First Look: QuarkXPress 8

Quark used to be the last word in desktop print publishing, but Mac OS X support gave Adobe's InDesign a competitive advantage at a crucial time. With QuarkXPress 8, Quark is attempting to gain back market share it has lost to Adobe, with an acknowledgement of just who its key markets are. It's also reaching out to new customers, by offering new tools and language support that will be of interest to interactive designers, typographers and print professionals alike.

Simplification and suitability are the key messages in version 8. "We looked across the board at how page designers were creating their layouts in various applications," says Dan Logan, QuarkXPress Product Manager. "We found they were being frustrated by the number of tools required to do even basic tasks like placing and fitting their images. Our approach was to make the tools better fit the tasks."

Quark's research also involves being aware of the creative workflow most designers follow, with the refreshing addition of native Illustrator and Photoshop file support. There are improvements to existing tools and while the main keyboard shortcuts are still in place, the new version introduces intelligent tools that adjust to user demands for placing and manipulating content. So does this spell a new life for the venerable DTP tool?

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Quark used to be the last word in desktop print publishing, but Mac OS X support gave Adobe's InDesign a competitive advantage at a crucial time. With QuarkXPress 8, Quark is attempting to gain back market share it has lost to Adobe, with an acknowledgement of just who its key markets are. It's also reaching out to new customers, by offering new tools and language support that will be of interest to interactive designers, typographers and print professionals alike.

Simplification and suitability are the key messages in version 8. "We looked across the board at how page designers were creating their layouts in various applications," says Dan Logan, QuarkXPress Product Manager. "We found they were being frustrated by the number of tools required to do even basic tasks like placing and fitting their images. Our approach was to make the tools better fit the tasks."

Quark's research also involves being aware of the creative workflow most designers follow, with the refreshing addition of native Illustrator and Photoshop file support. There are improvements to existing tools and while the main keyboard shortcuts are still in place, the new version introduces intelligent tools that adjust to user demands for placing and manipulating content. So does this spell a new life for the venerable DTP tool?

The All-New QuarkXPress

QuarkXpress 8 has been designed to follow an intuitive workflow. You use the Item Tool when it's time to set up a page, the Bézier Point Pen Tool when you need to draw and when you want to work with content, double-clicking on an image or text will bring up the new Text Content or Picture Content Tool respectively.

The Picture Content Tool is one of the standout new features in version 8, bringing the ability to grab, rotate and scale images without typing in numbers or switching from tool to tool. It enables direct picture rotation and scaling along with previewing and cropping.

The picture box itself has been redesigned, offering a semi-opaque overlay and handles so that you can interact directly with the content and place it on the page with greater precision. Modifier keys are also supported, such as using the Option key to duplicate when dragging or constraining the interactive rotation by holding down Shift. The existing Item Tool and new Text Content Tool both also exhibit similar smart behavior, which Quark says will lead to less switching between tools, even for rotation or dealing with multiple items. For example, when you want to resize multiple objects you can just select them and do so -- there's no need for a separate 'group' command.

Content is king

The new content tools also allow designers to create templates with preset content type or modifier keys to set the generic boxes to be either text or pictures. In keeping with tradition, keyboard shortcuts abound in QuarkXPress 8, such as if you press R when using the circle tool, you'll be presented with a circular picture box, or if you hold down B when selecting a box, you can cycle through the tools options. Such shortcuts add to the existing library of key commands that are preserved in version 8.

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