Quark announces QuarkXPress 6 for Mac OS X to (finally) ship next week

At a briefing on the Apple campus today, Quark Inc. announced that QuarkXPress 6 for Mac OS X, the latest upgrade to the world’s most widely used page layout software, will ship next week. QuarkXPress 6 gives designers and publishers enhanced tools for creating content for almost any media and the flexibility to thrive in a constantly evolving technology environment.

“QuarkXPress 6 fulfills two fundamental needs in the publishing industry. It gives you the creative tools to design what you can imagine, along with the productivity features you need to deliver on time and within budget,” said Quark president and CEO Fred Ebrahimi in the press release. “One of the most significant enhancements is native support for Mac OS X, the leading platform for creative professionals.”

“QuarkXPress 6 for Mac OS X is the most anticipated application of the year for our professional customers,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in the press release. “Quark has done a great job bringing QuarkXPress 6 to Mac OS X and has removed the last barrier for creative professionals to move to Mac OS X.”

QuarkXPress 6 improves the way related documents are produced and managed by introducing project files, which are collections of layouts that can vary in media type, size and orientation. Style sheets, colors, hyphenation settings, lists and other properties can be shared among layouts.

The new Synchronized Text feature lets users share content between layouts in a project. When synchronized text is edited in one place, corresponding text elsewhere in the project will be changed simultaneously, thereby saving production time and reducing common data entry errors.

Quark has added many useful commands to facilitate rapid work, such as full-resolution preview and multiple undo, all without compromising the product’s familiar and easy-to-use interface.

“It’s fascinating to see how Quark manages to maintain the overall usability of QuarkXPress and simultaneously manages to integrate all the new features in this version,” said Detlev Hagemann, president of the consulting firm Screen-To-Print and co-author of the best selling QuarkXPress book in Germany in the press release. “This will once again help publishers integrate QuarkXPress into their workflows in a fast, cost-effective way without disrupting their users.”

“We’ve been testing QuarkXPress 6, and I’m impressed with it. It’s rock solid — I’ve even tried to crash it, with no success,” said Craig Owen, senior Macintosh engineer at Holtzbrinck Publishers in the press release. “I’m eager to roll out QuarkXPress 6. It’s a powerful, robust application, and with the stability of Mac OS X, we’ll maintain productivity with less work for the IT department.”

Underscoring Quark’s long-standing commitment to delivering the highest quality output, QuarkXPress 6 offers several improvements to its print output capabilities, including PostScript level 3 features such as DeviceN color. PDF creation technology has been incorporated into QuarkXPress 6, allowing users to output PDF files directly from QuarkXPress without purchasing a license for third-party software.

“It’s a monumental event for publishing and creative environments to have QuarkXPress 6 on Mac OS X. It’s interesting to note that Quark is moving beyond-document based environments to project-based environments. We are in constant contact with catalog and magazine publishers, and we know they’ll be very pleased to have QuarkXPress on OS X,” said Gary Lundberg, imaging manager at Quad/Graphics in the press release. “Quad/Graphics has been testing QuarkXPress 6, and we’re confident we are ready to accept files for output. Our customers can transition whenever they’re ready.”

The enhanced features of QuarkXPress 6 continue to provide tools to support design and the ability to precisely control every element of a layout. QuarkXPress 6 includes several changes to the layers feature, including an easier way to print projects that use layers. Broadened table creation functionality includes the ability to better control cell and gridline color as well as the flow of content within a table, link tables to each other or link a table cell to a text box.

Web page design with QuarkXPress 6 is faster and more convenient than ever because of a variety of enhancements to rollovers, menus, hyperlinks, font family management, form control creation and preview and export controls.

QuarkXPress 6 also includes a more intuitive way to tag content as XML. The upgrade also uses an industry-standard XML parser, which provides more robust XML support and enhanced error handling.

A powerful XTensions interface allows developers to enhance the functionality of QuarkXPress to meet the needs of unique publishing workflows. There are now more than 500 commercially available XTensions that augment the capabilities of QuarkXPress software, delivering vital niche solutions to Quark customers.

“What most people don’t know is how brilliant QuarkXPress is under the hood. The extensibility of version 6 is beyond anything I’ve seen, making it a pleasure both to port our old XTensions to Mac OS X and to create incredible new ones,” said Peter McClard, president of Gluon Inc in the press release. Gluon produces high- quality creativity and productivity software for the publishing industry.

QuarkXPress 6 will be shipping next week and can be purchased at [url=http://www.quark.com]http://www.quark.com[/url] or by calling Quark customer service at 1.800.676.4575. List price in the United States is $1,045. Users of QuarkXPress 5 can upgrade for $199. The upgrade price for users of QuarkXPress 4 is $299, while QuarkXPress 3 users can upgrade for $499. Prices may change without notice.