Be careful what you check
Users of Quark 6.5 have found that running a spell check on style sheets corrupts the document being checked. As far as we can tell, checking the attributes of these sheets works perfectly.
Mysterious alien
There are Easter Eggs built into Quark (and other applications). These are little surprises placed within the application just for the amusement of the programmers. For many versions of XPress, a small alien can be made to appear. Draw a box in the center of the screen, leaving plenty of room on both sides, then press Shift + Command/Ctrl + Option/Alt + K. Mac users who have upgraded to the new version 7 can do this at least five times and another alien appears randomly, usually after 5 to 12 tries.
XPress quitting
Once in a while XPress just ups and quits. You will suddenly see a message saying “Unknown Error.” This usually seems to happen when you have been working for an hour without saving. You will find that any Save or even a Save As will not work. But all is not lost! Don’t restart; rather do a Select All and Copy, then make a new document with the same page dimensions and do a paste, and immediately save. Of course you will have no undo, but at least your work will be saved. Then quit XPress and restart the application, and remember to save more often.
Sharing master pages
Sometimes it is good to have a printout of your master pages. This is useful when discussing jobs with other designers and aids in communicating ideas and workflows. It is really simple to do: Just make sure that it is displayed and select Print. It will print both pages if it is a two-page Master. Of course if you have multiple Master Pages, then you have to do this for each set.
Database Import
To import preformatted data from a database, create new export fields in the database that add XPress Tags to the existing database fields. Export only the new fields as ASCII tabbed text. Open the file in a word processor and replace all the tabs with returns. Import the text into Quark, including Style Sheets. If you coded properly, the text will be imported with formatting.
Know what you’re checking
If you do not have Layout checked in the Find and Replace dialog, the search will only go from the point of insertion to the end of the document. If you uncheck the box it will go to the end then start from the beginning and return to the insert point.
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Better inkjet prints
If you work with XPress a lot, you probably have a PostScript printer. But many people have only inkjets that don't have PostScript, in which case you should always print with images displayed in high-res. To do this, right-click on each image and scroll down to Preview Resolution and change it to Full Resolution. Alternatively, turn the document into a PDF and print from that.
Precise tables
To get precise measurements with the Table tool in XPress 6, set the row height so it stays in set increments by using the Maintain Geometry setting (Item>Table> Maintain Geometry). First, select the row and enter the depth in the Measurements Palette. The Maintain Geometry can be toggled on and off in the Modify box, but this affects the whole row, not just a selected cell.
H&Js à la mode
It's possible to have several hyphenation and justification settings in a single document by applying them to different styles. Create a style for looser and another for tighter spacing. This helps for copy fitting in long documents. These different settings can be reached via the Paragraph Attributes dialog (Style Character).
For different H&Js (hyphenation and justification), first make a new set (Edit>H&Js>New), name it and save. To apply these to a Style Sheet go to (Edit>Style Sheets>Edit>Format and select the new H&J).
Max rules
When using Rule Above or Rule Below, you can't use either negative numbers or a number that is more than 50% of the point size of the text. So for 14-point type, the most you can get in an offset is 7-point.
Font changing
To quickly change fonts without the mouse, press Cammand+Option/Ctrl+Alt+Shift-M to highlight the Font window in the Measurement palette, then type the first few letters of the font name. As soon as the font name appears, hit enter.
Find no-style
In the Find/Change there is an option to use Style Sheets as a Find or Replace target. This is great for changing text that does not already have a Style Sheet applied. It can be a Character or Paragraph style. If you have certain characteristics, such as drop caps or italicized words, these can be changed in the same way.
Different guides
There are two kinds of guides in XPress: Page and Pasteboard. If you drag out a guide and release it over a page, the guide will apply only to that page, but if you drag out a horizontal guide and release the guide over the pasteboard, it will travel across the gutter and apply itself to both pages of a spread.
More usage
In the usage dialog, (Utilities>Usage) there is a More Information checkbox, which will give you locations of fonts, their type and version number. With images the information will be further details about files location, color depth, original dimension, resolution, and modification date. All this information will assist in making sure the right files are used and they are in the right locations.
Be careful of EPS
When you import RGB images into QuarkXPress and use the application to make them into a PDF, QuarkXPress will automatically make these into CMYK unless the format of the RGB was EPS. So workflows that use RGB JPEG, RGB TIFF, work well with software like Pitstop, but the RGB EPS files will slip through the Pitstop process without changing, resulting in the finished PDF files with the potential of containing both RGB and CMYK.
Word styles
When importing stylized text from Microsoft Word, be careful of any text that has the style ñ Normal .î This style can't be deleted in the Word document, so when importing text with type formatted with this style into a document that already uses Normal , you will have a conflict. You can choose to Auto-Rename, which will create a new style called Normal1, which can be confusing. Alternatively you can select Rename, where you can give the style a unique name. A checkbox, Repeat For All Conflicts, will repeat the same setting for all style overlaps. With in-house design departments, it's much easier to have default styles set the same in Word as they are in XPress; that way, whatever settings you use will be correct. Doing this with text supplied from clients, you can emulate their styles as defaults within a template.
