QuarkXPress 7.31 review

Last time we reviewed DTP software (Shopper 213), QuarkXPress was at version 6.5, the latest in a series of upgrades that failed to do it justice.

Version 7 marked a change in attitude. Quark became more accessible, adding lots of helpful advice to its website, listening to users' comments, and launching www.ilovedesign.com, a graphics community showcase. QuarkXPress 7 also comes with a good manual.

Several incremental upgrades have tied up loose ends and added presets for such things as PDF output in an attempt to address the criticism that certain features were too hard to use. Even now, though, few users will get to grips with Job Jackets, a comprehensive system for managing and controlling the way documents are formatted and delivered for printing, or Composition Zones, a clever but confusing method of allowing multiple users to work on parts of a document independently.

Features everyone will appreciate include highly controllable soft shadows that, unlike InDesign's, can be applied independently to text and its containing frame. Picture Effects allow you to tweak photos within your layouts, and you get excellent control over placed multi-layer PSD (Photoshop) files. In fact, if you already use other Creative Suite applications, that isn't a strong reason to stick with InDesign, as QuarkXPress works with them quite well, too.

XPert Tools Pro, a bundled set of plug-ins, adds functions such as layers and object styles to catch up with InDesign CS3. Also included is Quark Interactive Designer, an attempt to integrate web-design tools with page layout. It's not an approach many serious web designers would favour, but if you need to produce Flash-based content and don't want to invest time or money in a separate product, it's a bonus.

QuarkXPress 7 certainly provides all the essentials and, considering the company's expertise in integrating with content-management systems, it's a compelling product for publishers with complex requirements. For the rest of us, however, its advantages over InDesign are less obvious than its shortcomings. Quark may be friendlier now, but QuarkXPress isn't. You get nothing but a blank screen on startup, and no templates or clip art. The user interface, while neat, has too many idiosyncrasies, and the use of tabs to switch between different functions of the main Measurements palette is awkward. There are frustrating gaps in the Undo function, such as moving pages in the Pages palette, which can be a pain to reverse manually. Shadows aside, effects and transparency are still limited. It will be interesting to see if version 8, which should be available soon, addresses these problems.

There's simply no excuse for QuarkXPress to cost more than InDesign. If you buy InDesign as part of Creative Suite, which many users will want for Photoshop and Illustrator, the numbers look even worse for Quark. Quark's upgrade deal is more attractive at around £300, but otherwise, InDesign is the better bet.