The new QuarkXPress has arrived.
And it is a hefty update.
Late Friday, software developer Quark released version 10.0.0.1 of its QuarkXPress design application. The 293.5 megabyte update, which can be downloaded here, adds the following changes:
– Xenon Graphics Engine The new state-of-the-art Xenon Graphics Engine takes full advantage of your computer’s processing power, rendering rich PDFs, Photoshop and TIFF images giving you maximum performance at the most appropriate resolution.
– HiDPI and Retina Display Support With a pixel density so high that the human eye can’t distinguish individual pixels, every element of QuarkXPress 10 has been optimized to take full advantage of high-resolution Retina displays.
– Modern and Optimized UI From the new full-screen view to auto-hiding dockable palettes, QuarkXPress 10 has been redesigned inside and out.
– PDF Pass-Through Transparency Avoid flattening and create smaller, more nimble, device-independent PDFs. QuarkXPress objects can interact with placed PDFs and maintain the transparency throughout your workflow.
QR Code Creator Generate vector Quick Response (QR) codes directly within QuarkXPress and style and color them the way you want. Supports text QR codes such as URLs and SMS as well as vCards.
– Import Pictures and Hyperlinks from MS Word Take MS Word docs with embedded or linked pictures and place them directly into your QuarkXPress layout. Hyperlinks are automatically honored and added to the Hyperlinks Palette.
– East Asian Typography Features in Every Edition Maintain total control over Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean layouts.
– Export to ePUB Convert your QuarkXPress layouts into standardized eBooks for the Amazon Kindle, iBooks, Sony Reader, NOOK, and more.
– Design for App Studio App Studio is the leading cloud-based HTML5 solution that turns print into interactive award-winning tablet and smartphone experiences. Now you can design interactive app content directly within QuarkXPress, then publish it to your own branded apps for iPad, iPhone, and Android, and other mobile devices.
Other Enhancements:
– Layer Enhancements Make layers an integral part of your design with support for layers on master pages. Paste also now remembers layers and if those layers don’t exist in the target layout, QuarkXPress will create new layers automatically. Use the new palette preference to turn this feature on or off.
– Print Preview Ensure your output settings are correct before printing with new thumbnail page previews in the print dialog.
– Key Item Space/Align Key Item Space/Align makes it easy to align and space objects relative to a key item. Select your key item first and everything else will be relative to it.
– Highlight Missing Fonts It’s now effortless to find text that uses a missing font in a layout. You can even change the highlight color in the preferences.
– Improved IME support Correct entered text without having to retype the phonetic again by easily choosing different characters from the candidate list. Send text to Japanese, Korean, Chinese and 3rd party IMEs.
– Full-Screen Color Browsing Utilize the full size of your screen to add and edit colors in QuarkXPress.
– Browse rich Pantones in multiple views to choose the one that’s just right for your design.
Plus:
– OS X file extensions now added to QuarkXPress files.
– Flip shapes horizontally and vertically.
– Easily join, extend, and close open Béziér paths.
– Apply Style Sheets after creation.
– Support for Portuguese Reformed hyphenation and spellcheck.
– Layout tab reordering.
– Set default tool preferences from existing objects.
– View persistent Unicode values in the Glyphs Palette.
– Set separate trim view pasteboard color for App Studio.
QuarkXPress 10.0.0.1 requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.7.5 later to install and retails for US$849.00 for the full version.
If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.