QuarkXpress 6 tips, page 1
Downsaving to version 4
Opening QuarkXpress 6 files from Indesign
Making PDFs
Document Setup
Opening version 4 files
Screen drawing errors
Usage panels
Printing problems
Step and Repeat shortcut
As usual, Quark is making us jump through hoops to get our work done. It's no secret that most filmhouses and printers shudder in terror when they're sent QuarkXpress 6 files. They almost always downsave them to version 4. So you'll be doing them a favour by downsaving the files yourself (this way you can also make sure nothing goes wonky during the conversion). The problem is, QuarkXpress 6 won't let you do it. You have to save your document as version 5, and then you have to have a copy of QuarkXpress 5 to downsave it to version 4! Thanks a lot, Quark.
Opening QuarkXpress 6 files from Indesign
Since version 5, Quark has gone out of their way to make it harder for Indesign to open QuarkXpress documents. As far as I know, Quark implimented an encryption scheme since version 5. This means you can't open a QuarkXpress 5 or 6 document from Indesign – you have to downsave it to version 4.
Once again, Quark has made it much harder than it has to be to make PDFs. The built-in Jaws PDF generator crashes a lot (fixed in version 6.1), and creates MUCH bigger PDFs than Acrobat Distiller using the same compression settings. I strongly recommend creating PostScript files and distilling them with Distiller. Alternatively, you can open the Jaws-generated PDF in Acrobat and select "Reduce File Size" under the File menu.
When creating PDFs using QuarkXpress's built-in engine, there is no progress bar to give any visual feedback... you'll have to stare at the spinning pizza wheel until it finishes.
QuarkXpress doesn't allow you to have more than one default setting for PDF compression. You have to manually change it every time in Preferences.
Document Setup has disappeared and been replaced by Layout Properties. Unfortunately, there is no keyboard shortcut for it like there was in previous versions, and unlike Indesign, QuarkXpress does not allow you to customize shortcuts.
Version 6 hanged quite often with the spinning pizza wheel when opening some version 4 documents. (This problem seems to have been fixed in the 6.1 update.)
Version 6 sometimes displays miscoloured type at certain zoom levels. (This problem has been fixed in the 6.1 update.)
The Font Usage and Picture Usage keyboard shortcuts don't work properly... selecting either will show the last viewed Usage pane. Can't switch between tabs in the Usage dialog using Command-Option-Tab. (These problems have been fixed in the 6.1 update.)
The keyboard shortcuts unfortunately don't close the panels after opening them... you have to use Command-period or Esc.
Have a look at some of the odd things that happen when printing a document that only has one page (this strange behaviour may or may not be related to the fact that the document was originally built in version 4):
For some bizarre reason, the shortcut for Step and Repeat is still Command-Option-D, even though OS X has used that to show/hide the dock for years now. Fortunately, OS X allows you to change the shortcut for show/hide dock in the Keyboard preferences.
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