QuarkXPress 4 was the first layout application I have worked with and it was my companion during my growth as a designer. Yet InDesign CS came along and I fell in love with it, betraying my friend that had XPressly shared with me many layout adventures. Though this is still a beta release, QuarkXPress 7 looks and acts like Brad Pitt in Troy. A temptation for those designers who always look for the best.

With the announcement of Intel based Macs at the Macworld conference, we also found out that Photoshop isn’t yet really agreeing with the new processor. Adobe, as Jeremy Schultz [1] reports, doesn’t look like is very much interested to put that right straight away. Yet Quark’s statement that version 7 of their layout application will run on Intel based macs might become Adobe’s “Trojan horse”. We’ll see who’ll burn down first.

Completely Enchanted By the Measurements Palette

The first thing I have noticed when I opened QuarkXPress 7 was the Measurements palette. It’s so rich of features, so easy to use and so convenient that I almost said to myself: “To hell with the new transparency options, the Open Type features and Brad Pitt, I think I’ll just play with the Measurements palette all day”.

Since I started to use InDesign, one of my biggest complaints against QuarkXPress was in actual fact this palette. Now it smokes the Control Palette, the InDesign’s equivalent. At mouse over, the Measurements palette shows you tabs that let you decide which sets of functions to show, thus making you save a lot of screen space which would otherwise be used up by a zillion pallettes. Do you want to see it in action? Here it is.

The following series of screenshots shows you how the Measurements palette looks when dealing with image frames. Click on “enlarged version” to see the palette at full size.

Measurements palette, classic settings ([2] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, frame settings ([3] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, runaround settings ([4] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, clipping settings ([5] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, space/align settings ([6] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, drop shadow settings ([7] enlarged version)

This series of screenshots shows you how the Measurement palette looks when selecting text.

Measurements palette, classic settings ([8] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, text settings ([9] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, frame settings ([10] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, runaround settings ([11] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, chaacter attributes settings ([12] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, paragraph attributes settings ([13] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, space/align settings ([14] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, tabs settings ([15] enlarged version)

Measurements palette, drops shadow settings ([16] enlarged version)

Talking about palettes, they can now be grouped together and collapsed in a way that is very similar to Photoshop’s method of grouping.

Tansparency and Drop Shadow Effects

Transparency can be controlled from anywhere you can control colour, i.e., the Measurement palette, the Colour Palette, and the Modify dialog box under the Edit menu. Transparency in PSD files and alpha channels are also now supported and drop shadow effects have been added.

Here’s a little test I did with transparency and drop shadows in QuarkXPress. This screenshot has been reduced in size, but QuarkXPress 7’s rendering of the photo was pin-sharp

QuarkVista XTension

Introduced with QuarkXPress 6.5, the QuarkVista XTension has also its share of enhancements:

• QuarkVista effects can be applied to EPS and images containing line art.
• Filters can be applied to alpha channels (for example you can apply the blur filter to make the transition between image and background smoother).
• Contrast/Negative features added.
• Curve enhancements: can be adjusted numerically instead of dragging them with mouse. Channels can be changed all simultaneously.
• Synchronization: synchronizes pictures effects such as drop shadows, QuarkVista effects and adjustments for a better consistency.

Share Your Work With Little Problems

QuarkXPress 7 offers various features that allow designers to share their work with other professionals, maintaining consistency and respecting the printing parameters required for the job:

• Composition Zone feature: Let’s you share parts of documents or entire documents with other users so that several people can make changes to the same layout.
Hats off to Quark for having finally provided an application that is about what designers need
• Job Jackets allow for strong control over projects so that they never stray away from their original intent and prevent printing problems before the preflight stage. Job Jackets include specifications for colour management, style sheets, picture colour space and others. Aside from being an aid in preventing printing problems, Job Jackets also help maintain consistency amongst multiple jobs handled by several designers.

Other Application Enhancements

Quark recently has focused their marketing on the listening factor. They stressed how their attitude is changed and they are giving designers and desktop publishers the tools for their needs. Surely, they added quite a number of features to QuarkXPress 7 that were lacking in previous versions of the program and have become essential for graphic artists:

• Strong Open Type features, amongst the other things, allow for the use of ligatures and character alternates. Added also a Glyph palette. Access to special characters, such as indent here and discretionary hypens, is also made easier as you can find the most common ones under the Utilities menu.
• Multiple layout views allow designers to view their projects in several panes within one window or in several windows.
• Projects can contain multiple layouts like in QuarkXPress 6. However you are now able to export single layouts and even add them to existing projects.
• Colour management has been greatly improved too. You can even preview how your layout will look on different output devices. Colour management can be configured to use the same colour settings used in versions 3.3, 4.0 and 6.0, allowing for backward compatibility. Files can only be saved down to version 6.0 though.
• Expanded export features: The most significant change from a desktop publishing perspective is the possibility of saving your export settings for later use, so you can just pick the setting you need for a specific intent. PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3 standard files can also be created.

The Overall Impression

So far so good. This is just a beta and my observations are simply related to some of the changes this application has had compared to previous versions, knowing well that this release has bugs to be ironed out, which is natural in a beta release.

Yet, I’d say hats off to Quark for having finally provided an application that is about what designers need and not what Quark thinks they need. Some people say “better late than never”. Is it? QuarkXPress 7 isn’t a dangerous foe for InDesign.The enhancements are not enough of a motivation for existing InDesign users to switch to QuarkXPress, yet some people who haven’t yet made the choice between the two programs might have a little problem choosing.

On the other hand, InDesign has the advantage of being well integrated with the Creative Suite and, traditionally, QuarkXPress alone has always been more expensive than the entire Adobe product suite. Yet don’t forget that at the moment Photoshop doesn’t run well on Intel Macs, which could be a drawback for the Creative Suite. Will this be fixed with the CS 3 or will Adobe release an update? How will this affect QuarkXPress’ success in the market?

If you got an idea, let us know.