Quarkxpress 8 for mac/win with int Designer Xpert Tools Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I've been using Quark XPress for 15 years and I wouldn't have a successful graphic design business without it.
These days, designers have a big choice to make between Quark and InDesign. Although I am certainly an Adobe fan and I use Photoshop and Illustrator extensively, Quark will always be my choice for page layout and publication design.
I have used InDesign for short periods of time and it is a great program. I found that most of the features I use in Quark are there if you look for them.
However Quark has been the industry leader in page layout for so many years. It is a very powerful program and worth the price. Quark has better abilities to manage larger and more complex documents than InDesign.
Quark is a program that can be used very simply (for a one page flyer) or for a 500 or more page document. Quark's strength is in its ability to manage document layout. The use of master pages and style sheets is critical to consistency and efficiency in managing a document. The search and replace features are invaluable if used properly. I did a directory job in 1/4 of the time of another designer by using something called Xpress tags and the search and replace feature that allows you to replace text with a style sheet.
I know that InDesign is touted for its ability to work with native Illustrator files and Photoshop PSD files. Quark 8 also allows for a ton of integration from a variety of other programs including drag and drop of native Illustrator, Photoshop, and Flash files.
Quark has a great website listing all the integration possibilities (and compares them to InDesign) [...] Obviously it will slant to Quark's advantage since it is their promotional materials.
Quark allows you to create for print or web and has anchors and hyperlinks.
For me, Quark is a typesetter's program since its ability to control type, kerning, tracking, scaling, etc. is very precise.
I also like the ease and variety of tools and the ability to do mathematical equations in the measurements box when positioning objects/items. In other words,if you want to but a tab at 1.25 and your next one exactly .375 from there, you can go to the position box where 1.25 is listed and just put: +.375 and Quark calculates it for you.
I really like the ability to set runarounds and clipping paths to objects thereby wrapping text around objects with a lot of control.
Quark occasionally has issues when working in tables (crashing) but there seems to be a fix listed online. There use to be issues with the drop shadows that Quark creates but I think that has been resolved as well.
I use Quark for Windows and have no issues using it on this platform.
Even after 15 years of use, there are many features I haven't learned to use yet. Not knowing these features does not stop me from using the program effectively, it just proves that Quark is very powerful and diverse.
If you are a MAC user or and InDesign fan, please don't write comments about how much better they are. I'm not trying to say that they are not good. It is just my opinion that I prefer to stay with Quark than to switch to InDesign.


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Art Explosion Publisher Pro 2.0 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Publisher Pro 2.0 is a great product and a good follow-on to the first version. Not only can you easily produce small publications (I create 16 page "tabloid sized" newsletters, with tons of photos) and export them as pdf files, but you can now open and edit pdf files, a feature I haven't seen in any affordable publisher. Its interpretation is precise, though when it meets a change in formatting (such as a single word in bold type within a paragraph), it interprets that as the end of a text block and starts a new section. I only use that feature when I want to fill out forms I've received from others or add a little text or images to them. I wouldn't try to heavily edit a large file. Pdf creation now includes form fields, which allows for more interactive features such as radial and other buttons and fill-out-able forms in addition to the standard pdf bookmarks, index and table of content which link to content within the pdf, hyperlinks to external sites, and more.
As in the previous version, it still has lots of pre-made templates, but the blank templates are still the best. I love being able to make a tri-fold brochure and actually selecting each page I want to work on separately: the right panel, left panel back panel and interior spread. The program then prints it in the correct sequence on the page. And in each of the 24 categories (including Banners, business forms, greeting cards, webpages...) there are many blank styles from which to chose.
As a volunteer newsletter editor (with no formal training in design and only some spare time), I find myself in the position of producing newsletters, flyers, tri-fold brochures and ad books not only for the large regional and local group of one organization, but also for my friends' school groups and churches and the local library. I often have to send the files to professional printers who require high-quality pdf files. It's a little more complex than either it's predecessor (Pub. pro version 1) or the older version of MS Publisher I had used before (a program I was happy with, but it had no pdf support), but most questions are easily resolved by refering to the in-program help files. On the other hand, it's a more powerful program with color separation, palette (incliding Pantone) support, transparencies and effects - features you'd expect in higher end programs. It also has a more flexible studio bar with tear off tabs for line style, formatting, colors, object styles, etc.., that you can view, hide or drag to arrange.
Included with the program is the free Publisher Pro Photo Editor, which allows you to draw and paint using layers and transparencies, and then export your pictures in a variety of formats (including some transparent versions), such as jpg, png, gif, etc. It doesn't have a lot of filters and fancy stuff, but it's a good little program for simple photo editing or creating a small graphic.
But most important, the telephone customer support was good. When I first got the program, I had difficulty opening some, but not all, of my older Publisher Pro files - the program crashed! I called customer support after a few days trying to figure out myself what the difference in the files was. I was told it had to do with the Nova clip art in the files and to remove the images and the file would work. Luckily, I had the previous version installed on another machine. I noticed in the Tools: Resource Manager that those clipart files were "linked," so selected "unlink" (which embeds the image) and then the files opened fine. (The Resource Manager is a nice feature that shows you what images and fonts are in your document, what their size and status are, and allows you to jump right to them). Nova Developement is currently working on a fix for the problem.
Pros: great price (especially if you have a rebate), good customer support, some high-end features, free photo editor and the ability to export to pdf.
Cons: a little harder to learn (reading the tutorials helps!), legacy files crash unless the clipart is embedded.
Overall: If you want a more powerful publishing program that produces quality pdf files, but is still within your budget, this is the one!
p.s. If you do get this program, you should check out the entertaining place-holder text, with it's odd pop-culture references that form random stories. More interesting than Lorem ipsum.

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