8.5

Collaboration and single-sourcing
You can use the synchronization feature to easily package the same information for
distribution in multiple formats and through multiple channels. In addition to customizing
designs according to medium — print, Web, or interactive — you can also create projects
that contain multiple layout sizes. Best of all, you can streamline your work by automatically
synchronizing your content between layouts of any type.
Working with shared content
If you've ever worked on a project where the same content needs to be maintained
identically in multiple places, you know there is a certain degree of risk involved. What
if the print version of a document is updated, but the Web version is not? To address this
problem, QuarkXPress includes the shared content feature. This feature lets you link content
that is used in different places within a project file. If one copy of the content changes,
the other copies are immediately and automatically updated to reflect those changes.
For most synchronized items, QuarkXPress maintains a master version in an invisible part
of the project file called the shared content library. When you make a change to any
synchronized item in a layout, that change is written to the master version in the shared
content library, and then QuarkXPress automatically updates all synchronized copies of
that item in the project to reflect the change. So if you update item A, item B gets updated
automatically via the master item in the shared content library — and if you update item
B, item A is updated the same way.
The shared content library can hold pictures, boxes, lines, formatted and unformatted
text, chains of text boxes, groups, and Composition Zones. When you add something to
the shared content library, you can control which aspects of that content or item should
be synchronized (kept the same in every instance) and which aspects should not be
synchronized.
238 | A GUIDE TO QUARKXPRESS 8.5: PLUS EDITION
COLLABORATION AND SINGLE-SOURCING