X-Ray Magazine v5n4 Badia BigPicture for QuarkXPress and InDesign

By Cyndie Shaffstall

Keeping track of pictures, updating modified pictures, and the most challenging of all, replacing pictures with new pictures, have been workflow drags for as long as publishing has been on the desktop, but Badia spends much of their time developing solutions.

BigPicture, with its easy-to-use dialogue box, will make you the master of your desktop, if not the teacher's pet of the pre-press department.

Using the main dialogue box you will select the settings and implement processes that provide complete control over every phase of the image process. There are two main views: iist view and icon view (shown in the figures below).


BigPicture XT	BigPicture XT

In either view, you may rename a picture by simply clicking the picture name, typing a new name, and then pressing return or enter. This is the simplest way possible to change the name of the actual file at the finder level and automatically update the link to that image in the document, but you cannot rename pictures that are missing or that have no external image file. (Use this function with caution as you will be renaming all instances of the image, not just the one you have selected.)

X-Ray Magazine v5n4 BigPicture XT Figure 1

Figure 1 Access BigPicture in QuarkXPress from the utilities menu.

The list view contains entries for each picture used in document pages or master pages in a line-by-line format. Eight columns of information are displayed and one of the columns is customizable – you can choose what to display in that column. Choose between dimensions, date modified, print status, creator, fonts, colors, effective resolution, scaling or angle.

X-Ray Magazine v5n4 BigPicture XT Figure 2

Figure 2 The list view has eight columns, of detailed information, that makes sorting images easy. You also have the added benefit of sorting by any of the information in these columns.

X-Ray Magazine v5n4 BigPicture XT Figure 11

Figure 3 When you are using the list view, you have options for what information to display in the custom column as shown above.

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About the author:

Cyndie Shaffstall is publisher, editor, and contributing author to X-Ray Magazine. She began her career working in print and type shops. At the introduction of the Macintosh to the print industry in the mid-80s, Shaffstall became a corporate trainer helping print-shop professionals adopt and adapt to the Mac. She has authored or co-authored many books on computer software, and self-published her first, QuarkXPress: Making the Most of Your Negative Experiences and her most recent, QuarkXPress 8: production tricks and experts' tips. In 1995, Shaffstall founded ThePowerXChange, a software-distribution company dedicated to extensions technology. In addition to ThePowerXChange, Shaffstall is the managing member of StrappyArt, LLC, the distributor of StrappyArt, which she invented in 2006. She has recently joined Spider Trainers, LLC, as the SEO/SMO advisor. She is also director of QuarkAlliance at Quark, Inc.