Three hundred quid to upgrade from QuarkXPress 7 to 8 is ridiculously too expensive. Especially as QuarkXPress 6 users can get the same deal and in return a far better piece of software than the one they are using at the moment.

Don’t take this the wrong way. Quark made incremental changes to XPress that, arguably, leave inDesign in the shade. The latter seems ideal for one-spread-wonders but a slow, buggy and clunky tool for real desktop publishing. It’s not without reason that the UK book industry is still largely wedded to XPress.

The latest version of XPress is available as a free download that functions for a full 60 days. It is well worth a test, especially for those Luddites still using QuarkXPress 6. On-screen display of text alone makes the upgrade to XPress 7 or 8 an immediate must-have.

Abridged too far?
Also in QXP 8 Xtensions such as the XPert Tools suite and Quark’s Interactive Designer introduced in XPress 7, are now fully integrated into the program. Many of the features are old hat to inDesign users but for Quark, box styles, Flash export and the like are new toys. For some reason Quark did not include all the features from XPert Tools, many of the most useful are missing: multiple-page pasting, scaling groups and layout settings, for example.

Where QuarkXPress 8 really scores is in new typographical features. This includes new styles for hanging indents, something inDesign has had for years, and more sophisticated vertical alignment. This is very important when text contains in-line objects or type that is larger than the text surrounding it. Until now they would all line up to their baselines but XPress 8 can control how they align, whether from the top, centreline or baseline. No excuses now for ugly vertical spacing.

The Good and the Ugly…
Anyone who has imported an inDesign document to QuarkXPress, or vice versa, using the excellent MarkzTools will know how bad Adobe’s typography can be. The new text engine introduced in XPress 7 is streets ahead, fitting text neatly and without the scrunched-up, too-tight word spacing inDesign can impose. This can be difficult to spot on screen but once printed, an inDesign document can be an ugly thing.

For book designers, two important features have been added. The first is a whole new look at grids. Until XPress 8, designers had to decide whether to use the document’s baseline grid to align text, or our preferred, to align text and graphics boxes. Usually this was the best option because it ensures all the elements on a page are consistent and it is far quicker than manually lining objects up by pulling out rules. XPress 8 now has Master Page grids as well as individual box grids, giving us the best of both worlds.

The second new typography feature is XPress 8’s ability to use paragraph attributes, such as font size and leading, and automatically work out the right baseline grid for the text. To be honest, setting this up is a bit of a palaver, something Quark MUST refine, but it’s there if you look hard enough.

Finally…
There are a bunch of other new features as well. The bezier curve toolbox has been reworked and for the better. XPress 8 actually makes a pretty good illustration tool now. Some, such as Photoshop layer controls, are actually better than their inDesign equivalents and the XPress 8 transparency handling far more sophisticated. The way the text and content tools work has been improved and lessen the need to switch between them (Adobe take note).

Coupled with multiple (sized) layouts inside one document, pretty good HTML generation, Flash animations plus easy collaborative working through Composition Zones, QuarkXpress 8 jumped ahead of inDesign. Even though the Adobe fanboyz will never admit it (and we used to be among them).

This blog is not a review so only scrapes the surface of XPress 8. Along with other changes, its interface has been tweaked in the comic-book, 3-D blobby style pioneered by Mac OS X 10.0. We hope Quark also do the same as Apple and drop it next version because inside, the rest of the panels are still the XPress 5/XPress 6 transition grey.

This, incidentally is another major score for XPress over inDesign. When will Adobe dump the hundreds of screen absorbing, individual preference panes and follow Quark’s more integrated design?

Most Important of All
But the question on the lips of all seasoned QuarkXpress users must be: “What about the aliens?” Rest assured, both are still living inside if you know how to bring them out. Pay us £10,000 and we will tell you.

Oh, OK. Highlight a box and press Command-Alt-Shift-K to see the little alien. Repeat it 4 times to see his bigger pal.