QuarkXPress 4 in Depth with Cdrom
Authors: William Harrel, Bill Harrell, Elaine Betts
Venue:  (1998)

From the Book: Introduction Introduction Why yet another book on QuarkXPress? Heres what we think is a good reason: If youre standing in a bookstore reading this, look to the other QuarkXPress books on the shelf where you grabbed this one. Do you know what most have in common? They were rushed in a mad dash to make it onto the shelves as closely as possible to the same date as version 4 of the software was released. In other words, the authors didnt really have time to write about their experience with the new productthey had barely used it. Instead, they relied on their experience with older versions of the product and wrote about the new features as they understood them, not with the voice of authority that comes with actual experience from using the program. This book, on the other hand, comes to you after the release of QuarkXPress 4. We have had a chance to use it before writing about it! Who Should Read This Book We have written this book for intermediate to advanced users of QuarkXPress. We also believe that users of similar applications, such as Adobe PageMaker, will also gain greatly from this volume. This book assumes that you are familiar enough with QuarkXPress and desktop publishing to perform basic functions, such as simple layout and typesetting. This book concentrates more on design and prepress, or preparing documents for the printing press, color issues, creating electronic documents from your layouts, and much, much more. While our explanations are clear, they do assume a general understanding of QuarkXPress. This book is designed to build on what you already know. In other words, it goes beyond simply starting a document and saving it to a file! You already know how to do that. Whats In This Book This book is divided into three sections and seventeen chapters. The order of the chapters is progressive. Youll learn the basics in the first section and then go on to the real meat of QuarkXPress in the next. In the last section, we look at programs complementary to QuarkXPress, such as XTensions and add-ons. Part 1: Refresher: The Basic Parts Of A QuarkXPress 4 Document Hey! Weve got to begin somewhere. So why not at the beginning? This brief section is an introduction to publishing with QuarkXPress. Chapter 1, "Getting To Know QuarkXPress," is designed as a quick refresher, concentrating on the basics of using QuarkXPress, such as starting a new document, adding picture and text boxes, and so on. Even though this is designed as a brush-up, there is a lot of good stuff about starting documents and adding elements in a manner designed to save time and effort. More advanced QuarkXPress users can benefit from this approach. This book also provides a brief look at the most significant addition to QuarkXPress 4, the freehand and B&eacute;zier drawing tools. Again, this brief introduction to the drawing tools is meant only to get you started. The drawing tools are covered again in more detail in Chapter 11. Finally, this chapter provides a brief discussion of printing your layouts for various types of printers and the printing press. For an in-depth description of these issues, such as prepress and color reproduction, you should also check out Chapters 12 and 13. Part II: Using QuarkXPress 4 Here is the real meat-and-potatoes discussion of how to get the most from QuarkXPress 4. Nearly every aspect of the program is covered in these 12 chapters, everything from advanced typesetting to color reproduction, and much, much more. Chapter 2, "Making QuarkXPress Work The Way You Do," looks at making changes to how QuarkXPress behaves when you tell it to do certain things. For example, when you click the Zoom tool on the page, do you want to zoom in 25 percent? 50 percent? Maybe even 100 percent? Controllable also are many other of the programs behaviors, such as how and when to create automatic backups of your documents, what measuring system to use (inches? point and picas?), and so on. This chapter covers general application and document preferences, such as measurement systems, guide colors, zoom controls, and such. Preferences relating to more specific functions, such as typesetting, are covered in the chapters about those subjects. Chapter 3, "Getting Around In QuarkXPress," shows you sometimes shorter, therefore, better ways to do things youve always donethereby increasing your speed and proficiency in QuarkXPress, making you more productive. Topics covered include getting into the program quickly through aliases and shortcuts, or making the program load when you start your computer. You also learn how to use the Document Layout palette to navigate a document, rather than the sometimes slower and more cumbersome methods you may be used to. You also learn new ways to zoom in and out on a document. Chapter 4, "Text Boxes And Typesetting," walks you through creating and formatting text boxes, including creating columns within them, setting a baseline grid, aligning text in boxes, and so on. Included also is an in-depth discussion of computer font technology and typesetting. Youll learn what the pros know about using fonts and setting type professionally, with issues such as kerning, leading, tracking, drop caps, decorative type, serif vs. sans serif type, and a bunch of other little known and little understood issues. Discussed also are some helpful hints for preparing text for importing into QuarkXPress, such as creating style sheets in Microsoft Word, thereby saving hours reformatting text in your layout. Chapter 5, "Editing And Formatting Text In QuarkXPress," dives into control over the appearance of your type. QuarkXPress lets you tweak the appearance of your type by setting minutely different point sizes, subtle width and height differences, leading, and so on to nearly infinitesimal degrees. This is not to say that you cannot edit text in QuarkXPress. Basic functions, such as rewording, length cutting, and spellchecking, are relatively easy. This chapter shows you all kinds of shortcuts for selecting and formatting text, quick and easy ways to change typefaces and type sizes, as well as using Find/Change to make snappy formatting changes. Chapter 6, "Formatting Paragraphs And Using Style Sheets," shows you how to format blocks of text defined as