Planet Quark

YouSendIt: Now as an Acrobat Plug-in

Jeff Gamet — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:05:45 +0000

The free YouSendIt.com is a useful way to send big files across the Internet. Recently, they released plug-ins for Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, iPhoto, Aperture, Final Cut Pro and Microsoft Office that let you send the current file(s) directly from within those applications via YouSendIt.

An additional benefit to using the plug-in is that your files upload 25% faster than if you use YouSendIt’s website.

A Simple Document Fix

Jay Nelson — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:00:31 +0000

If you have a QuarkXPress document that is exhibiting symptoms of damage, such as not printing correctly or crashing when accessing a picture or text, try this:

From within QuarkXPress, choose File> Open, select the document you want to fix, and then hold down Option (Windows: Alt) while you press the button labeled “Open” in the Open dialog box. (Note: holding the Option key while double-clicking a document in the Finder will not perform this cleanup. Only using the File> Open dialog box will do it.)

By holding down the Option key, you tell QuarkXPress to rebuild everything in the document as if you were building it anew. This also strips out any leftover junk from previous versions of QuarkXPress.

QuarkXPress Text Shortcuts = Word’s Text Shortcuts

Jay Nelson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:52:17 +0000

Here’s a little tip that may help you with text-related shortcuts in QuarkXPress: they’re almost all the same as the shortcuts in Microsoft Word. That’s because Quark adopted Word’s shortcuts when they wrote QuarkXPress back in the late 1980s.

For example, want to check the spelling of a story? Press Command-Option-L (Windows: Ctrl-Alt L), for speLLLLLing, I suppose.

Want larger text? Press Command-Shift->. That’s for “greater than”. Want smaller text? Yep, it’s Command-Shift-< (less than).

Cumulus Now Supports QPS 8

Jay Nelson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:36:14 +0000

Since 1990, Canto’s Cumulus has been helping publishers and designers to manage their ever-growing menagerie of digital assets. At first it managed only pictures, but over the years Cumulus has expanded to become an all-purpose digital asset manager, supporting images, audio, video, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, and any other kind of file. Amazingly, it can even keep track of individual assets placed inside QuarkXPress or InDesign layouts.

Their new Cumulus 8 adds support for QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress Server 8, as well as Quark Publishing System (QPS) version 7.4 and 8.

If your company is managing lots of assets, and you’re not already using Cumulus, you owe it to yourself to have a look.

See Complete Picture Paths

Jay Nelson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:08:22 +0000

The Usage dialog box in QuarkXPress displays the file name and path for any imported picture. Unfortunately, the box usually isn’t wide enough to display the entire path. (In QuarkXPress 7 and 8 you can resize the Usage dialog box, but often even that isn’t enough.)

Here are two ways to see the full path to a picture: first, choose Utilities> Usage to open the Usage dialog box. Then either:

1. In QuarkXPress 7, you can mouse over the file name and wait a moment. A small box will appear that displays the entire path. (This doesn’t seem to work in QuarkXPress 8.)

2. Click the “More Information” disclosure triangle under the list of files. This will display everything QuarkXPress knows about the picture.

Bonus tip: In QuarkXPress 7 or 8, you can copy the complete path and any other information from the More Information area by selecting it and pressing Command-C (Windows: Ctrl-C).

Smashing Magazine

Jeff Gamet — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:02:29 +0000

Sven Lennartz and Vitaly Friedman’s Smashing Magazine presents some of the best stories on usability and Web design that I’ve seen.

They also collect free resources, such as icons, brushes templates and tutorials. Great stuff.

The Trick to Opening Files Exported from QuarkXPress 7 to 6

Jay Nelson — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:06:29 +0000

If you’re having trouble opening files in QuarkXPress 6 that have been exported from QuarkXPress 7 down to version 6, be sure you’re using QuarkXPress 6.5.2 to open them. This is the newest version of QuarkXPress 6, and is the one that QuarkXPress 7 aims for.

To find out your version of QuarkXPress, either watch the splash screen as it launches, or choose QuarkXPress> About QuarkXPress.

(To export a file from QuarkXPress 7 in v.6 format, choose File> Export> Layouts as Project…, then choose 6 from the Version popup menu.)

Create Your Own iPhoto Page Layouts

Jeff Gamet — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:58:41 +0000

When making a book in Apple’s iPhoto, you’re not limited to the page designs provided by iPhoto. You can use any program to create a page, including QuarkXPress. Here’s how:

Create a page in QuarkXPress the same size as the other pages in the iPhoto book you’re making. Fill it with photos, backgrounds, and other art.
Export the page from QuarkXPress in PDF format, making sure to keep the full resolution of imported images.
Open the PDF in Photoshop, Graphic Converter, or any other suitable image conversion utility, and save it as a 300 ppi full-quality JPEG. (Quality level 10, 11 or 12 should do it.)
Then add the file to your iPhoto book: select the page you’d like to replace, set the Page Type menu to One, and then drag your page image file onto the page. It will print at exactly the same quality as all other pages.

This technique can spruce up the opening page, or any page that needs a little special “something”.

CopyFlow Gold Updated for QuarkXPress 8

Jay Nelson — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:30:06 +0000

North Atlantic Publishing Systems’ CopyFlow Gold is now available for QuarkXPress versions 4 through 8. This XTension automates importing and exporting text and pictures in layouts.

To use it, you manually or automatically label each text box you want to use and CopyFlow exports all the text into one text file, with or without formatting. It will also export pictures, either in high resolution or screen resolution.

When you make changes to the exported text or pictures, they can be flowed back into the layout with formatting intact.

CopyFlow Gold costs $495. For a detailed story on how it works, see X-Ray Magazine.

Video Tutorial: Delete Unused Colors in QuarkXPress 8

Jay Nelson — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:12:08 +0000

Many longtime users of QuarkXPress don’t know that since version 4 there’s been a feature that lets you delete all the colors that aren’t being used in the current Project. Here’s how to make use of it:

Choose Edit> Colors
From the Show popup menu, choose Colors Not Used

Press Command-A (Windows: Ctrl-A) to select all the colors in the Edit Colors dialog. You can also Shift-click to select a range of colors, or Command-click (Windows: Ctrl-click) to select discontiguous items.
Click the Delete button.

Pretty simple, huh? I think it would be more convenient if that feature were in the Colors palette, but Edit> Colors isn’t too bad…

PLAY Video: Delete Unused Colors in QuarkXPress 8