QuarkXPress 8 is a brave release. It marks a major change to the user interface of the venerable page-layout and design program for the Mac. The familiar interface that QuarkXPress has held to for 21 years is now more similar in style to that of Adobe's design applications. At the same time, version 8 offers very little in the way of new features, thus making the interface change its hallmark.

Much of what is "new" in XPress 8 comes from a free XTension to QuarkXPress 7 and the previously separate Quark Interactive Designer. If you've installed the free Quark XPert Tools Pro XTension, you already have several of XPress 8's new print- and Web-oriented features, such as item styles and item find/change. And if you have already purchased the US$49 Quark Interactive Designer, you have its new Flash-creation features as well. Obviously, if you never updated from XPress 6.5 to XPress 7, these features will all be truly new to you if you purchase version 8.

Given how much of what's new to XPress 8 is a roll-up of existing Quark applications, it's easy to see XPress 8 as old wine in new bottles. And it essentially is just that. There are a few truly unique functional additions, including a sophisticated set of controls for optical margin alignment (what QuarkXPress calls hanging characters), the ability to create grid styles, and the ability to specify the way characters align vertically as part of a paragraph style.

Simplified user interface

Changing the user interface of an established application is very risky for software companies. Quark has certainly evolved the interface of XPress over its 21-year history, but essentially, the program has stayed fairly close to its original look-and-feel for the last 18 years. XPress 8 goes beyond previous versions' approach of enhancing tools (such as the versatile Measurements palette) by actually changing how the basic interface works.

The new interface is simpler, cleaner, and easier to work with, and because of that streamlining, feels a bit faster too. Quark has avoided Adobe's tendency to overcomplicate the interface, and instead has made its capabilities easily accessible without getting in your way. It's done this by displaying far fewer tools: eight, versus 16 (in the Web layout) in XPress 7.3. Plus, these tools are now more flexible. For example, XPress 8 lets you rotate an object with the Item and Picture Content tools that you frequently use rather than forcing you switch to the Rotate tool--there is no longer a Rotate tool. You can now resize an object or its contents the same way.

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