Each month Design Tools Monthly reviews some of the best plug-ins and XTensions on the market. Most of the mentioned products can be purchased through The PowerXChange.

Plug-in Catalog
ThePowerXChange has a downloadable catalog/database of plugins for QuarkXPress, InDesign, Photoshop, Acrobat and Illustrator, including more than 200 new entries since December. Download it at www.thepowerxchange.com/catalogue_download.html

Dreamweaver

• LIFT Fixes Website Accessibility
  UsableNet's LIFT ($299) is a plug-in for Macromedia Dreamweaver that lets you check a website for compliance with usability and accessibility requirements in the W3C and Section 508 guidelines. You can test a single page, a complete site, selected sections, or any folder full of files, as well as inspect the problems and fix them. Their website also has free accessibility extensions for Dreamweaver.

  UsableNet

InDesign

• Publication System for InDesign
  WoodWing's Smart Connection Pro CS (799 euros, including InCopy CS) adds to the interactivity between InCopy and InDesign. It provides a customizable palette showing previews of images in the publication folder and essential data about them. Another palette shows a hierarchical view of the document, listing all assets, their status, the basket they belong to, the editor working on them, and more. One key feature is its ease of customization to fit your publication's workflow. Others include double-placement prevention and version tracking.

  Woodwing Software

• Print Image Names on Proofs
  Knowbody's Label It ($50 per year) is a plugin for InDesign that adds file name labels to placed graphics when you print. Labels can show full directory paths, be located on or near the image, and include a background color.

  Knowbody

Photoshop

• Photoshop Plug-in Bargain
  Alien Skin, Andromeda, nik multimedia and Digital Element have teamed up to offer a very special bargain package. The Essential Plug-in Bundle ($199) includes:
  • Alien Skin Image Doctor ($129)
  • Alien Skin Splat! ($99)
  • Andromeda Series 3 Screens ($109)
  • Andromeda EtchTone ($98)
  • Digital Element Aurora ($199)
  • nik Color EfexPro! Photo Classic Design Bundle ($200)
  • nik Color EfexPro! 2.0 Select Upgrade ($80)

  Total value: $914, for just $199, through May 31. We highly recommend all of these products.

  Alien Skin
  Andromeda Software
  Nik Multimedia
  Digital Element

QuarkXPress

• Best Xtensions
  Jay Nelson, the editor of Design Tools Monthly, gives positive reviews of several great XTensions for QuarkXPress 6, 5 and 4, including alap's ImagePort and ShadowCaster, Gluon's XPressImage and ProScale, Badia's BigPicture, Techno Design's Photoshop Import XT and Markzware's MarkzTools. If you can't read the article, check out the developers' websites.
  Macworld 05/04, pg.80

  alap-a lowly apprentice production
  Gluon
  Badia Software
  Markzware
  Techno Design

• Vision's Edge is Back
  One of the most respected and prolific developers of XTensions for QuarkXPress, Vision's Edge, has finally released QuarkXPress 6-native versions of several of their products. We recommend all of them highly and encourage you to explore them at their Web site:
  • Bookletizer 6.0 ($49)
  • Crops XT 6.0 ($49)
  • Grid Master 6.0 ($49)
  • FlexScale 6.0 ($59)
  • Nametag 6.0 ($49)
  • Page Border 6.0 (free)
  • Resize XT 6.0 ($99)

  Vision's Edge

• The Best QuarkXPress Tables
  Gluon's TableMaker 6.1 ($139) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 5 or 6 that lets you easily create tables that are far superior to the tables QuarkXPress creates. Tables can cross multiple pages, include vertical and horizontal rules, and be saved as Styles for future use. Data can be entered directly, imported from a text file, or copied and pasted from another application such as Excel, then automatically sized to fit and vertically balanced.

  Gluon
  The PowerXChange

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