- Introduction
- QuarkXPress and
Adobe Photoshop - QuarkXPress and
Adobe Illustrator - QuarkXPress
and Flash - Other Points
of Integration
Introduction
Today, QuarkXPress® 8 has tighter integration with Photoshop® and Illustrator® than ever before, and through standards like HTML and CSS, QuarkXPress users can publish across media both independently and alongside Adobe® Creative Suite® applications like Adobe Flash® (SWF) and Adobe Dreamweaver®.
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Using Your Design Tools to Their Full Potential: QuarkXPress 8 Integration with Adobe Creative Suite
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Creative Suite Integration Video
Here, you’ll find out how Creative Suite users can get the best possible interaction with QuarkXPress. You’ll be surprised how easy Quark has made it to unlock the full potential of all your design software.
Watch Video
approx 11 min
QuarkXPress 8 and Adobe Photoshop
QuarkXPress 8 is considered by many to have the best integration with Photoshop’s PSD file format of any layout tool available today. In this section we’ll explain when you should use the PSD format for your images and how to get the most out of them.
For example, you may have multiple layers in your PSD with different product shots, which will vary from publication to publication. If you use PSD, you can switch those layers on or off in QuarkXPress without having to save a separate TIFF for each publication.
Another question that might tip you in favor of PSD is, "Do I need to use a spot color with this image?" Using spot colors in most image formats is often complicated. However, because of the way QuarkXPress supports PSD channels, it’s simpler and more flexible.
Using PSD Files
Bringing the PSD files into QuarkXPress is the same as any other image. Create a Box and then use File > Import... or simply drag and drop the image from your desktop, Finder or an application like Adobe Bridge® with or without creating a box first.
To access the special features of PSD, open the PSD Import palette. (Window > PSD Import) You’ll instantly see thumbnails of the layers along with their names.
For example, you’ve created a layer in Photoshop to give your image an antiqued look, but when you put it in your layout it seems swamped by the surrounding colors. One option might be to reduce the opacity of that layer by clicking on it and entering a new opacity level. Another approach might be to try out a more subtle blending mode like "Soft Light." The beauty is that you see all of these changes right in the context of your page, and you’re not changing the original file. After all, who knows how the effect would look in a totally different layout.
Spot Channels
If you want to add an extra ink or plate to your images, you can set up a channel to do that in Photoshop. For example, maybe you intend to varnish part of an image, or you want to use a spot color within your image.
QuarkXPress can remap any channel right in the PSD Import palette — nondestructively. So click on the channels divider of the PSD Import Palette; double click on the channel in question, and you can pick any color from your project’s color palette, ensuring consistency.
Effects Layers
As powerful as the PSD support of QuarkXPress 8 is, it can’t manipulate certain kinds of layers, such as layer effects [e.g. Glow, Pattern Overlay, etc.].
If you use one of these layers, the image will import and print just fine, but you won’t get access to the layer controls of the PSD Import palette. If you need that functionality, you can eliminate those kinds of layers from your PSD by converting the layer effects to stand-alone layers or 'smart objects' [right click on the Layer in the Photoshop layers palette].
QuarkXPress supports text layers, most adjustment layers, and even 3D layers including opacity and blending mode controls.
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Using Your Design Tools to Their Full Potential: QuarkXPress 8 Integration with Adobe® Creative Suite®
Americas: English
Europe: International English | French | German | Italian
QuarkXPress and Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator is a great tool for creating logos and vector illustrations. Traditionally, the route into QuarkXPress has been to export an EPS from Illustrator. Now, things are made much easier with the arrival of direct Illustrator .ai file import into QuarkXPress 8. Simply drag and drop or import your Illustrator native file into your layout just as you would any graphics file format.
Transparency
QuarkXPress has a powerful transparency engine, but it doesn’t support partially transparent objects in PDF or .ai files yet. So if you are using something like a drop shadow in Illustrator and plan to place that over a non-white background or object, you might see undesirable results.
The good news is that the drop shadow and transparency features of QuarkXPress works on imported Illustrator files, so you can apply a drop shadow or change the opacity of your .ai file right in your layout instead.
QuarkXPress Vector Tools
QuarkXPress is well equipped for drawing tasks and in our newest release we have standardised many of our graphics tools to work more like Illustrator, Freehand and similar tools.
Watch a video on how to create compelling illustrations in QuarkXPress 8.
Watch Video
approx 20 min
Download FREE Booklet (1.6 MB PDF)
Using Your Design Tools to Their Full Potential: QuarkXPress 8 Integration with Adobe® Creative Suite®
Americas: English
Europe: International English | French | German | Italian
QuarkXPress 8 and Flash
Page-layout professionals can create rich Flash projects — without compromising design — using the built–in Flash authoring capabilities included in every edition of QuarkXPress 8. Working in the same familiar print environment of QuarkXPress 8, you can take existing print jobs to Flash, or create new Flash projects, in minutes — no additional purchase or coding required!
Watch a video on how to create sophisticated Flash designs in QuarkXPress 8.
