Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
For several year , Adobe InDesign ( ) has been steal the public eye from longtime Sir Frederick Handley Page - layout front - moon-curser QuarkXPress ( ) . So the design community has been looking onward to the release of QuarkXPress 7 to see if Quark could reignite its flagship software package .
unluckily , XPress 7 does not represent a significant leaping forwards . The new release combines chiefly me - too additions with some still - evolving original features that have limited prayer for Quark ’s broad bag of photographic print designers . Most of QuarkXPress 7 ’s rightfully raw features target workgroups , making collaboration well-fixed .
However , that choice will probably disappoint many rank - and - file designers , especially if they ’re at pocket-size house that do n’t work in large teams .
Job jackets
Perhaps rendering 7 ’s biggest founding , task jacketslet you limit a big group of attributes — from permissible colors based on the ultimate output machine , to allowable school text styles . This in effect adds a preflighting feature article to QuarkXPress , but the feature is too difficult for the average designer to learn and expend .
The new job - jacket feature article in QuarkXPress 7 lets you specify allowable styles and other property by import them from an approved text file .
A business jacket is composed of job tickets , and each job ticket contains touchstone that you could apply to a specific layout . Job tickets delineate far more attributes than the received XPress template can moderate . For exemplar , a task just the ticket might let in a set of approved colors , style sheets , hyphenation prescript ( H&J sets ) , page property , bleed configurations , color management profiles , and rules , such as not allow the use of TrueType face .
you could then check next documents against this touchstone for ravishment .
Job tickets ca n’t restrict designers from limit novel styles or using forbidden baptistry or colors . But by using asharedjob slate , a production manager can guarantee that any change in the schoolmaster tag implement to all documents using it ; the master automatically update all documents and override changes contrary to the common style .
Unfortunately , the process of creating business jacket crown is unintuitive . Quark acknowledges that the lineament works best if you have QuarkXPress make a job jacket base on an exist layout , rather than render to create a line of work jacket from scraping . But that process is also less than visceral , because the exploiter user interface assumes knowledge of XML data construction . And in fact Quark bear that extremely skilled product staff and vendor will likely supply these tickets , often write them directly in XML — which limits this feature ’s use to large administration with computer programming - savvy production faculty .
Once Quark picture me how to make job tickets from existing documents via a complex duologue box sequence , I found it evenhandedly square to create more — but most users wo n’t get that excess handholding , and the documentation does n’t go into sufficient item .
I can see the potential value of the job - jackets conception — they can help production stave preflight a text file before turnout , and offer a template file with more entropy than a standard QuarkXPress template — but the difficultness of creating job tickets makes them less useful for rank and file away architect .
Composition zone
InDesign - inspired features such as transparency and drop shadows elaborate originative options , such as the duotone background and drib - shadow logo used here . And the enhanced Measurements palette ( bottom ) makes it well-heeled to access QuarkXPress 7 ’s features without dig into dialog box .
The other major unequaled unexampled lineament in QuarkXPress 7 is the authorship geographical zone , which countenance you specify an field of a layout that you’re able to apply in multiple documents , or that another user can work on simultaneously . Think of it as a frame stack away in a freestanding Indian file that an external user can access and manipulate . This feature reduces the need to move large Thomas Nelson Page lodge around , but it restrict what each user can do to the separate area .
Moreover , some people might find the feature counterintuitive as presently implement . Whereas it might make common sense to simply replicate - tap a zone to edit it , in fact you have to get at that part of the varlet via the Item carte du jour . And to make a constitution zone accessible to other users , you necessitate to apply the Layout menu , notthe File menu option used to share job jackets .
Workgroups in which multiple exploiter redact the same text file typically need to go after change , which the composition geographical zone feature does not do . You ’ll have to chase them manually or use a tool such as QPS ( Quark Publishing System ) . Quark has not announced when it will extend a QPS variation that ’s compatible with XPress 7 .
Tables somewhat improved
The Table instrument from version 5 is still awkwardly carry out as a series of link boxes , which gain formatting time - consume . This approach does have some advantages : because each prison cell is essentially its own loge , you’re able to revolve text within each , import ikon , and broadly speaking initialize each one as if it were a separate box . you could also hold how textbook flow from electric cell to cell using the intimate Link instrument .
Although the unenviable connect - cubicle overture remain , edition 7 does usher in several mesa sweetening : you’re able to now create header dustup that repeat on subsequent pages ; you’re able to interrupt a board at a particularise column or row , work it easy to flow it across multiple boxful or pages ; and mesa cell can spread out mechanically in depth as you add text . ( You must first enable this feature , which is lay to rest in the Modify dialog loge — or you may hit across its icon in the Measurements palette . )
Other innovations
you may now spread the same papers in multiple windows , form it easier to equate items within your layouts . And the new palette ( right ) offer warm access code to common occasion .
QuarkXPress 7 stick in several other features that most users will appreciate . The synchronisation introduced in version 6.0 ( ) now manage graphics and shape , not just text , across a project , so changes to one instance are chew over in all . And XPress 7 now lets you settle whether to synchronize just the content , just the box seat attribute , or both . This judge InDesign CS2 ’s object styles , which earmark consistent data format of object .
If characters are overlook from the current case , the newfangled Font Fallback feature substitutes the same eccentric in a different font on screen . This allows you to see the textual matter , though you ’ll still need the missing baptismal font to print it right . ( InDesign just put a colored rectangle in the place of the missing character . ) And you may now align physical object proportional to the page ’s boundary , not just to the selected items ’ bound .
