon Bits Imitation 1-lb 4.10 3.69 3.49

Each new entry begins with the category for the item. The category can only appear once in a section header at the beginning of its category. This simple job will be done in QXP. It will not be in a table. It will all be done with paragraph and character styles. But, I will cheat. I will use a plug-in to bring in the tab-delimited file and that plug-in will apply the paragraph and character styles to the text. It will add the currency symbol. QXP will flow the text through the publication. Prior to the latest version of QXP, I would use the plug-in to also add the running headers, but with QXP 2015 that is no longer a necessary component.

I will first paste in the same text as above. I will create the styles and apply them to this sample text, then delete those two lines. I will then write the processing script for the plug-in. Then do the import. If I need to, I'll edit the script and reimport. I'll then drop in the company logo and info onto the master pages. Next? Export to PDF and email the PDF to my contact. It will be reviewed, a change or two perhaps, then I'm free the remainder of the day to do my paperwork.

Why iterate all this work-flow? To demonstrate what some of my work in my world entails. It (often) involves add-ins, (almost always) scripting, the creation and manipulation of text styles, master pages, text that may come to me as a Word file, or Excel, or XML or any other format. Graphic assets come in as PSDs, PSBs, EPS, AI, TIFFs, or any other number of formats all in a variety of color models that I need to maintain through the publication's creation and output. This requires controlled color management from the beginning to the output.

Back to the price list. I have spent way more time writing this than it will take to write the script to use on this (it's pretty simple). As regards doing something like this in XDP (or CorelDraw or PagePlus) is this: I believe I am fairly proficient in XDP. It reckon it would take me over three times as long to format this text than the entire job as outlined above will take me. Maybe more than that amount of time. Though I don't do many jobs in a year anymore, when one adds up the time savings in using a more efficient application that would equate to less dollars for me and my family in a year. Go back X number of years when I had a 5 person design shop, the loss of revenue in a year's period would be staggering.

Best regards, Mike