Quark has announced the availability of a free 60-day, fully-functional download of QuarkXPress® 8, the new version of the industry standard software that raises the bar for page-layout and design.

In addition to a new user interface that allows designers and creative professionals to work faster with fewer clicks, QuarkXPress offers users more typographic control, built-in Flash® and Web authoring tools, and a single global file format that supports advanced eastern and western typography for more than 30 languages.

Customers who download the free 60-Day Test Drive version can also look forward to:

-- Native Illustrator® file import and new illustration tools

-- Common Illustrator and Photoshop® keyboard controls

-- Easy page layout with drag and drop functionality

-- Items Styles and Item Find/Change

-- Output styles suited for PDF workflows, including PDF/X and PDF/X PLUS

-- New International publishing features

-- Enhancements to everyday features

For a complete list of what’s new in QuarkXPress 8 visit http://8.quark.com.

According to a new independent report by Pfeiffer Consulting, all of these changes add up to significant productivity benefits for users. Andreas Pfeiffer, of Pfeiffer Consulting, conducted benchmark analysis of QuarkXPress 8 and found that it is almost three times faster than QuarkXPress 6.5 and QuarkXPress 7. “The big benefit of QuarkXPress 8 is that it manages to make very commonly used operations more efficient and more productive without attaching a big learning curve. For example, the new picture management tool is designed in such a way that now it lets you do everything including rotating the image, rotating the box, cropping the image, resizing, and scaling, in one go without ever having to go to a menu.”

To experience the new user interface, productivity gains and more, visit http://8.quark.com/evaluation.html to download the free QuarkXPress 8 60-day Test Drive.