LAYOUT : the newsletter of page design

Pfeiffer Consulting has produced a report that says QuarkXPress 8 allows users to work three times faster than was possible using earlier versions. Pfeiffer ran 25 productivity tests along the lines of ‘import a picture and change its crop’ and ‘update some style sheets’ and found that version 8 could complete tasks in a fraction of the time they used to. While the report seems to suggest that version 7 wasn’t much of an improvement over 6.5 (contrary to Quark’s claims at the version 7 launch), we concur that version 8 really is a big improvement in terms of speed and ease of use. A summary of the report can be downloaded from here.
http://8.quark.com/en/pfeiffer_report.html

Following up our story from 2 June (Adobe Announces Acrobat 9), Adobe is from today now shipping Acrobat 9 in all its editions. Creative Suite has also been updated to version 3.3 to include the software in Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium and Master Collection editions.  Mac and Windows editions in English, French, German and Japanese are being shipped. Pricing of Creative Suite 3.3 is as follows:

• Creative Suite 3.3 Design Premium - £1,249 + VAT
• Creative Suite 3.3 Design Standard - £1,051 + VAT
• Creative Suite 3.3 Web Premium - £895 + VAT
• Creative Suite 3.3 Master Collection - £2,313 + VAT
• Upgrade Creative Suite 3 to 3.3 - £135 + VAT
• Upgrade any Creative Suite Design Premium to 3.3 - £1,089 + VAT

Extensis has launched a new version of its server-based font management system, renamed Universal Type Server. It can be used not just to handle distribution of fonts to client computers but also to manage licences, classifications, foundries and keywords in shared environments. Administrators are able to manage the server and clients remotely via a web-based interface, and the system incorporates automatic backup. Mac and Windows, $1,800 plus $165 per client.
www.typeserver.com

Corel has upgraded its WordPerfect Office suite to version X4. Among other things, it advances the software’s existing support for Adobe PDF files. As well as being able to export to PDF (which the suite has been able to do since version 9), WordPerfect Office X4 can now also apply basic security options to its PDFs, embed tags and export straight to PDF/A for archiving. The suite can open PDFs for editing too, according to Corel, although this is achieved through an internal scanning function that reads the text and pictures in a PDF and converts them to an appropriate WordPerfect Office format. The suite supports Microsoft Office 2007’s XML formats - DOCX, XLSX and PPTX - as well as the open source ODF formats. Windows only, £276 (upgrade £135).
www.corel.co.uk

Adobe has created a suite of online services called Acrobat.com and opened it up for the time being as a free public beta. Anyone can sign up during this period to try it out. The services include file sharing and storage, a PDF converter, an online word processor and web conferencing tools. It also lets Acrobat 9 users access what Adobe dubiously calls a “personal workspace in the clouds”. Acrobat.com requires Flash 9 to be installed.
www.acrobat.com

Adobe unveiled a full upgrade to its Acrobat family of software products today, Mon 2 June 2008. Acrobat 9 properly supports embedded Flash — as opposed to triggering external Flash files with JavaScript – which can be played back in Adobe Reader 9. The upgrade provides a feature called PDF Portfolios that makes it easier to combine different media types (text docs, video, audio, Flash, etc) into a single, seamless PDF presentation. Naturally, it supports the new Acrobat.com service, also launched today. The software will be available in July in English, French, German and Japanese.
Here’s the pricing:

• Acrobat 9 Pro Extended (Windows only) £619, upgrade £205
• Acrobat 9 Pro (Win, Mac) £425, upgrade £145
• Acrobat 9 Standard (Windows only) £265, upgrade £85

Acrobat 9 Pro will also be incorporated into a version 3.3 of the Adobe Creative Suite 3 box from July.
www.adobe.com/uk/acrobat

Quark took advantage of the first day of Drupa to show off QuarkXPress 8, the forthcoming upgrade to its flagship page layout package. The software presents a redesigned user interface and now comes with the ability to export to Flash built-in (rather than as an extra-cost XTension). Quark announced the following list of new features:

- Picture Content Tool: Allows users to grab, rotate, and scale  images in real-time without typing in numbers or switching from tool  to tool
- Item Tool and Text Content Tool: Smart behaviour within these tools allows for less switching between tools, even for rotation and  managing multiple items
- New Bézier Pen Tools: Draw vector graphics Illustrator-style in QuarkXPress 8
- Workspace Enhancements: Include new buttons for instant access to  master pages and exporting to PDF, EPS, SWF and HTML; plus new  split-view buttons, enhanced contextual menus, and customisable  active pasteboards
- Measurements Palette: Further enhanced to make even more functions easily accessible, including with new clickable controls for on-the-fly drop-shadow modification
- Drag-and-Drop: Drag text and pictures from the desktop, Adobe Bridge, iPhoto, or any other application that supports drag and drop. Alternatively, drag content from QuarkXPress to Photoshop,  Illustrator, Microsoft Word, and other applications for direct  editing

It is expected that copies of the software will begin shipping at the beginning of August. In the meantime, Quark is promising a free upgrade offer: anyone who buys or upgrades to QuarkXPress 7 now will receive version 8 free when it ships. We will review QuarkXPress 8 in depth in LAYOUT in the near future.
www.quark.co.uk

Linotype has updated its free font management program to version 1.2.3 (build 833). The release fixes bugs and ensures that the ‘Clean System Fonts Folder’ command also works on the System folder in Mac OS X 10.5. The font auto-activation plug-in for QuarkXPress 6 has also been updated. Version 1.2.3 of FontExplorer X is Mac-only: the promised Windows edition, previously in beta, is due for an “imminent release” according to Linotype.
www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX

Badia Software has released an upgraded version of its Exportools plug-in that enhances Adobe InDesign CS3’s ability to export multiple sets of text and pictures from page layouts to other formats in one go. The plug-in now exports to SVG, INX (InDesign Interchange) and version CS3 INDD files, as well as PS, EPS, PDF, JPEG and TXT. Exportools 2.0 can also export just the objects you have specifically selected in a layout, and can be set up to open the exported files automatically in their default applications. $99.99, Mac only (Tiger or Leopard).
www.badiasoftware/IDproducts/id_exportools

Quark will begin selling version 7 of CopyDesk in Europe by the end of this week. QuarkCopyDesk is a program that lets you edit the content (text and pictures) of a QuarkXPress project without interfering with the layout. The new version is designed to work with QuarkXPress 7 and Quark Publishing System (QPS) 7. As well as being able to edit and format the text of a story, CopyDesk 7 allows you to flip and rotate pictures, apply Vista effects to raster images, and import Photoshop-native PSD files. The program also includes the ’split views’ feature from QuarkXPress 7, and everyday utility functions such as redlining and the insertion of non-printing notes. Full version £239 (Passport €399), upgrade £79 (Passport €119). Mac and Windows.
euro.quark.com/en