Other Features
There is now full-resolution preview of graphics courtesy of an XTension that you get after registering with Quark, (which can take 48 hours or more, so don't expect this feature right out of the box). This is a much-awaited feature that is playing catch up to InDesign, and it's a little disingenuous for Quark to hold it back pending registration. This feature addition allows you to view graphic files in their maximum resolution, which makes zooming more accurate, and improves the integrity of the screen image. You cannot automatically turn full-resolution preview on for all graphics in a document (you set it for each preview after import). Since this feature has a tendency to slow things down quite a bit, you can at least turn off the full-resolution preview feature for the entire document.

Full-resolution preview has its limits -- it only works to 800 percent, and while this capability will help when printing from XPress to non-PostScript printers, you have to be sure each image is manually set to full-resolution before printing, a rather cumbersome process.

Fonts are now grouped together in families in the fonts menu, and are collected as part of the "collect for output" feature.

You've always been able to size a graphic to fit a picture box, and starting in 5.0 picture boxes can be automatically sized to fit the graphic. This helps cut down on box clutter and is a benefit to people who place graphics visually.

And a new industry standard XML parser from Xerces improves XML exporting and can color code tagged content. I've minimized the discussion of XML capabilities in XPress (done through avenue.quark which is included with XPress), because I don't think many people are using them yet. But as we move to more and more complex content management and cross-media situations, these tools are critical, and Quark deserves credit for coming early to the XML bandwagon, even if Adobe has made some gains in implementation.

What's Missing
There are a few glaring omissions in this release. There is limited support in XPress 6.0 for OpenType, no ability to make drop shadows without a third-party XTension, no transparencies (which despite early output problems have become very popular), and no ability to embed fonts in EPS files. Again, you kind of get the impression Quark is still reluctantly supporting Adobe standards.

It is also important to point out that XTensions from earlier versions will not work in XPress 6.0, so add those into your investment calculations. And XPress is not Unicode compliant, so it doesn't deal as well with non-English fonts.

The people who still care about type will be disappointed to know that Quark did not make any significant improvements (at least not documented) in typesetting capabilities -- no automatic hanging punctuation, optical kerning, or other InDesign type features. And if you dislike the XPress H&J routines, there is no indication of any big improvements. Considering the marketing muscle Adobe has gotten out of the type features of InDesign, you'd think Quark would have thrown us a few bones. But in a world where many people are still trying to figure out the difference between a hyphen and an em dash, I'm not sure how popular those features really are. Still, it would be nice to have the options.

I've never liked the XPress spell checker, and I don't see why we can't have better word-processing tools directly in XPress. I know most people author in Word, but it's surprising how much copy gets entered directly in XPress text boxes.

Gone is Publish and Subscribe, so you can no longer link a graphic to its native application. And of course you cannot import native Photoshop files or Illustrator files (without a third-party XTension) directly into XPress as you can in InDesign. But XPress does embrace AppleScript and comes with several pre-loaded scripts, selectable from a Scripts menu.

Will XPress 6.0 be a Success?
I have no doubt that many long-time XPress users will upgrade to 6.0 -- despite all the talk and threats about moving to InDesign, many companies simply don't have the guts or resources to tackle a big change. And legacy will override emotion in a lot of circumstances. Besides, even if Adobe converts 20-30 percent of XPress users, Quark will still have a hugely successful product with market share enjoyed by very few companies.

There have already been reports of problems in 6.0 related to opening previous-version files and importing index entries, and Quark has a fairly long list of known problems on its Web site (some of them disturbing). But I had no issues with my copy, could easily open very old XPress files, and did not have any unusual crashes during my testing. It is inevitable that the first round of any software will have some problems (even Apple couldn't get it right with OS X). But I'm sure Quark has daily dispatches flying back and forth between Denver and Chandigarh, India (where the bulk of the programming takes place) and fixes are on the way. This is only disappointing because of the long wait we endured for 6.0 when all along we were being told it was because Quark refused to release the product until "it was ready."

Anyone who upgrades directly into production is asking for trouble. Quark has a pretty average record, I'd say, for bugs and other problems, but the program wouldn't be so pervasive if it wasn't nearly rock solid. Remember what it was like trying to get clean film out of any number of competing page-layout programs of the past? Adventuresome users will jump in right away, the more conservative among you will wait for 6.0.1.

QuarkXPress 6.0 does feel a bit dated and long in the tooth, but consistency and familiarity may be two of the reasons it remains a popular tool. The whole industry is getting older and more conservative -- we've been doing this for 16 years now, and the excitement has worn off. The choice between XPress and InDesign in many ways is not much of a choice at all. Though InDesign brings many new capabilities to the market, there's nothing new or revolutionary about how you build pages in either application -- same old fill-the-box metaphors.

And though I have a copy on InDesign 2.0, use it frequently, and think it's a great program, I'll eventually cut my check to Quark and buy the upgrade to 6.0 (my press copy has a built-in expiration date). When I just want to crank out a job and not think about it, I always turn back to XPress.

Read more by {link http://www.creativepro.com/author/home/1939.html Gene Gable