Help with automation of pix and text import in Quark

[casper]

I'm new to this forum, and quasi-inexperienced in automation but have been interested from the start. To date myself--I started as a typesetter in 1987 using Bestinfo (I'll fall over if anyone's ever heard of Bestinfo--we used to joke that the job market for Bestinfo operators was very good because although there were only 3 Bestinfo stations in the world, there were only 2 operators, but I digress) with XYWrite the fabulous text editor and Blueberry the translation program. I have a lot of questions but will stick to the one about my current problem:

We do about 6000 name badges every couple of months. I made a Quark (6.5) layout for badges, 10 up on a page and have a semi-automatic routine I go through to translate the Excel file we receive with names and divisions into XPress tagged text for import. This has worked well. We now need to add photos to the badges and this has me out researching, which is how I discovered this forum.

I am not sure which avenue to pursue for this: 1) purchase XData or XTags (and which one?) 2) auto import photos somehow (how??) in one pass, then import tagged text as usual hoping text and photos will match up 3) most elegant solution but is it possible and how?: figure out how to write something that will cue the appropriate photo import each time a name and division are brought in via XPress tags or 4) something I haven't thought of because I don't know the scope of what's available for automation.

Thanks in advance for thoughts or ideas.

casper