QuarkXPress 7.1/7.2
Reviewed by Mike Hubbartt, © 2007
$749 USD, £749 UK Upgrade from version 7.0 to 7.1/7.2 – free to 7.0 owners Released: Version 7.1 - 1/10/2007, Version 7.2 – 4/5/2007 System Requirements: Mac OS 10.4 or later; Universal binary; 128 MB RAM; 850 MB Hard Drive Space; DVD-ROM or CD-ROM; QuarkXPress 7.01. Strengths: Export direct to HTML, superb graphics support, multiple layouts per project, share elements between project layouts, package includes training CD from Lynda.com, good tech support. Weaknesses: Version 7.1 crashed once while working with a table, but the QuarkRescueFolder automatically generated by the software saved my work. No crashes encountered while testing version 7.2 of the software. Download: http://www.quark.com/service/desktop/downloads/details.jsp?idx=684 |
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Introduction
Most people working in desktop publishing know about QuarkXPress. Initially released in 1987, this product has seen numerous updates to computer hardware and operating systems and version 7.1 of QuarkXPress - announced at MacWorld Expo 2007 - provides Universal binary support, as well as a host of new features. Version 7.2 was released in April and this review was done with the 7.1 and 7.2 releases.
Getting Started
The product box includes the usual goodies and a few extras: two installation CDs and two printed manuals, plus a nice tutorial from Lynda.com. Installation was a simple process – the most complicated thing was entering the long validation code. I installed version 7.01 with the first CD, registered the product online, then used the second CD to update the software to version 7.1. I downloaded the 7.2 update in early April from Quark’s website, and the update took quite awhile to complete, even though the update was run from my local system.
Before running QuarkXPress, I ran the free Lynda.com training CD. The video covers the new features in version 7 of the software, rather than demonstrating how to use QuarkXPress. Useful information and I’m glad Quark included this Lynda.com course, but I’m glad I was able to find more detailed information on using QuarkXPress when I visited www.Lynda.com/. For information on new features in version 7.2, Quark provides a readme file in PDF format as well as information on their website.
To test QuarkXPress, I worked with the software for more than a month. During that time I created new projects with single and multiple layouts. I have to admit I really liked how easy Quark makes it to add drop shadows to various elements (especially tables – see the layout picture below for the shadowbox effect on the macCompanion masthead). Little touches like this offer a simple and effective method to add visual enhancement to content. And the layout is similar to InDesign or PageMaker or other desktop publishing packages – intuitive if you’ve used any other package in the past and a tad daunting if this is the first DTP product you’ve used.
While working with QuarkXPress, I wanted to see how the product works compared to Adobe’s InDesign CS2. With InDesign, I was able to create content in Word, bring the content into InDesign and do minor touchup to the text and graphics. With QuarkXPress, I found that I needed to bring in the text and graphics separately, so I had to create a second Word document without the graphics, save the images in a folder and then manually place them in QuarkXPress. I understand why Quark took this approach, but it seems like a lot of work when compared to InDesign’s approach.
Note: I did have one problem when testing version 7.1. The software crashed when I was doing some intensive table work, but my files were automatically saved in the QuarkRescueFolder, so I didn’t lose any work. Nice.
Another aspect of QuarkXPress I really liked was the ability to create a project and share some or all of the design elements in multiple layouts. This means I can create a project like April macCompanion issue, then layout the monthly PDF in one layout and the website content in another project. And the nice thing is, changes to shared content are updated between the layouts using those elements. Sweet. And you can add layouts to a new project when the project is created, or you can add layouts to an existing project by Selecting Layout – New menu option.
New Features
There are too many new features in releases 7.1 and 7.2 to include in this review – to see the list, go to:
http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/features.html (top 10 features in release 7.1)
http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/72update.html (release 7.2)
If you need one good reason to move to 7.1 or 7.2, then Universal Binary support is probably the best reason. It took several minutes to load both QuarkXPress 7.1 and 7.2 on my G5 iMac, even though I have 1.5GB memory and plenty of drive space. Quark’s documentation says that release 7.1 runs up to 5X faster on Intel platform Macs than on PowerPC Macs, so now you have another great (and valid) reason to order that new Mac…
Conclusion: I liked using QuarkXPress 7.1/ 7.2. Although there are two installation CDs, version 7.1 was easy to install and the printed manuals are well written and adequately illustrated. The 7.2 update took more time to run than I’d like, but there were no errors and I just walked away while the update ran unattended.
The built-in Photoshop image processing functionality was nice – useful, but I can’t imagine anyone serious about DTP not already having Photoshop in-house to handle graphic manipulation tasks. And QuarkXPress does integrate well with Photoshop.
In the past, Quark had a reputation for not having the best customer support. I called them twice and both times found them to be helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. I also found the Quark website useful when I had questions.
I used PageMaker a lot in the past and feel it was easier to go from PageMaker to InDesign than from PageMaker to QuarkXPress. However, once I became more familiar with QuarkXPress I found it quite intuitive and enjoyed using it.
Recommendation: This mature product is a powerhouse DTP package. Run the Lynda.com tutorial before you install the software, and new comers should consider one or more of Lynda.com’s excellent QuarkXPress courses. A good buy and definitely recommended purchase.
