Smart Content Designer User Guide

Debug Your Design

The Smart Content Preview palette allows you to verify the layout of your output and the styles of the elements in real-time. Apart from verifying the differences between your design intent and the actual output, you can also make use of the Smart Content Preview palette to understand the design intent and the layout structure that someone else has created. 

In Smart Content Designer, you can perform debugging at the following four different levels:

Debug Layout

In layout debugging, you manage the following elements:

  • Manage Master Pages: Check which master page is applied to which page of your project and change the master page if required.

  • Manage Box-tagging: Check which box/container in a master page contains which section of the bound content model and change the box-tagging or even the size of the box/container, if and as required.

The Smart Content Preview palette provides an option (through the icon ) that allows you to switch the view of your project between Template Layout (master page view) and Preview (section view), which are as follows:

Manage Master Pages

The Template Layout view of the Smart Content Preview palette displays a blank master page with empty boxes/containers in your project.

Based on your requirement, you can change the master page applied to a particular page of your project or make changes within a master page through the Page Layout palette, as described in the section Create Master Pages. This option comes in handy for large documents in which you might use numerous master pages. 

Manage Box-tagging

The Preview view of the Smart Content Preview palette displays the content of the sections in the boxes they are tagged in with styles applied, as you would see in the actual output.

Based on your requirement, you can manage the section(s) tagged to a box or even enable/disable a tagged section in a box using the Smart Content Style Guide palette.

Disabling a section means instructing QuarkXPress to not flow the content of the section in the box the section is tagged in.

To see which section has been tagged to a box: 

  1. In the Preview view of your project, select the box for which you want to see the tagged section. 

  2. Expand the Smart Content Style Guide palette where QuarkXPress highlights the tagged section and section elements in the selected box.

  3. Based on your requirement, modify or remove tagged sections through the process described in the section Box-tagging for Content Flow. 

To enable/disable a tagged section in a box: 

  1. In the Template Layout view of your project, select the down arrow against a tagged section to expand the drop-down menu options. 

  2. In the drop-down menu, select or deselect the option Enable to enable/disable a section tagged in the box.

Additionally, when a tagged section has subsections, QuarkXPress also displays the dropdown menu Drill Down. The option Drill Down expands the list of all the subsections in the tagged section, from where you can enable/disable or remove a subsection in the box. 

Debug Styles 

In style debugging, you manage the following elements:

  • Manage Paragraph Styles: Check which paragraph style (alignment, spacing, indent, columns flow, and so on) is applied to a section and change the style if required.

  • Manage Character Styles: Check which character style (font, size, color, shade, opacity, and so on) is applied to the text of a section and change the style if required.

  • Manage Item Styles: Check which item style (dimensions, borders, and so on) is applied to the region of a section and change the style if required.

  • Manage Element-specific Styles: Check element-specific styles (such as table style, callouts styles, grid style, footnote style, and so on) applied to the element and change the style if required.

The process to check and manage these styles is similar. You can check or manage all the applied styles in the Smart Content Style Guide palette. However, if you want to configure a captured style, you have to do it in a style's respective palette. For example, you can manage paragraph and character styles in the Style Sheets palette, you can manage item styles in the Item Styles palette, you can manage element-specific styles (such as table or footnote) in the element-specific palette (such as Table Styles palette or Footnote Styles palette). 

Manage Paragraph Styles

To check or manage paragraph styles:

  1. In the Preview view of your project, select the section or section element box for which you want to check or manage the paragraph style.

  2. Expand the Smart Content Style Guide palette where QuarkXPress highlights the tagged section and section elements in the selected box.

  3. In the Default Rule pane of the Smart Content Style Guide palette, expand the Paragraph Style dropdown list to see the applied paragraph style or to change it.

Manage Character Styles

To check or manage character styles:

  1. In the Preview view of your project, select the section or section element for which you want to check or manage the character style.

  2. Expand the Smart Content Style Guide palette where QuarkXPress highlights the tagged section or section elements in the selected box.

  3. In the Smart Content Style Guide palette, select the highlighted section node to get the Inline Elements tab in the Default Rule pane. 

    The tab Inline Elements in the Default Role pane only appears for section nodes and not for section elements such as Title, Body, Paragraph, and so on.

  4. In the Inline Elements tab, you can see the character style applied or change it through the drop-down menu Character Style. 

Apart from checking the applied character style and changing it, you can also manage the font formatting like Bold, Italic, Underline, and so on, and even text shading. 

Manage Item Styles

To check or manage item styles:

  1. In the Preview view of your project, select the section or section element for which you want to check or manage the item style.

  2. Expand the Smart Content Style Guide palette where QuarkXPress highlights the tagged section node or section body element.

  3. In the Default Rule pane of the Smart Content Style Guide palette, expand the Item Style dropdown list to see the applied item style or to change it.

    If you are applying the item style to an element for the first time, you first have to create an anchor box for the item by selecting the checkbox Create anchor box in the Default Rule pane. 

You can check or change the item style applied to the Title element of a section through the Picture Style dropdown menu in the Default Rule pane.

