The booklet and Web pages highlight Quark’s longstanding ability to import and manipulate native Photoshop files, and its new ability to import native Illustrator files. It also explains how to export HTML for use in Dreamweaver, and how to use the new Flash-creation features in QuarkXPress. In addition, ito explains how to import and export PDF files, and has a final chapter for InDesign users that explains how to use QuarkXPress.

At the end is a helpful chart that compares what QuarkXPress 8 can do with files from Adobe Creative Suite, versus what InDesign CS4 can do with them. Here’s a small version of it:

In addition to the downloadable booklet, the Web page also includes a brief video that highlights Quark’s integration features, and four special pages that focus on these topics:

• QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop
• QuarkXPress and Adobe Illustrator
• QuarkXPress and Flash
• Other Points of Integration & Side-by-side Integration Chart

The Illustrator page includes a 20-minute video on how to use QuarkXPress to create illustrations, and the Flash page includes a 45-minute video on how to create sophisticated Flash designs in QuarkXPress.

The booklets are available in English, International English, French, German and Italian, with Spanish to come.

I did see one interface glitch on the Web page: the four links at the bottom of the page aren’t working, so use the tabs at the top to take you to those same places.

And the included CD contains InDesign and QuarkXPress templates for all the grids in the book! 224 pages, $49.95 from Wiley Publishing.

Jeff Gamet mentioned the following news item back in March, but I thought it’s worth a reminder:

You can watch Ted Locascio’s entire series of 18 video tutorials, produced by lynda.com, here.

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But the meatier stuff includes 20 short videos that highlight the new features in QuarkXPress 8. Be sure to click the “watch in high quality” link, or else the video is difficult to follow. Or, just skip the whole online-viewing experience and download the videos to watch at your leisure, at www.tinyurl.com/Quark8-EN.

If you learn better from video-based training, try QuarkXPress 7: New Features, by Jay Nelson, the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com. Its 5.5 hours of self-paced training covers every new feature in a relaxed, supportive style. $99 from Lynda.com.

“Color Management Essential Training” is an in-depth exploration of applying color theory and color management workflows in various graphics applications, including QuarkXPress 7, Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Photoshop CS3, and InDesign CS3. Exercise files accompany the tutorials.

You can watch the first ten brief movies for free, and then watch one free movie from most of the remaining chapters. To continue after that, you’ll need to buy a subscription to Lynda.com (their entire library) for $25/month or $250/year.

(Murphy is also the co-author of Real World Color Management, from Peachpit Press.)

Anyway, two project leaders from Quark’s Emerging Technologies group sat down with Microsoft’s ISV Architect Evangelist for a video interview. (In Microsoft-speak, ISV stands for Independent Software Vendor.)

This very interesting 13-minute video interview with Kapil Tundwal and Mohan Dhandapani is full of programmer terminology, and I didn’t fully understand it, but it seems to indicate that Quark is experimenting with Silverlight as a possible way to deliver high fidelity, cross-platform, interactive something-or-other. They use the term “pixel pages”. Perhaps someone can fill me in on what that means…

(I found this patent related to pixel pages, but I still don’t understand what it is.)

For more info on Silverlight see Microsoft’s page here, www.silverlight.net.

This is their definition:
“Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows.”

On another page, www.microsoft.com/silverlight/default_ns.aspx, Microsoft defines it as this:

“Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.”

Whatever it is, Quark’s looking into it.

The Advanced Training Pack teaches how to define Quark Job Jackets by converting Publishing/Output Specifications from standards organizations such as the JDF-defining Ghent WorkGroup (GWG). It includes three sample Job Jackets — including one that contains the 13 output specifications of the GWG — and their associated settings files.

It also includes:

• The complete Basic Training Pack to get you started quickly
• A Walkthrough Video showing how to convert specifications into Job Jackets Resources
• A full listing of all Job Jacket Resources, organised in a Matrix sheet so you can easily fill in and customise Jacket and Ticket Resources
• Extensive instructions on customising the sample Job Jackets to your own specific needs
• Sample Job Jackets — one ready-made for magazine ads, one for book publishing, and one for Ghent WorkGroup compliance holding the 13 GWG output specifications — complete with settings files
• Optional e-mail based assistance to help you further with customising Job Jackets to your own needs

As Erik Vlietinck, Editor of IT Enquirer, notes: “We found that the most difficult part about setting up Quark Job Jackets is not so much the creation of a Job Jacket by itself. Instead, translating specifications such as those of the Ghent WorkGroup into Job Jackets Resources is the most difficult to grasp, even by people whose regular job is to set up a workflow.”

The Advanced Quark Job Jackets Training Pack teaches users how to convert such standards body specifications into Job Jacket Resources quickly and efficiently. The Advanced Pack’s Matrix sheet helps to identify the Resources that correspond to any particular specification setting quickly.

“Experiments showed the Advanced Training Pack — especially its Matrix sheet and sample Job Jackets — saved users two weeks of time spent to figuring out how to convert the specifications into Resources correctly,” Erik Vlietinck said.

The Advanced Training Pack costs EUR 650 (US$961) for the stand-alone Pack, or EUR 1190 (US$1,752) with additional e-mail based assistance included. IT Enquirer V.I.P. subscribers receive a 25% discount.

www.it-enquirer.com/main/basic_jj/

Author Erik Vlietinck plans to release an advanced training pack soon as well. It will include the Basic Training Pack, sample Job Jackets, including one containing Ghent Workgroup output specifications, and a Matrix Sheet that enables users to add Resources to Job Jackets more efficiently.

Topics include:

Composition Zones
Creating Composition Zones
Editing Composition Zones

Drop shadows

Opacity

Quark Job Jackets
Create a new project from a Job Ticket
Link a Job Ticket
Evaluate a project from an attached Job Ticket

Shared content
Synchronizing a picture
Synchronizing text
Synchronizing content only

www.quark.com/service/desktop/training/training_videos.cfm