Quark Forums

 Is there anyway to insert automatic page jumps in Quark 6.52 documents?

 The problem I have is groups of data which must be kept together are being split where a page break occurs.

 The use of XDATA or XTAGS is not an option. The use of Filemaker is also not really an option but we may have to resort to using it to solve this problem.

 Only XPRESS tags, Apple Scripts and/or 3rd party open source software can be used - which can run on MAC TIGER.

 Any ideas?

 Can you describe the problem more fully? XData/XTags/Filemaker don't sound relevant from your brief description.

What exactly do you mean by automatic? An 'enter' from the numeric keypad (or equivalent) will always jump to a new box or column. And you can use paragraph settings to keep paragraphs with next paragraph, or keep lines in paragraph together.

Or is it the inserting you want to be automatic (as opposed to the 'jumping')? Can you describe your text, how it is being brought in etc? Applescript may be useful, but I'd need more information before suggesting more.

Hi Emma,

Many thanks for replying so quickly. I am needing to automatically insert page jumps.

I am creating a simple telephone directory. The data is coming from Access as a TAB delimited file. Some Xpress Tags are already included in the data. 

As far as layout and style sheet calls go, everything is working, save for the following:

There are family groups in the telephone directory with a single line address at the end of each family group. These family groups must be kept together. Currently when the text is flowed in to Quark a large number of family groups are split where a page break occurs. Other than going through manually and putting in page jumps using shift+keypad enter (on a MAC) in the appropriate place after the last family group of the page I am struggling to find away of doing this automatically.

The tag <\b> provides a page jump. Its this that needs to be automatically inserted into the Xpress Tags at the appropriate place to get the maximum number of family groups to a page without splitting the entries. Its this that needs to be automated.

The problem is that the family groups could have 1 name or 8+ names in plus an address line plus a line space.

There are 50 lines per page (its only A5 in size).

The only way I can think of doing this is to use Access or perhaps Filemaker to count the number of lines (or fields) per family group add 1 line/CR for a space between family groups and then to calculate if the line count is less than 50 but more than say 47 for when a page jump needs to occur in the Xpress Tags. So 1 page may have 5 family groups on it, the next page may have 8 and so on.

This solution seems very involved and complicated. If there is an easier way of achieving this I am all ears.

When trialling the data being pulled through I also noticed occurences where the line count was exact to the page in terms of family groups but the line space/CR after the family group went over on to the next page.

Many thanks for your help,

Neil.

 OK I understand now, and of course it's crying out for XData, but since that isn't an option...

 Could you make it work with style sheets? - if the next entry is the same family name, it would have a 'keep with next paragraph' style. The last one would not have this constraint, and could also have a space after - getting rid of the need for the carriage return which otherwise might appear at the top of the next page.

This would be better than hard-wired page breaks, as if lines get added or deleted later on, the groups would flow forward or backward together.

Implementing it is another thing though... my immediate thought is I'd either do it with Filemaker, adding style sheets via a calculation, or use Applescript, maybe even after flowing the text in. Sort of 'if next line has the same surname apply stylesheet part_of_family else apply stylesheet end_of_family'

It's late on a busy day so maybe I'm missing a brilliant solution... 

Is this a one off or a regular job?

 Hi Emma,

Genius! You are a genius! I tried what you suggested and it worked exactly how we needed it to. I selected the radio button for 'Keep lines together' All lines in the CR in Quark and an applescript with a few simple find a replace commands and it worked.

 Although the job is a one off it has applications else where for other jobs.

Thank you so very much. Problem solved. 

 Neil.