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QuarkXPress™ is the industry standard page layout program.
Although it is a professional level application with features
that will handle virtually any pre-press circumstance that
may occur, it is has a user-friendly, intuitive interface
and is surprisingly easy to use.
QuarkXPress is designed for printed output. It is used for
brochures, ads, newsletters and anything else that appears
in print. Although Quark™ is not specifically made for
web pages, there are utilities available such as Extensis®
Beyond Press™ which can convert Quark pages into web
pages.
A page layout program is like a word processor in that a document
is built on a page. However, that is where the similarity
ends because page layout programs, unlike word processors,
allow the precise arrangement of text and images on the page.
The first step in making a new document is the creation of
the page itself. You determine the page size and dimensions
and, like a graphic artists drawing board, Quark opens up
a work area that looks like a blank page with a pasteboard
on either side.
Basic Objects - Boxes and Lines
Quark is box-oriented so layouts are built by placing boxes
on the page. They are drawn onto the page with the mouse. The
type of box is determined by its content. A box can contain
either text or an image, or it can contain nothing at all. Thus
a box is either a "text box", a "picture box" or an empty box.
Boxes and line objects can be precisely positioned on the page.
There are 72 points to an inch and objects can be positioned
to within 1/1000th of a point. That's more than enough precision
required for any job. The user selects the measurement system.
Measurements can be set up in inches (standard or decimal),
picas, points, millimeters, centimeters, Ciceros or Agates.
Object Shape, Outline and Color Properties
A box can be rectangular (or square), oval (or round), or polygonal
(any number of sides). Previous versions of Quark limited the
shapes of lines, boxes and polygons to straight line segments
but the latest version allows curved line segments using Bezier
curves more
on Bezier curves.
An assortment of dashed and solid lines and preset frames are
provided to vary the appearance an object's outline (or frame).
Thus, shadow boxes can be made as well as a number of other
effects. Anything that can't be done along this line directly
in Quark can be drawn using Adobe® Illustrator® or another illustration
program, then imported into Quark in a box and placed on the
page.
Colors can be defined using any of the established color models
- RGB, CMYK, HSB and LAB. Swatches from standard spot color
systems are also supplied (PANTONE®, TOYO, DIC, TRUMATCH and
FOCOLTONE). Each document contains is its own user-defined color
palette. Colors can be created from scratch or copied from other
documents and the supplied color swatches. Stroke (outline)
and fill properties are applied to objects just like in illustration
programs so the concepts learned in these applications apply
here as well.
Tools and Preferences
Like illustration and image editing programs, Quark has a tool
palette with tools for creating page objects and for modifying
their shape, position and content. There also are other preferences
you setup to tell Quark how you want to make documents. These
are the individual settings or "environment" such as printer
settings, units of measurement, etc.
There is a simple but important concept to grasp regarding tools
and preferences. Tool and environmental settings made with no
documents open become application defaults that go into effect
when you create new documents. Settings made with an open document
are retained only by the document when it is saved and are restored
when the document is reopened for editing. Once a document is
opened the working environment is replaced by the one saved
with the document. New documents created while other documents
are open will inherit the current working environment.
There is, however, a provision for making changes to application
defaults while documents are open. This is done through the
Edit > Preferences menu. Here one can make changes
to either the application preferences or document preferences.
It is important that the working environment be saved with the
document because documents are often sent to a service bureau
for output on a high resolution device. The working environment
can be restored when the document is reopened ensuring that
it will print as intended.
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