QuarkXPress 10.1 Released as Free Update
When it comes to layout and publishing software it's a two-horse race between Adobe's InDesign and Quark's XPress. While Quark led the field for many years, InDesign has slowly but steadily increased its market share to the point where XPress is now a distant second, forced with each release to try to catch up with the capabilities of the latest version of InDesign, notably in the area of non-print publications.
With XPress 9, Quark finally provided the abilty to export to ePub format, and with 9.1 added App Studio, designed to move XPress content to the iPad while including interactive elements. It continued in this direction with the release of 9.2, which added new ePub features, ePub 3 audio and video support, as well as more options for App Studio. Version 9.5.1 further enhanced app creation with App Studio. Clearly, Quark has been trying to keep XPress in the ePub and app ballpark. But things can only get tougher for it if Adobe keeps its promise of delivering non-stop updates to its Creative Cloud InDesign customers. The release of InDesign CC was rather underwhelming, as have been subsequent updates, so expectations are high for significant new functionality to be added in the near future.
XPress 10, released last year, was something of a return to fundamentals. XPress finally became a native Cocoa application, important for fully taking advantage of OS X. To provide a sense of the magnitude of the undertaking, we're told that the dev team had to update half a million lines of code and add 350,000 more. And then the addition of Retina display support required the creation of 1,300 icons. This release also saw the introduction of a new Xenon graphics engine, which was said to dramatically increase the display quality of both bitmap and vector images within documents. The release also included an overhaul to the interface, including changes to palette control, as well as the ability to display the design environment full screen, the addition of a page navigator for scanning thumbnails and an increased emphasis on the measurements palette. Other notable improvements included a QR code generator, support for East Asian typography in all editions, layer enhancements, Bézier tool improvements, the ability to highlight missing fonts, better PDF handling, and beefed up Microsoft Word import.
But here we are with version 10.1, which is a free update. Quark makes a point of saying that XPress is "available as a perpetual license and customers can rely on ongoing value from their investment," in contrast with the subscription model of InDesign. Creative Cloud was the best thing that ever happened to Quark, since it made it possible to finally position XPress as a real alternative to InDesign, for those refusing to go the Adobe subscription route.
So what's new? First off is a rather over-the-top 8000% zoom capability, allowing admittedly precise object positioning. By way of comparison, InDesign provides a maximum zoom of 4000%. Then there are dynamic guides, which automatically appear when items that are created, moved or resized subsequently align with other items on the page. They also show up when items have the same width and height as other elements on the page or when several items have the same distance to other items to help evenly distribute elements.
It's now possible to create HTML5 animations, employing as slide-in from the side, or element fade or grow. The book feature is said to now work "seamlessly" with projects and layouts, enabling users to specify one or more layouts for inclusion in a single book, with the ability to sync indexes, table of contents and other design elements, such as colors and stylesheets, and be exported to one or multiple PDFs. Other new functionality includes the ability to export boxes, partial pages or whole pages as static pixel-based images; the ability to create custom user interface color settings in the Preferences menu (Mac only); and several tweaks to QR code creation. Sure, none of this is earth shattering but it does make one see XPress as a contender. And after all, do we really want Adobe to have a monopoly on page layout with InDesign? I think not.
QuarkXPress 10.1 for Mac and Windows is available for purchase on the Quark site.
