Quark Xpress 6.5 for Windows

It's rare for a software package to completely dominate its market, but for the past decade or so, professional desktop publishing has been entirely synonymous with Quark Xpress.

Go back to 1990 and the nascent DTP market was dominated by a package called Pagemaker, then along came Quark. It proved a revelation to designers and journalists alike with its simple approach and, within a few years, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in publishing with experience of anything but Quark.

But IT and printing have moved on. The increased reliance on producing printer-ready pages in pdf format (Quark doesn't include it) and demands for more sophisticated picture manipulation within the package (Quark couldn't do it) has seen Xpress looking creaky for a few years now.

There were silly anachronisms too: Windows users, accustomed to using multiple undo to correct their typing errors, discovered with horror that Quark would only let you undo your last mistake.

Now the cracks are really beginning to show, and Adobe has been perfecting its own DTP package, Indesign. It is also bundled with Acrobat, and Indesign works well with Photoshop. And then there's the price tag - under £700 compared to Quark's £1,000-plus. Little surprise that the trickle of newspapers and magazines moving to the Adobe software has recently become a flood.

Not a great position for Quark then, as it sees a new generation of designers emerging trained in rival software. So at this Alamo in its product history, can Quark do enough with 6.5 to hold its patch of ground?

This new version builds on new features introduced in version 6 - the use of layers, synchronised text and multiple undo. But it's more than a tweak. Several features slated for version 7 have been pulled forward and the package goes out free to users of 6 and for £163 for users of 3 and later.

Quark uses Xtensions to augment the basic package, and the most impressive here is Vista, which lets you tweak, enhance and apply effects to the pictures on your page instead of having to go out to Photoshop. This is a long-overdue attempt to build a comprehensive DTP image-manipulation suite.

Click into the Picture Effects palette and you can apply emboss, diffuse, despeckle, unsharp mark - everything designers are likely to need to enhance pictures for print. The PSD Import Xtension, meanwhile, allows you to import Photoshop images, maintaining the layers used by Photoshop though annoyingly not allowing you to manipulate them.

The Xclusive Xtension lets you create print layouts direct from Xpress for output to HP Indigo digital presses. With the Print Styles now allowing you to specify bleed settings and enhanced support for pdf creation via more effective picture compression, Quark has partly addressed its isolation from the print medium.

You can even click in the Missing Fonts window to quickly go online and buy font sets missing from your system (useful when somebody sends you documents created with arcane typefaces). But it doesn't incorporate Adobe Writer, and all the print options in the world don't make up for that.

A success? It has to be a qualified yes, with Quark addressing the two big failings in the existing Xpress over the courses of versions 6 and 6.5. For its work on pictures we'd give it an A+, for the print features a B. As such this could see many Quark diehards keeping the faith, especially as the upgrade is free.

The sad irony (apart from the fact that Adobe now owns Pagemaker and might see Indesign as revenge) is that if Quark had come up with these leaps forward three or four years ago, it would still be dominating the market. As it is, this could be an impressive last hurrah.

But we really have to ask. Has Quark given up on new users? Indesign costs around £675, which isn't cheap but a snip compared to the £1,095 Quark is asking. So the chances of new users electing for Quark, let alone anyone swapping back from Adobe's package, are roughly on a par with Betamax making a comeback next Christmas.

Prices:
£1,095 (£931.91 ex VAT); Passport £1,365 (£1,161.70 ex VAT)

Contact:
Quark 00800 1787 8275
www.quark.co.uk

System requirements:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP
• 128MB of Ram
• 190MB available hard disk space
• CD-Rom drive
• TCP/IP network for site licence (using Quark License Administrator)

See also:

Serif Pageplus 10

Value for money page-layout software with some useful new features  09 Feb 2005

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!