XPress also now can apply effects filters to alpha channel , so you could adjust an imported image ’s transparency in all kinds of way . This feature film augments the Photoshop effects capability introduce in rendering 6.5 ’s Vista plug - in . ( However , XPress 7 did mass up the transparency in a few import Photoshop single file try for this review . )
Catching up to InDesign
Most of the QuarkXPress 7 additions duplicate capabilities initiate by its contender , Adobe InDesign . In a few cases , XPress meliorate upon the original .
For exemplar , the cardinal Measurements pallette , which provides agile access to a take aim ’s attribute , now offers many more controls than in previous versions . As you start work out with an object , the pallet displays only the ascendancy appropriate to the current selection . This contextual overture lets you ward off using dialog boxes for most of your oeuvre — a veridical metre - saver . One nice touch unique to QuarkXPress is the power to switch modes in the Measurements pallet — for example , from text formatting to frame formatting — without having to change pecker first . And the redesign palette now offer soft access to functions such as drop shadow and tab key controls .
The fresh Composition Zone lineament makes office of a layout uncommitted for editing by other XPress users . Here , the advert is in its own zona ( indicate by the promiscuous blue highlight ) , so it ’s accessible to designers while a writer works on the editorial content .
Other InDesign - inspired user interface sweetening include colour outlines to signal an object ’s layer , the ability to open several window for the same document ( or , in Quark ’s case , to create multiple document views as well as multiple document pane of glass ) , a lock chamber single-valued function that allow you lock the attributes and position of object severally , control over whether picture attribute such as rotation and scaling are maintained when you deputize a new picture ( finally ! ) , the summation of a color - cogent evidence trailer mode , dockable palettes , and pallet stage set ( correspondent to InDesign ’s workspace ) for saving different interface configuration .
XPress 7 also rectifies some longstanding output omissions : it can now produce PDF / X - compliant file , save PDF and other output configurations as recyclable styles , and embed font in EPS file , and it support Unicode format for symbolisation body as documents traverse platform and languages .
QuarkXPress now rival two ooh - and - aah InDesign features : transparency and drop phantasm . Unfortunately , Quark has n’t provided a trailer selection in the dialog corner so you could view your options as you experiment ; instead , you must press the Apply button each clip you want to see your options in action . But if you habituate the Measurements palette to set drop - phantasm dimension , QuarkXPress 7 applies the changes live .
In the case of foil ( which QuarkXPress callsopacity ) , the XPress version is better in some central regard : you’re able to set transparentness based on the colour swatch hold , so you’re able to have different transparency options for , say , the fill and abstract of a boxful . ( likewise , you may alter the transparence of private words in a text loge . ) By contrast , InDesign applies the same foil set to the entire object . I do care Quark had taken the next step , though : it would be nice to be capable to let in transparency as part of a color swatch setting , so you could apply and vary it globally . And I care QuarkXPress had included blending modes with its transparency feature film , à la InDesign and Photoshop .
Typographically , QuarkXPress 7 has follow up to speed in terms of several cardinal InDesign institution . XPress now gasconade a palette for easy access to special characters , livelihood for OpenType baptismal font attribute , a menu choice for inserting special spaces , and options to manage ligatures in each paragraph style rather than just globally . But in this area , Quark has missed an opportunity to surpass InDesign : it would have been nice to have the option to update fonts in style bed sheet — instead , as in InDesign , you still have to go through all your style sheet manually to replace any missing font you no longer desire to use . And QuarkXPress 7 still ca n’t convert consecutive hyphens to em dashes .
But QuarkXPress still lags behind InDesign in several key areas , include paragraph - base makeup , shade styles , based - on schoolmaster pages ( master key pages base on other master Page ) , undo horizontal surface , direct management , and opthalmic margin alignment ( hanging punctuation ) .
Limitations persist
I had hope that Quark might address some of the limitations that lurk in variant 5 and 6 , and it ’s disappointing that the company has not accept the chance to really push the program onward . For exercise , the multiple - layout capability introduce in QuarkXPress 6 still ca n’t feed text from one layout to another within a undertaking file cabinet , nor can it portion out hyphenation exceptions or layers across layout . So the feature film is really just a way to see to it that multiple documents share the same style and swatches by position them in one filing cabinet .
Slow performer
QuarkXPress 7 is disappointingly tedious compared to the former edition when I tested it both on Intel and PowerPC Macs . On average , Quark 7 run about half as fast as edition 6.5 , and in some test , the difference was even more spectacular . For example , it call for 16 s to reflow a 27 - page written document in XPress7 , compared with 4 seconds in XPress 6.5 on a three-fold - substance Mac Mini . On an older G4 Power Mac , those numbers were 20 and 4 second , respectively . For character , the same operation in InDesign CS2 took 4 seconds on both test systems . While the QuarkXPress 7 useable today is the PowerPC version , Quark says it will bring out a universal version that flow natively on Intel Macs as a liberal download this summer .
Macworld’s buying advice
Quark has added some in force features to XPress 7 , let in Unicode , transparency , drop shadow , improved pallet manipulation , synchronizing objects , composition zones , job jackets , as well as a hoi polloi of pocket-size but very utile features such as PDF / X support and Font Fallback . And users who stick with Quark XPress will be happy that the caller is take on some of the InDesign features that start turning heads four old age ago . But the newfangled territories Quark is staking out — specially composition zone and job jackets — will hardly excite the broad design residential district , and they ’re hard to learn . I was hoping for a lawful revitalization of this former innovation human dynamo , and this translation just does n’t fulfill that promise .
[ FormerMacworldeditorGalen Grumanhas coauthored more than a twelve books on QuarkXPress and InDesign . ]
