Quark Announces QuarkXPress 10. Details Matter

Quark announced today QuarkXPress 10, the new version of the graphic design and page layout software for designers who love print and live digital. New inside and out, QuarkXPress 10 includes Quark’s new Xenon Graphics Engine, Retina display support, a modern architecture, and over fifty feature enhancements that streamline the design process and improve the design experience. It also continues support for ePub and out-of-the-box HTML5 authoring tools for App StudioTM, the leading cloud-based HTML5 solution for creating award-winning tablet and smartphone experiences.

“This has been a monumental undertaking by the development team to thoroughly modernize QuarkXPress in terms of the application environment, architecture, user interface, and graphics engine,” said Dave White, Chief Technology Officer for Quark. “We’re excited not only for this release, but also the foundation that has been put in place for future QuarkXPress features.”

New Cocoa Environment
QuarkXPress 10 is the first version of QuarkXPress to run as a native Cocoa app. Cocoa is the current and preeminent application environment for Mac OS X. Being a Cocoa app brings a number of benefits to QuarkXPress 10, including the ability to leverage the latest OS X features, maximize performance, and rapidly support new OS X releases. In migrating QuarkXPress to Cocoa, the development team:

Updated half a million lines of code
Added 350,000 new lines of code
Created more than 500 dialogues and palettes in multiple languages
Incorporated 1,300 icons to enable Retina display resolutions
Xenon Graphics Engine

Quark has engineered a new, state-of-the-art graphics engine from the ground up that will be leveraged across a range of its products, starting with QuarkXPress 10. The new Xenon Graphics Engine renders rich PDFs, Photoshop and TIFF images, and uses its Adaptive Resolution feature to deliver designers the most appropriate onscreen resolution with maximum performance. The difference between viewing pixel and vector files in QuarkXPress 10 versus QuarkXPress 9 is stunning. The Xenon Graphics Engine enables:

Native and deep understanding of image and vector files: PDF, AI, TIFF, JPG, PNG, PSD, and more
Adaptive Resolution: Always delivers the best onscreen resolution without compromising performance – in real time and irrespective of zoom, crop, and even while positioning graphics
Rich understanding of PDFs: PDFs are dynamically rendered using rich knowledge of fonts, vectors, colors, gradients, and transparency within a PDF for better onscreen rendering and faster output
Takes full advantage of the latest processor technology: Utilizes the dedicated vector processors within core hardware and supports multi-core, multi-processor, multi-threading, SSE3, and Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)
Modern and Optimized User Interface

In order to further optimize the design environment, QuarkXPress has been overhauled on the outside too with a modern new look – but that’s just the start.

Next Generation Palettes: Dock palettes to screen edges, turn on hiding, drag and drop palettes, snap to windows, and more. New shortcut keys enable even faster access and the enhanced Palette Sets feature makes remembering favorite configurations a breeze.
Full Screen Experience: Expand the design environment to fill the entire screen with one click. When working across more than one screen, palettes can use one screen and the layout another. Set docked palette groups and auto hide for maximum real estate.
Page Navigator: Easily scan through the page thumbnails and go directly to a chosen page faster with new navigation elements and command keys.
Measurements Palette: The measurements palette is now the single most important destination in QuarkXPress. It now completely replaces the functionality of the Modify Dialog including the previous shortcut keys, enabling continued access to a layout with the option to modify more than 100 layout settings while still interacting with the page.

HiDPI and Retina Display Support
Every element of QuarkXPress 10 has been optimized to take full advantage of high-resolution Retina displays found on the new Mac Book Pro.

QR Code Creator
Generate, style, and color vector Quick Response (QR) codes directly within QuarkXPress with support for text QR codes such as URLs and SMS as well as vCards.

East Asian Typography
Now every edition of QuarkXPress 10 supports East Asian typography, not just editions sold in East Asia. This includes features such as vertical story text, phonetic text reading (rubi) font sets, character grids, and more.

Work Faster and Smarter in QuarkXPress 10

Import Pictures and Hyperlinks from Microsoft Word
PDF Pass-Through Transparency
Layers Enhancements
Print Preview
Key Item Space/Align
Highlight Missing Fonts
Improved IME support
Bezier Tool Enhancement
Layout Tab Reordering

See a full list here: www.quark.com/10

Availability and Special Pre-order Offer
QuarkXPress 10 will ship in mid-to-late August. From now until the official ship date, Quark is offering all QuarkXPress 9 users a 20 percent discount on pre-orders of QuarkXPress 10. Visit the Quark Store to pre-order QuarkXPress 10 for the discounted price.

Note to Editors: Box shots, logos, and screen shots for QuarkXPress 10 are available. Please contact Sarah Rector at [email protected] for access.

About Quark
Quark’s software enables organizations of all sizes to meet customer demand for engaging, relevant communications when, where, and how they want them. Our solutions combine the power of XML with flexible layout and design to automate the delivery of customer communications to print, Web, and interactive experiences on the latest digital devices. Financial services firms, manufacturers, and governments around the world rely on Quark solutions to elevate customer communications to new levels, reduce time to market, and lower costs.