QuarkXPress is desktop publishing software for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment.
Recent versions have added support for ebooks/flipbooks, Web and mobile apps.QuarkXPress was founded by Tim Gill in 1981 with a $2,000 loan from his parents, with the introduction of Fred Ebrahimi as CEO in 1986.
Xtensions, along with Adobe's Photoshop plugins, was one of the first examples of a developer allowing others to create software add-ons for their application.
[5] The package provides the basic functionality of font, alignment, spacing, and color, but it also provides its users with professional typesetting options such as kerning, curving text along a line, and ligatures.
Color control allows the full-use of printing-press standard Pantone or Hexachrome inks, along with a variety of other color-space options.
QuarkXPress offers layout synchronization, multiple undo/redo functionality, XML and web page (HTML) features, and support for direct PDF import and output.
The PSD integration and picture manipulation features led to QuarkXPress receiving a number of awards, such as the Macworld Editor's Choice for 2004.
[7] With version 9 QuarkXPress extended its crossmedia publishing approach and can be used now to also export to eBooks (ePub3 and Blio) and native apps (for the iPad).
[8] Additionally QuarkXPress 9 offers cascading styles (stylesheets based on text content), callouts (anchored objects that flow with the text based on position rules), create complex ad editable Bézier paths using a wizard (ShapeMaker), bullets and numbers (with import and export from/to Microsoft Word) and more.
QuarkXPress 10, was described by Quark as a major re-write of the software on the Mac platform in particular to move it from the older Carbon API to Cocoa.
Other user-requested features included adaptive layout conversion for print, smart quotes, and proportional leading.
The headline features in version 2018 include new OpenType controls, hyphenation strictness, support for color fonts, IDML import (to convert Adobe InDesign documents to QuarkXPress) and the ability to create unlimited Android apps for no additional cost (outside of the Google Play fees).
Renamed in 2006 to "QuarkXPress Server",[12] the product is now primarily sold with Quark Publishing Platform – the central hub of the company's content automation solutions.
QuarkXPress Server is a Java application that takes content components (text, images, video, data, charts, etc.)
Quark Interactive Designer is an extension and tool for creating Adobe Flash context from QuarkXPress documents.
Quark Interactive Designer makes use of palette-based actions, similar to those found in PowerPoint, in order to animate text and graphics.