Quark has launched the latest version of QuarkXPress, its print and digital publishing application. The update allows XPress users to publish content for iOS devices, the Blio eReader, and in ePub format.
The headline new feature is App Studio, previously available as part of the Quark Publishing System, and which will allow XPress 9 users to ‘create customised apps for the iPad, distribute their apps through the Apple App Store, and then publish richly designed, interactive content to the app,’ according to Quark.
The App Studio won’t be included when XPress 9 ships in April, but the company promises that it will be made available as a free update within 90 days of the ship date. In the meantime, Quark will offer an iPad Publishing Service through which it will ‘configure a starter iPad app with a customer’s logos and colours and enable the enrichment of QuarkXPress content, which can then be published to that app.’
QuarkXPress 9 will also allow designers to create content for the Blio eReader and ePub. Both new and existing layouts can be published to ePub, and there’s a reflow View that allows content to be configured to prepare it for output to ePub.
The new version of QuarkXPress also includes features to automate parts of the design process. These include Conditional Styles, Bullets and Numbering, and Callouts. There’s also a ShapeMaker, a wizard-based tool for creating or modifying complex shapes, and Cloner, which allows items or pages to be copied to multiple other pages or layouts.
The Story Editor provides word-processor like features for editing text, and Linkster allows populated text boxes, multi-page stories, and boxes to be unlinked and relinked.
QuarkXPress 9 is scheduled to ship in April and will cost £779 or £279 for an upgrade from QuarkXPress 7 or 8.
There will be a full hands-on preview of the new App Studio in the next issue of MacUser, out on Friday 4 March.
