What does it do?
It’s a new version of the long-established design and layout program, widely used for professional print work by designers and pre-press users. It can generate printable PDF files that conform tightly to standards. There are also HTML5 output features, mainly to generate ePub books and apps.
When was it launched and what market is it aimed at?
QuarkXPress (QXP) 2015 shipped on 28 April and replaces QXP 10. It’s aimed at designers, magazine, newspaper and book publishers and pre-press departments.
QXP is also the layout component within Quark’s various enterprise solutions, particularly the Quark Publishing Platform, Quark Brand Manager and App Studio.
QuarkCopyDesk is a standalone program sold separately that enables copy editing and fitting linked to QXP layouts. A tablet app, Quark SketchPad, can be used to rough out grid layouts that can be exported as templates to QXP.
How does it differ from previous versions?
The original QuarkXPress was launched in 1986 so it’s a very mature product. Nevertheless Quark has managed to rustle up some new ideas.
Matthias Guenther, head of desktop publishing at Quark, says that the company conducted user research across the countries it sells in. “We showed users a wish list and asked them to choose their top seven features in order of importance. We got several thousand responses. We put in the top 17. Bottom of the list in every country was a rental model.”
The top three in the list were performance, stability and quality, he says. “We fixed some bugs and performance lags that might have been there for several versions, and let customers help us verify them. Then we added features.”
Quark claims that QXP 2015 is 10 times faster than QXP 10 (although it’s comparing 64-bit and 32-bit versions so you won’t see this on Macs).
“PDF/X-4 was very high in the list so we put that in,” says Guenther. “We use Callas pdfToolbox verification technology, which is the same as Adobe uses in Acrobat.”
Other new features include an orthagonal line tool; dynamic guides that indicate alignments; unlimited saveable custom page sizes; a huge poster-sized maximum page size of 5,690mm square; extended collect-for-output across projects; custom shortcut keys; a format painter; new footnotes; and faster tables with styles and content variables.
How does it work?
It’s a layout system that lets users create grids, text and image containers, to compose pages and multi-page documents on-screen, and output them as printable documents. It has sophisticated typographical controls, multiple layers, transparency and colour management. It offers CMYK, RGB and Pantone colour sets, plus user-defined separations or spot colours.
PDF/X-4 print file export is new, joining PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3. EPS, JPG and PNG are other export options.
In the early days XPress was popular with third-party developers who wrote XTension plug-ins to add new features, but Quark has plugged most of the gaps now - for instance the footnotes in QXP 2015 preclude the need for the old XTensions.
What are the requirements?
QXP 2015 is now completely 64-bit in operation with no 32-bit option. This really only affects Windows users, as Macs have been all 64-bit for years. Older XTensions might not work.
PCs need 64-bit Windows 7 or later. Macs need OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or later. Apple Retina screens are supported but not essential.
What is the USP?
Features are now much the same as InDesign, having caught up with smart guides and hanging punctuation on QXP 10. A practical difference is that QXP offers more keyboard shortcuts than InDesign, so experienced users can be faster.
Most important is that unlike Adobe’s rental-only model, Quark sells you a perpetual license: pay once and it runs for ever.
How easy is it to use?
Like any layout or design program it takes a fair bit of learning from scratch, but anyone familiar with similar programs should be able to adapt to it quite easily.
What support is on offer?
Quark offers 60 days’ free support. There are plenty of training videos on YouTube and Quark has partnerships with training companies.
How much does it cost?
A single-user licence is £799 and site licences are available. You can upgrade from any version for £299. A keenly priced student edition is £125 (get ’em young).
What is the sales target, how many are installed worldwide and in the UK?
Quark is privately held so it says it isn’t obliged to release figures. It’s safe to say that there are a lot more copies of Adobe InDesign out there thanks to it being part of Creative Suite and Creative Cloud. Less certain is how many Adobe subscribers actively use InDesign. Likewise there are a lot of licensees of old versions of QXP that haven’t bothered to upgrade, but it’s hard to say if they still use it or not.
SPECIFICATIONS
Hardware requirements 64-bit Intel Mac or PC with at least 2GB RAM (8GB recommended)
OS requirements 64-bit Windows 7 or later, or Mac OS X 10.8 or later
Price £799 (single licence), £299 (upgrade)
Contact Quark Europe 020 3814 1125 www.quark.co.uk
ALTERNATIVES
Adobe InDesign CC (2014)
The only realistic alternative to QuarkXPress in professional print and publishing. InDesign was introduced in 2000 to replace the old Aldus/Adobe PageMaker. It’s a sophisticated multi-page layout program with virtually identical features to QXP, but with cross-links to Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator and (to a lesser extent) Acrobat and Lightroom. Since 2013 InDesign has only been available as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription model.
Price £17.15 per month (single app) or £45.73 (as part of complete Creative Cloud)
Contact Adobe UK 0800 028 0148 www.adobe.co.uk
USER REVIEW
“QXP is and has always been a great tool for us to produce our newsweeklies. QXP 2015 is more of a refinement of QXP, at least when looked at from a print perspective. For us it’s all about efficiency and saving time, and thus we like the “smaller” changes: format painter, relinking pictures, user-definable shortcut keys” 4/5
Paul Janssen Director, Report Verlags, Bocholt, Germany.
