Return to page 1 of this review.
E-Publishing Features
QuarkXPress 9 can export to three kinds of electronic publishing formats: ePUB, Blio eReader, and iPad apps.
Export to ePUB. ePUB (an open e-book standard) is used for plain layouts with inline pictures, since the reader may adjust the appearance of the tex. You can create simple e-books and publish to e-bookstores such as Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble NOOK, and Amazon Kindle. You can also export existing QuarkXPress book layouts in ePUB format. QuarkXPress 9 includes a new Reflow View that lets you configure the content separately from the layout to prepare it for reflow-based outputs such as ePUB. It can also automatically create an ePUB table of contents from the Reflow View’s article structure. You can assign metadata to your ePUB layout, such as author, publisher, ISBN number, keywords, and a description. You can even include a spine image, which will display on the bookshelf in any ePUB reader.
Design for the Blio eReader. The Blio eReader format can accommodate books and other publications that range from plain to media-rich. In QuarkXPress 9, you can enhance eBooks with interactive elements and take advantage of a Read Logic feature that makes it easy for readers to follow long stories.
In addition to being a free, downloadable Windows application, the Blio eReader is also pre-installed on Windows computers from Toshiba, HP, and Dell. Blio claims that the Blio eReader will soon be available on devices that run the iOS, Android, and Silverlight platforms. Blio representatives told me that a Mac version is slated for later this year, but none of their promotional materials mention it.
App Studio for QuarkXPress. iPad apps can look like all sorts of things, but publication apps usually differ from eBooks or Blio files in that they provide and manage subscriptions to publications, and they have interfaces that are less like traditional books. Quark says that with App Studio, you’ll be able to create customized apps for the iPad and distribute them through Apple’s App Store. Quark also says that App Studio can either repurpose existing content or create content specifically for the iPad. The apps can include video/audio players, slideshows, scrollable regions, Web overlays, pop-up windows, buttons, and hyperlinks.
Sadly, the App Studio is not included in the initial release of QuarkXPress 9. Quark promises to release it “within 90 days” of the release of QuarkXPress 9. (Based on the April 26 release date of QuarkXPress 9, that would be July 26, 2011.) If you’re interested in iPad publishing now, Quark is offering an iPad Publishing Service where they’ll configure an app for you. CreativePro.com will publish my mini-review of App Studio soon after it’s available.
Tagging Content
The Blio and ePUB formats require you to tag content so that e-readers know which content belongs with what other content, and their logical place in the text hierarchy. For example, you need to tag a headline as a headline so the e-reader knows to format it as a headline on the reading device. You also need to tag pictures, captions, bylines, and so forth, to keep them together in the flow of reading. You apply tags from the Reflow Tagging palette, which looks and functions a lot like the Style Sheets palette.
When tagging text in Reflow View, this is how the text appears when you apply each tag.
These are the text tags available to you in the Reflow Tagging palette.
There are two levels of text tagging: paragraph tags and character tags. Paragraph tags assign levels to text, such as headline, subhead, body, byline, pullquote, section/chapter name, and so on. Character tags simply force a selection of text to display as plain, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superior, inferior, or superscript.
Unfortunately, QuarkXPress 9 doesn’t map text Style Sheets to these tags, nor can you assign keyboard shortcuts to the tags. So to tag content, you must click on it, then click on the tag, then click on the content, then click on the tag, then…. Another drawback: Text edits you make in Reflow View are not reflected in the text on the layout page. To be fair, Quark makes it clear that applying tags should be done after all the text is final.
Blio Interactivity, Slideshows, and Export
Adding Interactivity and Slideshows. Adding interactivity and slideshows to a Blio e-book is almost as simple as adding a picture to a picture box. For a slideshow, you simply choose a folder full of pictures. When you view the page in the Blio eReader, the picture box will have controls for displaying the slideshow. (Note that all pictures must be at 100% scale and cropped as you want to see them in the picture box. Fortunately, Quark lets you export any or all pictures from a page, in any common format and at 100% scale and cropped as you see it in the QuarkXPress picture box.)
To add HTML to a Blio layout, you click on an empty picture box and point it to the HTML file. You can choose to embed the HTML file and its associated files, or simply link to them. The Blio eReader has a built-in HTML parser to display Web pages inside the picture box.
To add a live, online website to a Blio layout, you also use a picture box and give it a URL to display. Again, the website will appear inside the picture box in the Blio eReader.
Exporting. Exporting a layout as an eBook for Blio eReader is a one-step operation. If you have Windows, you’ll be able to preview it in the free Blio eReader. Mac users will have to wait for a Mac version of the Blio eReader. Exporting a layout as an ePUB is also a one-step operation.
The process of tagging text and page items, adding interactivity and slideshows, and exporting to Blio or ePUB is as simple and straightforward as possible.
Buying Advice
The new features in QuarkXPress 9 are almost totally about making e-books and improving the workflow for producing traditional books and other publications. If your work involves lots of formatting of lengthy text, this upgrade will pay for itself quickly. If you skipped upgrading to QuarkXPress 8, you’ll want QuarkXPress 9 for the hundreds of new features added in QuarkXPress 8, along with version 9’s more efficient, refined interface.
This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on April 28, 2011
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
