Xdata and InData are document-building tools that brings the full layout, design, typographic, and picture-publishing power of QuarkXPress or InDesign to data-driven, repetitive-publishing tasks — such as calendars, directories, or simple mail merges.

Xdata and InData are very powerful, especially when it comes to formatting text. Both can also apply text when certain criteria is met, or when it is not. Xdata and InData format and configure text based on a prototype that you create or in the case of the calendars, one that we created.

Simply put, Xdata and InData work like a mail merge on steroids. Each uses simple text statements to format text and graphics during the import routine. Xdata and InData can build documents at hundreds of pages per hour, or a simple calendar in just a few seconds.

With data2date, Xdata and InData will apply pre-defined style sheets to the custom and holiday text as it is imported. The user does not have to go to every text chain, or every date, and apply a style. They may, of course, but it will not be necessary.

In this image, you can see a typical prototype for the planner templates. It is much simpler than the prototype above, but it uses another great feature found in Xdata and InData, Headers and Footers. The planners flow from week to week, not month to month, so it's necessary to display the name of the month at the top of the page and this changes as text is imported. By telling Xdata or InData that we want to use the month field as a header (even though the month field is not used elsewhere on the page, therefore, hidden), Xdata's or InData's headers feature automatically puts the name of the month associated with the dates imported.