Manage Element-specific Styles

You can also check and manage the following element-specific styles:

  • Table style

  • Callout styles

  • Grid styles

  • Footnote styles

To check and manage an element-specific style (for example a table): 

  1. In the Preview view of your project, select the table for which you want to check or manage the table style.

  2. Expand the Smart Content Style Guide palette where QuarkXPress highlights the table section element.

  3. In the Default Rule pane of the Smart Content Style Guide palette, expand the Table Style dropdown list to see the applied table style or to change it.

Similarly, you can check and manage other element-specific styles. 

Debug Content

In content debugging, you manage the following elements through the tab Source Content of the Smart Content Preview palette:

  • Manage Overmatter: Check and manage sections with overmatter (lack of space in a text box/region to accommodate all the content of a tagged section). 

  • Manage Unused Elements: Check and manage unused elements. 

  • Manage Metadata: Check and manage the metadata you are using as content in your published outputs.

Manage Overmatter

To check and manage sections with overmatter:

  1. While in the Preview view of your project, in the Source Content tab of the Smart Content Preview palette, select the See Over Matter checkbox. QuarkXPress displays the icon  at the bottom-right corner of the box where overmatter happens in the project.  

  2. Select a box with overmatter to highlight it in the Smart Content Preview palette.

  3. Make the changes to the content or the container box on the master page where overmatter happens based on your requirements.

    When you select the box in your project, QuarkXPress also highlights the tagged section in the Source Content tab.

    The Source Content tab also displays the total number of sections with overmatter in a document and arrow buttons to move back/forward to the previous/next section with overmatter.

Manage Unused Elements

To check and manage unused elements:

  1. While in the Preview view of your project, in the Source Content tab of the Smart Content Preview palette, select the Show Unused Elements checkbox. Similar to overmatter, QuarkXPress displays the icon  at the bottom-right corner of the box where there is an unused element in the project.

  2. Select a box with unused elements to highlight it in the Smart Content Preview palette.

  3. Make the changes to the content or master page to include/exclude elements based on your requirements.

    The Source Content tab also displays the total number of unused elements in a document and arrow buttons to move back/forward to the previous/next unused element.

Manage Metadata

  • In the Preview tab, you can check the style, format, and position of the metadata and then manage it accordingly. 

  • In the Source Content tab, select the icon button Show/Hide Meta in the top-bar icons to see all the metadata used in your document. The Count column value against a meta attribute displays how many times the meta attribute has been used in the document. 

Source Content Search Tool

The Source Content tab also has a search tool, which you can use to search for an XML element (such as a Paragraph, Title, or Body) or text in your document. When you search for an XML element/text in the Source Content tab search toolbar, QuarkXPress highlights all the occurrences of the XML element/text. When you select a section/section element in the Source Content tab, QuarkXPress also selects the section box in the project. 

Additionally, the Source Content tab search tool also has the following two search filters: 

  • Ignore Case: Allows you to ignore the letter case of your search query string. 

  • Ignore Unused: Allows you to ignore the unused elements in your search query.

Manage Style Rules

The sections and section elements of a document are at different levels of the hierarchy in a content model. For that reason, navigating the style rules applied to the different sections and section elements in the Smart Content Style Guide palette can be a bit challenging. 

For that, QuarkXPress offers another palette Smart Content Style Rules Viewer in which you can view all the rules you have applied to the section/section elements of a document at once in a flat table. 

Smart Content Style Rules Viewer Palette

When you select a section/section element in the Smart Content Style Rules Viewer palette, QuarkXPress also highlighted the section/section element in the Smart Content Style Guide palette as well as in the project, from where you can verify the design and make changes as required.

The Smart Content Style Rules Viewer palette offers numerous sorting and searching options that allow you to quickly browse through and find the styles applied to various sections/section elements in your document and then manage them through the Smart Content Style Guide palette. These options come in handy for large documents with numerous sections and section elements. 

Sort Options

You can sort the list of style rules by all the table column values in the palette, which are: 

  • Sort by Flow: Sorts the list by the order of occurrence in the document and in the layout.

  • Sort by Style: Sorts the list by default styles and applied styles.

  • Sort by Element Name: Sorts the list by element names.

  • Sort by Element Type: Sorts the list by element types.

  • Sort by Element Scope: Sorts the list by styles applied. 

To sort the list, simply select the table column name or the up and down arrow icons  next to the table column name to sort the list by ascending or descending order. 

Filter and Search Options

You can filter the list of style rules by: 

  • Element Name

  • Element Type

  • Element Scope

  • Section/Section Element

You can filter rules by name, type, and scope in the Smart Content Style Rules Viewer palette through one of the following two ways:

  • Select the filter icon next to the search bar at the top of the palette to expand the filter search bar for each of the table column values and then search the name of the element in their respective search bars.

  • Right-click on a style rule and then select the filter that you want to apply (by name, type, or scope) in the context menu.

To filter style rules by a section, right-click on the section/section element in the Smart Content Style Guide palette, and then select the option View defined styles in Style Viewer.

You can search for a style rule by its name only. To search for a style rule, simply type in the name in the search bar of the Smart Content Style Rules Viewer palette and QuarkXPress highlights the styles that are related to your search query. 

These sorting options, filters, and search capabilities allow you to browse through your document's style and manage them efficiently, especially in large documents.

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