Product Reviews

As more and more designers switch from QuarkXPress to InDesign, they face the problem of opening legacy files and converting templates to the new system. It used to be that InDesign could open XPress files directly, but that ceased with XPress 4.1. Although it's possible to save an XPress file in a format that would allow it to be opened by a previous version of the program, it's a clumsy and unwieldy approach to use every version of XPress since 4 to save it in a format that can be opened by the previous version.

Markzware's Q2ID plug-in, now updated for InDesign CS4, provides a simple and transparent solution. Once the plug-in is installed, there's no dialog or interface: XPress documents can just be opened directly in InDesign with no fuss. It takes just a few seconds to convert each document on the fly as it's opened. The latest version of the plug-in is capable of opening files generated by both XPress 7 and 8.

In many ways, the process is remarkably complete. Every page element appears on the page, including rules, placed images and graphics and master page items, as well as drop shadows and other effects. Custom

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colours and both paragraph and character style sheets are also imported.

There are issues with both text runaround and letter spacing, however. As our screen grab shows, the InDesign version of the page (right) has reflowed some of the text in these boxes - the orange Fast Fact box at the bottom, for instance, shows how the runaround beneath the title has indented an extra line in InDesign, and the text in the panel above it has reflowed so that the last line and byline have both been cut off.

Users have also reported issues with placed images, which appear to have been positioned correctly on the page, but refuse to print or be exported to PDF documents. This is due to an error in the linking information, and the solution is to remove and then replace the images.

In the main, though, the plug-in works well, allowing you to open and modify your legacy documents. What you can't do is assume that everything will be in place: every page needs to be checked carefully, paying particular attention to the end of every story to make sure no words are cut off.

Users have also been complaining about Markzware's upgrade policy. The upgrade from version 3 to 4 costs half the full product price, the only difference being that the new version supports InDesign CS4 as well as CS3. There's a strong penny-pinching aspect that pervades Markzware's approach: when buying you can 'insure' your download for ?9.99, allowing you to download the files again over a two-year period in case you need to reinstall them. This is a service routinely provided free by most developers.

Q2ID is a useful plug-in, but publishers of books and other long documents will be put off by the necessity to check every page.