Real People Reviews: QuarkXpress 7 better but not good enough
My favorite new addition to QuarkXpress 7 is Job Jackets. If you collaborate on projects, need specific rules for color or output, or use style sheets, Job Jackets lets the user creates a defined set of rules so that each user can work within those guidelines. A great feature for evaluating your project once you are ready to go to press or put your project online. This may save a lot of time and effort when multiple designers are involved. Much as the third-party Extensis tools were a few years back, getting your project elements together so that everything is where it should be is now a part of QuarkXpress 7.
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On the down side, while veteran QXP users may find the interface somewhat familiar and useful, new users will have a dramatic learning curve. While that was acceptable in the "old days," weekend warrior designers and advanced consumers that have found a home with several of Adobe's products will be lost in this realm. Now, I do not want to get into that old argument; however, and for the purposes of this article, I have to say that Quark faces an uphill battle if they hope to recover some of their market share in the design industry.Â
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Many end users felt abandoned by Quark and, no matter how great their product becomes, will not return since they are no longer really considered the industry standard as they once were. My feeling is that QuarkXpress 7 is a serious update that does offer a lot of what so many people were hoping would emerge, but how well received this product will be remains to be seen. The bottom line is that the initial quality is there, but I am looking forward to what may come from a version 7.1. There is some promising improvement here. I believe that there is more that should happen before this title is a major contender in the creative professional's toolbox.
QuarkXPress 7's full product price is US$749. Upgrades from previous versions are $249.
Minimum system requirements: Mac OS X10.4 ("Tiger") or later, a CD-ROM drive, 128MB of available RAM, and 250MB of available hard disk space for installation of QuarkXPress 7 or 350MB of available hard disk space for installation of QuarkXPress Passport 7.
Macsimum Rating: 6.5 out of 10