The Digital Dish: Looking for QuarkXPress 6

Sandee Cohen

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I had only one item on my agenda flying to the recent San Francisco Macworld Expo (also known as the gathering of the faithful). I wanted to see if anyone from Quark Inc. would step on stage with Steve Jobs to show a sneak peek at QuarkXPress 6 running under OS X. This would be the balm to soothe the Quark masses frothing at the bit for a glimpse of the next version of their preferred product and give them a chance to see what XPress on OS X can do. (If the previous sentence doesn’t win the award for the most mixed metaphor of the year, then I’ll hang up my typing toe-shoes.)

Quark’s Stealth Mode
For dedicated Quarkers, the most information about QuarkXPress (all versions) was to be found at the Power Tools Conference on QuarkXPress, moderated by Design Tools Monthly’s Jay Nelson (whose work is featured on creativepro.com as well). This two-day event consisted of 14 different sessions dealing with all things Quark. Although most of the speakers were not affiliated with Quark Inc., there were two Quark employees sitting right up front taking extensive notes and giving feedback on what the speakers said.

Although Quark Inc. has a reputation for being aloof, these guys couldn’t have been nicer to or more upfront with the attendees. They freely divulged hitherto secret information that Quark 6 was currently in alpha stage and that the beta cycle would start shortly. They spoke about June as the release date. They said that the next version of Quark would be able to import formatted tables from Excel. They agreed that the current implementation of creating Web pages was flawed, and that in the next version you’d be able to simply convert a print page to Web. And finally, they very quietly whispered that QuarkXPress under OS X would be able to output directly to PDF. (No word if this simply tied into Mac OS X’s built-in PDF creator or if the program would create proper PDF documents.)

But if all this openness seemed out of character for Quark Inc., what I saw after one session was totally astonishing. Several QuarkXPress users went up to the employees to ask questions like, “Will Quark Inc. continue to support the Mac?” “How much of InDesign’s feature set will Quark 6 be able to match?” Rather than just blow the questions off, these two guys were gathering business cards with promises that they would come to the questioner’s office, have them sign an Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and then show them all the bells and whistles in the new QuarkXPress. This type of aggressive serve-the-customer marketing is not something we expect from Quark Inc.

And Waiting in the Wings…
With such a presence in the Power Tools conference, I was totally convinced that Apple’s Keynote would definitely show the final piece of the OS X graphics puzzle. And Steve even had a great opening segue when he mentioned that we all know what is the missing application for OS X. I immediately looked to the wings of the stage to see who from Quark Inc. would come bounding up to announce QuarkXPress 6. Sadly, no one appeared.

This is not a great sign for the new version of QuarkXPress. What are the Quark folks keeping secret? Every time they leak a new feature for QuarkXPress 6, it only helps keep their current users from moving over to InDesign. Do you think there’s any feature that could be added to Quark 6 that will make the Adobe team change its strategy for InDesign? Not at all, and certainly not at this stage of the revision cycle.

My suggestion is that Quark announce all the new features for XPress 6 as soon as possible. Think of it as the equivalent of having the entire Quark user-base sign an NDA to see the new features. If the Quark users like what they see, it will slow conversions to InDesign until Fred and company can bring out version 6. If they don’t like what they see, it only helps Quark Inc. start working on version 7.

However, it’s not going to be enough just to bring Quark to the X-side, they must make up for the rather lukewarm set of features in QuarkXPress 5. The following is my wish list for QuarkXPress 6 on OS X:

• Better features for tables. In addition to importing Excel tables, tables must be able to have no-stroke settings and see-through fills. They also need to add automatic alternating fills and strokes. That will bring Quark 6 tables up to speed with InDesign’s.
• Native support for importing Photoshop files. Quark Inc. needs to buy the ImagePort XTensionfrom a lowly apprentice production (alap) and offer it as part of XPress 6. This XTension not only equals InDesign’s import of Photoshop files, but actually surpasses it by allowing layers and clipping paths to be turned on and off directly in the XPress document.
• Native PDF export with bookmarks, hyperlinks, and e-book tags. It’s not enough to just output as a PDF. Quark needs to make the most enriched PDF files ever. If I were the Quark product manager, I would contact the folks at Techno Design and build their PDF Design Pro XTension into XPress 6.
• Multiple undos. Multiple undos. Multiple undos. Multiple undos! I can’t say this enough times. There is no excuse in the year 2003 for any application to come out with a single undo — and sometimes no undos.

Without these features, QuarkXPress 6 for OS X will only be an operating system upgrade. With these features, it makes XPress 6 barely at parity with InDesign 2. And don’t forget, the current crop of XTensions for XPress 5 won’t work with the OS X-native XPress 6. Many XTension developers are already working on updating their current XTensions to OS X, but it may take a few months after XPress 6 is released before those XTensions are released.

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