QuarkXPress

From Free net encyclopedia

QuarkXPress is a desktop publishing (page layout) application for Mac OS X and Windows, produced by Quark, Inc. The first version was released in 1987. XTensions technology, which allows developers to create custom software add-ons for Quark products, was introduced in 1989. QuarkXPress Passport is QuarkXPress with the added ability to handle multiple language documents.

Although there are similar applications for the home and small office market, such as Adobe PageMaker, CorelDraw and Microsoft Publisher, QuarkXPress has long been the dominant application for professional design of magazines and brochures. Adobe InDesign, launched as a direct competitor, was slow to gather speed, but outsold QuarkXPress in 2002 (a year when Quark did not ship a version for the Mac OS X platform). QuarkXPress' current market share is still greater than that of InDesign, however installed base does not necessarily predict future market share.

1 History
2 Features
3 Version history
4 External links

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History

Quark Inc. was founded in 1981 in Denver by Tim Gill and first released word processing software for the Apple II and Apple III. Later Fred Ebrahimi joined Quark Inc. as CEO and president. Gill left the company in October 2000 and Ebrahimi, though still a member of the Board of Quark Inc., resigned as CEO and president in 2004.

After releasing QuarkXPress version 3.3 Quark had a history of doing relatively infrequent new versions, and pricing them at a high level. This, combined with public perception of former CEO Fred Ebrahimi's attitude towards the company's customers, has resulted in a strong negative feeling among many of Quark's customers, which seems to be enhancing competitor Adobe Systems' market share of Adobe InDesign. The release of QuarkXPress 5 led to a row with Apple who threatened to no longer endorse Quark Products, as version 5 still did not support Mac OS X.

Since 2004 Quark has changed its pricing politics and has been releasing more frequent updates, some even free of charge. Former CEO Kamar Aulakh has stated that customer service improvements have been Quark's number one priority, and version 6 introduced features not available in competing layout applications for the first time in several years (as well as finally supporting Mac OS X): consequently Quark announced that QuarkXPress 6 was their fastest selling upgrade ever. Quark surprised the publishing industry even more by announcing that QuarkXPress would be the first major desktop publishing application to be released as a universal binary application for Apple's new Intel-based computers. This release is scheduled for 2006.

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Features

Since version 6.0, QuarkXPress offers layout synchronisation, multiple undo/redo functionality, XML and web page features, and support for direct PDF output. Quark has said that it will support the advanced layout features of OpenType in version 7 and also Unicode will be supported in QuarkXPress version 7. Version 6.5, release at the end of 2004, surprisingly took the lead in support for the Photoshop format (PSD) and positioned QuarkXPress as the only layout tool with true integrated image editing capabilities. This led to Quark receiving a number of awards, such as the Macworld Editor's Choice for 2004.

QuarkXPress 6.5 is available for Mac OS X v10.3 and higher, Windows XP, and Windows 2000.

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Version history

QuarkXPress 1 (1987) - MacOS only
QuarkXPress 2 (1989)
QuarkXPress 3 (1990)
QuarkXPress 3.1 (1992) - first version to also support Windows
QuarkXPress 3.2 (1993) - first version to support Applescript
QuarkXPress 3.3 (1996)
QuarkXPress 4 (1997)
QuarkXPress 4.1 (1999) - first version to also support XML
QuarkXPress 5 (2002) - first version to also support HTML
QuarkXPress 6 (2003) - first version to support Mac OS X (and Windows)
QuarkXPress 6.5 (2004) - first version to also support the Document Object Model
QuarkXPress 7 (2006?) - is currently available as a Beta-Version [1] and supports Unicode, OpenType, Drop Shadows, Transparencies, JDF, Composition Zones and more.