Testing, testing
Whenever you are having problems with XPress, the first thing you should do is quit the application, then drag it, alone, out of the QuarkXPress folder. If it works well, then you know there is something in the old folder that is causing the problem. To find what is causing errors in the Quark folder, try turning off or even removing all extensions, then putting them back in one or two at a time. Restart after each. If, on the other hand the situation persists, the most likely fix is to reinstall. But remember that XPress can also conflict with something else on your computer.
Increasing lines like letters
Probably everyone knows the keys to increase and decrease type sizes (Ctrl+Shift+> and Ctrl+Shift+<). But, these are the same keys that increase and decrease line widths. Likewise with the Ctrl+Alt+Shift +> and the Ctrl+Alt+Shift+<. The former takes the line widths up by the preset sizes (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 12) and the latter changes them one point at a time.
Adding text to chains
You can't add boxes that contain text to a previously linked text chain. Simply cut and paste the text where you want it in the existing text stream. If you specifically need to add a new box, do so with an empty box, and then paste into it accordingly.
Version 7 features
Recently Quark publicly announced several features that can be expected in the upcoming Version 7.
• It will integrate Job Definition Format (JDF), enabling better communication and tracking of work from conception to finished piece, with the use of a Quark Job Jacket that incorporates detailed workflow and prepress information directly into a QuarkXPress project, and automatically embeds the output file for printing with PDF/X-compliant output.
• There will be much improved multichannel publishing for multiple print and Web layouts and improved support for database publishing.
• Other features will address transparency on a color basis. These will handle transparency on an element level, so colors, lines, fills, and so on can be adjusted individually for different degrees of transparency. Transparency will also address dynamic, soft drop-shadows, and the ability to mask pictures with soft edges using alpha channels„including native Photoshop transparency in PSD or TIFF format.
• Color management will be revamped with controls to improve onscreen simulations for soft proofing.
• OpenType and Unicode will be supported
• T here will be a new open file format to allow third parties to access, update, and create QuarkXPress project elements.
• All the content of a QuarkXPress project will be available as XML, which allows other applications to access the XPress data and process it.
All together, this release sounds like it has made major strides into the business of publishing and large-scale deployment instead of concentrating on the bells and whistles that so many companies rely on. We expect the new version to be a welcome improvement for large publishers, which is where a lot of the money is to be made in layout applications. We will provide more details as they become available.
ControllingEPS colors
If you place an EPS that has an RGB color space applied to it, but the destination document does not include any RGB but includes black, as in text, then the EPS will become converted to CMYK. To stop this from happening, make sure that there something in RGB in the document. This can be red, green and blue dots either off the page or designated as non-printing (Item>Modify>Suppress Output).
Pictures that stick
When a picture box has been anchored into text, (Cut or copy the box with Item tool change to the Content tool and paste with the cursor at the desired anchor point) the image can be made to align the top of the image to this point by clicking the Ascent box in the Modify window. (Item>Modify). This box can still be modified in many ways. One of the most interesting is creating a custom shape for the box so text will flow around irregular shaped objects. To do this first make the box a freehand shape by clicking on the palette shaped icon in the Shape control (Item>Shape) the select the Shape control (Item>Edit>Shape) this will allow you to modify the shape. By holding down the Alt/Option key before clicking on the shape you will see the cursor changes into a small square. This square allows you to add control points to the shape which can then be dragged into any shape you like. Using this in conjunction with the Runaround control (Item>Modify>Runaround) you can very accurately control the flow of text around an image without having clipping paths associated with it.
Printing to PostScript
When printing to a PostScript output device, TIFF images get down-sampled by XPress to twice the line width (lpi) specified in the Output option (File>Print> Output. So if you are printing to a 100-lpi device, the file will be converted to a resolution of 200 dpi. You can prevent this from happening by checking the Full Resolution TIFF Output in the Options tab (File> Print>Options). This down-sampling is done to optimize performance. The same applies to grayscale images. Actually the end resolution is to the nearest resolution that can be achieved by integer (whole number) division. Two-bit or black-and-white images get down-sampled to the resolution number in the output tab. All of this will only be possible when outputting to a PostScript device; otherwise all these options are grayed out and no down-sampling occurs.
Synchronize text
Quark allows you to synchronize text. This means that you can have the same text in a variety of places with one project or layout, and any changes that you make to one instance will be repeated in each other instance. To do this, first select the original text block and select Synchronize Text. Then create other text blocks and, with the Content tool (the hand), drag the Synchronized text name into these blocks. Now, when you alter one, they will all change. In the Synchronize Text palette you will see how many instances of each version there are within the document. It is not possible to synchronize between two or more layouts.
Quicker updates
When updating an image, you can get XPress to update all images at the same time. In the usage box, just Shift+Command-click/Shift+ Ctrl-click on multiple images. Then XPress will ask if you want to update each image in turn. Rather than clicking OK on each, hold down the Alt key when clicking on Update. It may still ask you for the location of the file if it has been moved, but it will only ask once for each folder. |
