PrePressProduction.com / tips / quark page 1

To remove all guides from a document, option-click the horizontal and vertical rulers. If the ruler is overlapping the page, then all the page guides will be removed. If the ruler is not touching the actual page, then only the pasteboard guides (guides that appear outside the page) will be removed.

Disappearing guides

If you shift-drag a guide, then it will be visible only at the current zoom level and closer. If you zoom out of the current zoom level, the guide will disappear.

Navigate through successive layers

Use the shortcut command-option-shift-click to navigate through successive layers of objects.

Live editing with dialog boxes

If a dialog box has an "Apply" button, then option-click the button (or option-command-a) for live editing. QuarkXpress will remember your last setting (until you quit), so that the next dialog box will already have auto-apply selected.

Let Quark do the math for you

Don't bother remembering decimal equivalents for fractions: Let Quark do the math for you. Simply type in a fraction or mathematical formula into any dialog box that inputs numbers, and Quark will calculate the result.

Space before or space after?

Either one is fine, as long as you're consistent. The only times you'll ever need to use both "space before" and "space after" on the same paragraph are in instances where more space is needed between preceding text and new subheads (it's bad practice to increase the "space after" for just one instance of body copy - this gets in the way of proper use of style sheets).

Working with lines

When working with lines, use the "left point" setting in the measurement palette. It's a much easier and more intuitive method of positioning lines.

When aligning lines, remember that QuarkXpress aligns the points of the rule, not the actual edges of the visible rule. You will have to adjust the position by half the rule's weight in order to align the rules correctly. In other words, if you have two 1 point rules corner-aligned, then you will have to move one of the rules half a point (see screenshot below).

Embedding lines within text

Anyone who has used QuarkXpress's "Fill character" feature in the Tab attributes will know that it's not perfect. Especially when using dots, the spacing between the dots and the text is not always consistent. You are also limited to a text character. To get around this, embed a line within the text. You can resize the line to your heart's content, and also add custom dashes to it. You can also use this method when more than one rule is required on the same line of text (see screenshot below). The downside is that when adding or removing copy, the line may need to be manually resized.

"File not found" bug

Quark 4.x has a bug where it gets confused about the paths to images used in a document. The symptom: When updating pictures in "picture usage", you will get the message "file not found", even when you tell it exactly where the picture(s) is.

Solutions:

If you have any servers mounted on your desktop, put them away, and make sure you're not working on a remote document because that has been known to cause file-path problems with Quark as well.
If you open a document and it immediately pops up a warning about missing/modified images, do not click the default "update" button. Instead, click "cancel" and once the document has opened, go into "picture usage" and then update the images.
If all else fails, then the sure cure is to quit and relaunch Quark. Note: It's also a good idea to regularly rebuild your desktop.

"Folder or volume not found" bug

Another bug related to the "picture usage" bug listed above is the "folder or volume not found" error message that you may see when attempting to save a file after updating a modified image.

Solutions:

Manually update the images (double click on each image with the "content" tool, and click "get edition now").
Re-import any modified images into Quark, instead of updating them in the "picture usage" dialog box.

Beep when exporting to PDF

When exporting to PDF from QuarkXpress, you may sometimes hear Quark beep when prompting you to save the PDF. This is due to the fact that the name of the file is too long, and Quark is informing you, in its ridiculously vague way, that the name will be truncated.

Text disappearing on your print menus

If you are noticing some text disappearing on your print menus, then you have an ALAP (A Lowly Apprentice Productions) Xtension active. Old ALAP xtensions have a conflict with Mac OS 8.5+. ALAP has posted a patch to fix this problem.

Greyed out fonts

Quark has a conflict with ATM/ATR where auto-activated fonts will sometimes be greyed out in the font menu. The latest version of ATR (Newer than 2.5) fixes this conflict.

"Command-tab" to switch between tools

If you use the Command-Tab shortcut to switch between tools and fields in some menus in Quark, and you're running OS 8.5+, then you may notice that the OS uses the same shortcut to switch between running applications. To fix this, use the Mac OS help system (apple guide) to change the shortcut for switching between running applications... it has a script that will do it for you. Type in "application switcher" in the search field.

In OS X, you can't change the system shortcut, so instead get used to using Command-Option-Tab in QuarkXpress. It does everything Command-Tab used to do.

Unable to parse QuarkXpress EPS

If you save a Quark document as an EPS and open it from Illustrator, you may sometimes get an "unable to parse" error. This may be caused by a damaged font. To work around this, print the Quark document to a postscript file and open that file from Illustrator. [Contributed by Peter Hodson]

Incidentally, this method also usually brings in lines of type as one piece, instead of breaking each letter into individual pieces as we are used to seeing when converting Quark EPS documents. Illustrator sometimes has parsing problems with complex postscript documents. Simple files with text and simple graphics seem to work best.