paragraphs. Its all hereindenting, outdenting, tabs, aligning, applying rules to paragraphs, adjusting leading between lines in a paragraph and between paragraphs themselves, you name it. Youll learn how to make your documents more professional-looking by avoiding widows and orphans, and how to control hyphenation. And finally, youll read about the biggest time saver of them allstyle sheets. Learn how professional publishers save countless hours of formatting and reformatting by saving paragraph attributes in style tags they can use over and over. You can even change page after page of paragraph attributes by simply changing a style sheet definition. Chapter 7, "Working with Images," looks at importing images into your layouts, into both picture boxes and text boxes as inline graphics. Also discussed are some of the more prevalent graphics formats and when to use them. Its also in this chapter where youll learn how to use QuarkXPresss runaround feature. Runaround lets you wrap text around pictures, either around the picture box itself or contoured around the edges of the image. Also covered is important information about preparing your graphics in image-editing applications for optimal performance in QuarkXPress. Youll also find information on performing certain editing functions, such adjusting brightness and contrast, right in QuarkXPress, as well as using the posterize and invert to create special effects. Chapter 8, "Operations On Items," covers a wealth of box, or what QuarkXPress call items, issues, such as moving and placing, aligning, grouping, and layering. In addition, well also look into using the framing and background options, such as gradient fills, to create special effects. Chapter 9, "Mastering Documents," reveals insights to speed and design consistency in your document production through the use of Master pages. Youll learn, among other things, how to create and apply Master pages; how to edit or delete Master items appearing on document pages; and how to apply automatic, sequential page numbering throughout your documents. Chapter 10, "Long Documents," introduces the new feature for production of long documents, or ones that consist of more than a single QuarkXPress file. This feature uses a Book Palette to organize and track multiple files called Chapters. In conjunction with another new QuarkXPress feature, Lists, you can manage long document tasks, and create an index and a Table of Contents across multiple files. Chapter 11, "Drawing Tools," are possibly the most exciting addition to QuarkXPress 4. Use B&eacute;zier tools and standard drawing tools to create items, then apply powerful editing options to combine items, reshape an item, arrange, and enhance items without leaving QuarkXPress. Chapter 12, "Working With Color," covers a huge topicusing and reproducing color from not only QuarkXPress, but also in desktop publishing or computer design environments in general. The topics are many, including the differences between spot and process color, color prepress, color matching, trapping, creating and applying colors in your documents, and so on. This chapter begins with a discussion of color theory and moves on to the different color models supported by QuarkXPress and how to use them. Discussed also is setting up and using color separations, using Quark Color Management System, creating and applying colors in your documents, and just about every other color issue you can think of, including some suggestions on what colors to use when. Chapter 13, "Page Setup And Printing," covers the procedures for preparing a document to be sent to a professional print provider. Learn how to run test prints, how to eliminate as many printing problems as possible before they arise, how to Print To File, and a wealth of technical terminology used in the printing industry. Youll also discover hints and tips for controlling printing costs and working across platforms (Macintosh to PC or PC to Macintosh). Part III: Accessories Chapter 14, "QuarkXTensions," discusses the XTensions Manager and advantages of XTensions shipped with QuarkXPress 4, as well as those created and sold by third-party developers. Every user of QuarkXPress sooner or later finds that an XTension is the answer to a particular need. The sources and URLs of XTension providers also appear in this chapter. Chapter 15, "Web Resources For QuarkXPress Users," directs you to the Quark site with its many valuable tidbits of information, as well as a summary of the content found on dozens of other publishing related sites. Use these reference Web sites for inspiration, to resolve problems, obtain useful resources, or to participate in the community of publishing professionals. Chapter 16, "Creating Multimedia Documents With QuarkImmedia," covers repurposing documents with QuarkImmedia, Quarks multimedia XTension. QuarkImmedia works in conjunction with QuarkXPress to allow designers to create high-end multimedia projects. QuarkImmedia projects are distributed over the Internet; an intranet; or removable media, such as CD-ROM. This chapter takes a quick look at installing and using the plug-in to create multimedia titles from your QuarkXPress documents, as well as covering issues, such as what kinds of titles you can create with QuarkImmedia and some of the differences between designing for the computer screen and the printing press. Chapter 17, "Quark Publishing System," gives an overview of Quarks astoundingly powerful collection of server-based publishing applications for managing periodicals and other documents that are created by multiple contributors using multiple applications. These applications, used in conjunction with QuarkXPress in a QuarkXPress environment, provide highly refined assignment tracking, file management, consistent preferences, and archiving, among other things. The appendix, "Troubleshooting In QuarkXPress," is a compilation of troubleshooting definitions, explanations, and suggestions for solving problems that arise during QuarkXPress document production. The Glossary Of Prepress And Printing Terms defines terms associated with the printing trade, paper, inks, presses, bindings, service bureaus, and desktop publishing. The Color Studio provides some practical examples of creating brochures, as well as sample illustrations of concepts from Chapter 12, "Working With Color."