Watch Video
approx 45 min
InDesign CS4 Comparison
A Side-by-side Comparison of QuarkXPress 8 and InDesign CS4 Flash Capabilities
QuarkXPress 8 |
InDesign CS4 |
|
|---|---|---|
LAYOUT ENVIRONMENT |
||
| Convert Print to Flash | YES |
YES |
| Dedicated Design Environment [Layout Space] for Interactive design | YES |
No |
NAVIGATION |
||
| Set transitions between pages | YES |
YES |
| Set transitions on individual objects | YES |
No |
| Custom Button creation | YES |
YES |
| Basic 3-state buttons | YES |
YES |
| Advanced multi-state buttons | YES |
No |
| Predefined 'canned' buttons | No |
YES |
| URL Hyperlinks | YES |
YES |
| Inter-document links | YES |
YES |
| Check Links in the layout tool | YES |
YES |
| Create pop up windows | YES |
No |
| Create Navigation Menu Bars | YES |
No |
| Create Navigation Pop Up menus | YES |
No |
| Define Custom Cursor | YES |
No |
| Combine Transparency with Interactive Items | YES |
Usually no |
| Create draggable elements | YES |
No |
ANIMATION |
||
| Animated objects along paths | YES |
No |
| Create frame by frame animations | YES |
No |
| Slide objects | YES |
No |
| Show and hide objects | YES |
No |
| Fade and dynamically alter object transparency | YES |
No |
MULTIMEDIA |
||
| Place and Export Video | YES |
No** |
| Place and Export SWF | YES |
No |
| Import and Export Audio | YES |
YES |
| Separate controls for background and foreground audio | YES |
No |
| Automatic conversion of traditional print image formats | YES |
YES |
| Build custom audio and video controls | YES |
No |
| Dynamically play videos from other URLs | YES |
YES |
USER INTERACTION |
||
| Send and get data content from internet | YES |
No |
| Support text entry, copy and paste, formatting, submission etc. | YES |
No |
| Define Custom keyboard shortcuts for Flash presentation | YES |
No |
| Easily build self running presentations | YES |
No |
| Conditional Expressions (Create Flash that can react to time/date, OS, drag and drop actions, carry out math and basically be smart) | YES |
No |
EXPORT |
||
| Export SWF for Web Viewing | YES |
YES** |
| Export FLA for development in most versions of Flash | No |
No |
| Export XFL for development in Flash CS 4 | No |
YES* |
Download FREE Booklet (1.6 MB PDF)
Using Your Design Tools to Their Full Potential: QuarkXPress 8 Integration with Adobe® Creative Suite®
Americas: English
Europe: International English | French | German | Italian
- QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop
- QuarkXPress and Adobe Illustrator
- Other Points of Integration & Side-by-side Integration Chart
* InDesign CS 4: Interactive elements such as hyperlinks, page transitions, and button actions are not included in the XFL file.
** InDesign CS 4: Movies and sound clips are not included in an exported SWF or XFL file
DISCLAIMER: This document is based on publicly available information and not based on hands-on software evaluation. Its content may be revised at any time. Quark Inc. accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for the accuracy of this content.
Other Points of Integration & Side-by-side Integration Chart
Other Points of Integration
- QuarkXPress includes Web layouts that can create menus and hyperlinks, convert print graphics or fancy text treatments to Web graphics, and then write a standards-based HTML file with CSS that can be opened directly in Adobe Dreamweaver.
- QuarkXPress 8 can import PDF files up to version 1.7 (the default PDF version from the Creative Suite applications when using the Press Quality PDF setting is PDF 1.4.)
Side-by-side Integration Chart
QuarkXPress 8 |
InDesign CS4 |
|
|---|---|---|
Adobe Photoshop |
||
| Import Native Photoshop Files | YES |
YES |
| Control Photoshop Layers | YES |
YES |
| Control Photoshop Transparency controls | YES |
No |
| Control Photoshop Channels / Spot Colors | YES |
No |
| Photoshop-like Palette Controls | YES |
No |
Adobe Illustrator |
||
| Support for Native Illustrator Files | YES |
YES |
| Support for Native Illustrator Files (via PDF Export) | YES |
YES |
| Support for Illustrator Layers | No |
YES |
| Drag and Drop from Illustrator | No |
YES |
Adobe Flash |
||
| Design/Export SWF Files | YES |
YES |
| Import Flash SWF Files for PDF | No |
YES |
| Import Flash SWF Files for Web Page Design | YES |
No |
Adobe Dreamweaver |
||
| Convert Print to HTML for Use in Dreamweaver | YES |
No |
| Convert Print to XHTML + CSS for Use in Dreamweaver | YES |
YES |
| Design Web Pages Compatible with Dreamweaver | YES |
No |
| Export PDF | YES |
YES |
| Export PDF/X | YES |
YES |
| Export JDF | YES |
No |
| Import PDF | YES |
YES |
| Export PDF via Acrobat | YES |
YES |
| Import PDF 1.6 + 1.7 | YES |
YES |
Download FREE Booklet (1.6 MB PDF)
Using Your Design Tools to Their Full Potential: QuarkXPress 8 Integration with Adobe® Creative Suite®
Americas: English
Europe: International English | French | German | Italian
©2008 Quark, Inc. All rights reserved. Quark, the Quark logo and QuarkXPress are trademarks or registered trademarks of Quark, Inc. and its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. Adobe, Creative Suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver and Freehand are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