Quark 4 also offers another method - you can convert text to outlines within Quark 4, and then save as an EPS. Illustrator can then open the EPS file with no problem. However, this is an unreasonable and somewhat insane solution for documents with a lot of text.

Yet another method is to export the file as a PDF, which can be natively opened in Illustrator.

If none of these methods work, then the a font or object may be too severely damaged. Try replacing the font, or re-creating the object. See the Font Tips page for more information.

Troubleshooting corrupted files

If you discover that you have a corrupted QuarkXpress file (especially if you're getting postscript errors when printing), and you've ruled out the possibility of a corrupted font, then the problem is is probably a corrupted object in a document. Here is a simple technique to narrow down the offending culprit:

If the document has more than one page, print one page at a time to narrow down the page.
If you're getting postscript errors on all pages, look for elements that may appear on all pages, such as footer and header elements.
Once you have a page narrowed down, select all the elements on the page and suppress printout. If you can print the page now (a blank page should print) then you know it's one of the suppressed objects.
Now comes the tedious part: Start unsuppressing printout for one object at a time, and printing out a page each time. You will eventually unsuppress the offending culprit and get the postscript error.
Now that you know what object is causing the problem, try to recreate the element. For example, sometimes the problem can be fixed as easilly as re-importing an image into a new picture box. At other times, an imported EPS or TIFF file may need to be checked for any problems (if you have a corrupted Photoshop file, try selecting the whole image, copying, and pasting into a new document).

Other common problems include overly complex paths in Illustrator EPS files, corrupted style sheets in QuarkXpress, and errors in embedded images in Illustrator EPS files.

Recovering damaged files

When Quark files get so corrupted that you can't even open them, there's not much you can do about it. There are a few "recovery" tools out there, and they all suck. So your best solution is to always make sure that your files are backed up daily. Some operators also use the "auto-save" feature in Quark - this can be a useful tool, however, this increases the chance of having duplicate files, so it's important that all backup files are cleaned up on a daily basis.

Having said that, Markzware's Markztools does a semi-reasonable job of recovering damaged files, but it may not recover the files in the same condition you last saw them in. For example, there may be considerable text reflow, pictures may not appear in boxes, and some objects may disappear completely. But it's still a good tool to have around, because a partially recovered document is better than no document at all.

This tool has been invaluable in my experience at least in one case... fixing damaged style sheets: Use MarkzTools to "recover" or "convert" the document (MarkzTools creates a copy of your original document); Use the Style Sheets dialog in QuarkXpress to append the new stylesheets from the recovered document to your original document, replacing the old ones; Trash the recovered document, and continue to use your original document with the new style sheets.

Postscript errors

Postscript errors are one of the most common problems encountered when printing Quark files. There are many causes for this, ranging from corrupted fonts to damaged system resources. Often, the only way to find out the culprit for certain is to follow the old "process of elimination" method. This entails "suppressing output" for all items on a page and then printing after releasing the suppression of one item at a time. Sooner or later, you'll find your problem, at which time, you should recreate the item with new text and/or picture boxes, etc., and delete the original.

Can't empty trash

Quark has a bug where it won't let you empty the trash if it contains any files that were recently saved. This is due to a "temp file" issue that Quark has had since version 3.32... the only solution is to quit Quark.

"Fit to window" bug

If you're viewing a file at the "fit to window" zoom view, and you move the document off-center, you may encounter moments when Quark will not respond to the "fit to window" command again. A solution to this problem is to manually move the document in your window with your "grabber hand" a little, after which the "fit to window" command will work again.

Increase text scrolling speed

Set your keyboard's "repeat rate" to the fastest, and the "delay" time to the lowest (in your keyboard control panel) to increase text scrolling speed. Also, use the command-arrow key combinations and other keyboard shortcuts to navigate through text quickly.

Related links:
Quark User Training
Quark Technical support (Technotes, Techtips and the Knowledge Base)
QuarkXpress Tutorials (About.com)
QuarkXpress message board (Desktop Publishing magazine)
QuarkXpress tips page (Digital Training and Design)
Production artist survival guide (Fontsite.com)
Frank Romano's QuarkXpress tips pages (The site is poorly designed, so a directory link is provided here... click on the pages that have numbers at the end of the name; for example, "qxstips4.html")
QuarkXpress Tutorials (Sketchpad.net)
The Xpressobar

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