Special Report: A look into QuarkXPress 6.0, with screenshots

While this report is slightly outside the troubleshooting scope of MacFixIt, we felt obliged to pass along the information given the recent speculative doubt about the development and delivery of QuarkXpress 6.0.

What is new

One of the major new features in QuarkXpress 6.0 is the ability to use multiple layout spaces - which can be optimized for web or print - in a document. This boils down to the ability to convert print-based designs to Web-based designs or vice-versa, within one file. You can also synchronize the text between different layout spaces. After you synchronize text, you can edit it in one layout space, and QuarkXPress simultaneously changes the corresponding text in other layout spaces.

This is a boon for users who need to publish their media to both the Web and as a printed newsletter, for instance. You can create one file with one design for web and one design for print, and then click a button and make the text and some other elements the same in both versions.

In our testing, we found the multiple layout feature to be flawless in execution, and very useful. The "Layout" menu allows users to quickly create new layouts in either Print or HTML formats. The HTML format allows specification of static page width, variable width; colors for text, background, links, etc.; and background images. The Print format allows for paper size; width, height and orientation; margin guides and column guides; and automatic text boxes. [continued]

The synchronize feature is also great. We were able to successfully match text across print and web layout versions without a hitch.

Quark Xpress' Aqua interface follows in the company's tried and true tradition - simple and straightforward. In fact, without some of the minor Aqua tweaks, you could easily confuse XPress 6.0 for a Mac OS 9 application. Instead of attempting to make the new release a radical departure from previous releases, Quark is using sound judgment by adding solid, well-done features while retaining the familiar workflow.

The new release finally gets multiple undo capabilities, one of the most requested features not available the 5.0 release. A document accompanying the beta release of XPress 6.0 reads "You can even use it to undo many actions that you couldn't reverse in previous versions of QuarkXPress, including text and picture import, text linking, and style sheet edits, among others."

We were impressed with Quark's first attempt at multiple-undo. We stepped back more than a dozen steps - across multiple pages - with ease. XPress 6.0 did not even exhibit the slow-down generally associated with quick multiple-undo actions.

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In Xpress 6.0, there are better options for picking which layers will print from a print-optimized layout space. In fact, you can now use the Print dialog box to specify which layers should print. Speaking of beefed up printing capabilities, the new release includes SmoothShading, which purportedly delivers better quality in printed blends from many devices.

There are a number of improvements for working with HTML and XML, including the ability to create and apply cascading menus, specification of CSS font families, two-position rollovers, better HTML preview and export, and more features for creating HTML forms.

Other miscellaneous enhancements include:

• Context menu enhancement: A new command, Select All Items on Layer, is now available in the Layers palette context menu.
• Full resolution preview: QuarkXPress 6.0 can display pictures on-screen using the picture file's full resolution.
• Both avenue.quark software and QuarkXTensions XML Import software have been updated to include "more comprehensive placeholder features and a more intuitive interface."

Compatibility with QuarkXpress 5.0

While we won't delve too far into issues of stability or compatibility in XPress 6.0 - since it is still a beta release - our first impressions are very positive.

There are virtually no problems opening documents created by XPress 5.0, and you can now save a 6.0 project as a QuarkXPress 5.0 document or template. XPress also does several things to ensure that the file will be able to be opened in the older version. For instance, Quark states in the application's ReadMe file: "Layer locking behavior reverts to 5.0 functionality. When you save a project as a 5.0 document and the project contains multiple layouts, QuarkXPress saves each layout as a separate document or template file that is appropriate to the layout's medium type."

Resources

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