QuarkXpress's default preferences are sometimes not very logical. The following is a list of recommended preference settings optimal for most design and advertising environments.

Remember that if you set any preferences with a document open, then most of those settings will only apply to that document. To set global preferences for the application, you must make sure no documents are open.

Application preferences

Note that if you have a slower computer, you can reduce the values to speed up display. But on any Mac that is a G3 or better, set the values to their highest for the best quality display.

The most important thing in this panel is the Smart Quotes setting. Always use typographical quotes instead of inch marks. If you need to set inch marks, use the correct keyboard character (control-shift-").

Default document preferences

Guides should always be in front to be effective. Auto Picture Import's "verify" setting checks to see if any imported images have been modified when you open a QuarkXpress document, and gives you the option of updating them.

Regardless of what value you set in the Auto Leading field (percentage is better than absolute because the leading will increase proportionally with the type size), when setting type, you should always specify the leading, and never use auto leading. When a document with auto leading travels to another machine with another copy of QuarkXpress, the auto leading will change to match the default auto leading set for that copy!

The most illogical default setting in QuarkXpress's factory settings is the Runaround value for text and picture boxes. Save yourself some repetitive work, and set the Runaround type to "None" for all text and picture boxes (click the "Modify" button in the Tool tab of the Default Document Preferences dialog box, for each box tool on the Tool bar).

The default setting for Text Inset is 1. This should be changed to 0. When text is not close to the edge of the box, it can cause problems when aligning text boxes to other boxes, guides, or a specific coordinate – it requires you to manually move the boxes to visually align with other objects or text. Also, some scaling extensions will scale the inset along with the box.

Most of the other preferences can be left at their default configuration.

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