The high-profile contract with one of France's leading local media groups comes as a welcome boost for Quark, which has lost some ground in recent years to rival Adobe.

Gildas Duval, Quark sales director for Southern Europe, said: "Quark and the Hersant Media Group have been partners for many years.

"We are delighted to offer this service, which demonstrates our commitment to offer flexible licensing models that meet our customers' needs."

The unlimited use licence allows Hersant Media employees to download one of more than 700 copies of QuarkXPress 8 from a dedicated web server onto their desktop computers.

Jacques Chanson, co-deputy chief information officer, said: "QuarkXPress remains one of the key tools used by our group. Thanks to this agreement, our different publications benefit from increased flexibility when they need to use a QuarkXPress licence."

Hersant Media publishes 27 local newspapers in mainland France and French overseas territories, and 280 editions of the free ParaVendu publication. The company employs 7,500 people.