QuarkXPress 7 launches worldwide
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
May 23, 2006 at 12:05pm
Quark is shipping QuarkXPress 7.
However, contrary to earlier reports (including our own) the update is notUniversal Binary (meaning it will run natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs), though it runs under the Rosetta emulation environment on Mactels. A Universal Binary version is due later this year.
New features include Composition Zones, Job Jackets, transparency, OpenType, Unicode and more. Built on industry-standard JDF, the next version of the document creation software will allow users to set specifications to control a job from start to finish using a Quark Job Jacket that will incorporate detailed workflow and prepress information directly into a QuarkXPress project.
A Quark Job Jacket is a container for all the specifications for a print publishing process. It contains the information about the job itself, contact information, resources required, layout intent, rules, output specifications and more. All the guidelines, rules, and settings for all the processes will be saved in the Quark Job Jacket to prevent errors during the publication’s creation and output processes.
Centralized job jackets will let art directors, marketing managers, and print service providers specify parameters for design, content, production and output. Changes in project specifications will be made to the job jacket and will be automatically updated to all projects that use the job jacket as a resource.
Quark Job Jacket elements in QuarkXPress will be compatible with JDF elements; they can be mapped to JDF elements and vice versa. JDF is an XML-based file format that provides control over and automation of print publishing production and streamlines information exchange between applications and systems.
QuarkXPress 7 also offers rule-based preflight capabilities to ensure that files are output-ready at any point in the design process, according to Quark. What’s more, it provides instructions that ensure that all the elements needed for production — fonts, colors, images, and more — are automatically embedded with the output file for right-the-first-time, every-time printing with PDF/X compliant output.
QuarkXPress 7 is designed to help content creators publish multiple print and Web layouts from the same content with minimum fuss, according to Quark. Users can create multiple document types, sizes, and media; leverage and reuse any content, image or design element; streamline development processes through open standards; and take advantage of one-to-one content personalization.
QuarkXPress 7 allows creative professionals to design compositions that can be merged with content from different sources and create output to send to presses with minimal prepress production costs. Support for output in Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML) adds database publishing features to QuarkXPress 7. In PPML, all the static content, multiple instances of same static content, synchronized content, and master page elements will be recognized as reusable objects, drastically improving throughput time.
Additionally, QuarkXPress 7 has new and enhanced features to control transparency, images, and colors; and to Additionally, it has new and enhanced features to control transparency, images, and colors; and to accurately visualize graphics and work with OpenType fonts. With new transparency features, users can specify the opacity of the elements that make up any items or content in QuarkXPress: text, pictures, blends, boxes, frames, lines, tables, etc. QuarkXPress 7 provides greater control over transparency by managing opacity levels for any color element of an object rather than on an object-by-object basis. The transparency features enable the creation of dynamic, soft drop shadows, as well as the ability to mask pictures with soft edges using alpha channels — including native Photoshop transparency in PSD or TIFF format.
To enhance color management in QuarkXPress, new controls improve on-screen simulations for soft proofing. For example, users can preview how RGB prints to CMYK on-screen or how CMYK prints in grayscale. Creative professionals can manage their source colors and output specifications within the QuarkXPress software.
Quark says QuarkXPress 7 expands its access to special characters through Unicode support, OpenType support, and interface improvements that make it easy to insert special characters without looking up keyboard commands or resorting to third-party software. The release offers full support for the multitude of characters and typographic features built into OpenType fonts, including special characters and fonts required by different languages.
Quark has also opened the QuarkXPress project by creating QuarkXPress Markup Language (QXML), a DOM schema for QuarkXPress projects. The structure of the QuarkXPress project is defined according to W3C DOM and XPath specifications so that developers can access, update and create QuarkXPress project elements.
DOM makes all the content of a QuarkXPress project available as XML, which allows any application that understands the schema of a QuarkXPress project to access the QuarkXPress data and process it; it’s a live representation of QuarkXPress projects as XML.
QuarkXPress 7 will be featured in upcoming road shows, scheduled to tour North America and Europe stopping in seven cities on each continent. To learn more about the QuarkXPress 7 road shows in North America, go here. Details on pricing and upgrade options are here.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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