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QuarkXPress 8: A Suite Response

Box relief

QuarkXPress — pick any version — is a box-dependent application. Everything you want to add to a page resides in a box. From those tiny little icons in the tool palette, you had to choose the appropriate box that would come to contain your content. In QuarkXPress 6, you no longer had to delete the text box you just dragged out because what you needed was a picture box. You could convert one box type to another box type. In QuarkXPress 6.5, Quark added in the ability to have a box with [gasp!] no content. You could use a box to add a background color and not be bothered by the pesky X running through the empty picture box, or risk random type showing up because you inadvertently added text inside the text box that you used for the background.

As I remember it, the only real change that boxes have seen in the last two decades is the introduction of blue handles to indicate that a box contained shared content or was a composition zone, and in QuarkXPress 7, a bit of polish in the form of finer lines.

QuarkXPress 8 moves us forward decidedly. You no longer have to draw a box at all. Yes, you read correctly: you do not have to draw a box. QuarkXPress 8 will draw it for you (they're not gone, it's just that you are no longer required to draw them). While there are three separate tools (the text content tool, the picture content tool, and the box tool), they are interchangeable in that it does not matter what type of box you draw, you may put anything into it.

The process is, or can be, the same:

Choose a box tool from the tool palette (rectangle, oval, or starburst).

 

Click and hold down at the position where you want to establish the starting point.

Drag in any direction.

 

If using the box tool, press and hold down the T key for a text box or the R key for a picture box (these are known as modifier keys) and release the mouse button.

Release the modifier key.

 

Add the appropriate content (type, drag and drop content, RIGHT CLICK + IMPORT from the contextual menu, or choose FILE > IMPORT).

What if you don't want to draw a box? Easy enough:

Choose FILE > IMPORT.

 

— or —

CONTROL + CLICK (Mac) > IMPORT (choose text or image content) or ALT + CLICK (Windows) > IMPORT (choose text or image content).

— or —

Drag and drop content onto the page (more about this later).

 

When you select a file to import from the file menu or contextual menu, you will be presented with the appropriate importing options within the dialogue box. While you're limited to a single file (text or picture) to import at a time, you can import multiple files simultaneously using the new drag-and-drop feature.

 

EASY CHANGES

What if you have a picture on the page and decide that the box is actually better off with text? It couldn't be easier:

Select the box.

 

Choose FILE > IMPORT.

 

— or —

CONTROL + CLICK (Mac) > IMPORT (choose text or image content) or ALT + CLICK (Windows) > IMPORT (choose text or image content).

— or —

Drag and drop content into the box (yes, yes, we'll get to this soon).

 

 

Having said that, you will need to exercise a bit of caution when importing. If you have a text box selected and you import or drag and drop a picture, the text will be replaced by the picture — without warning. Of course, you're a quick-and-easy undo from getting it back, but it's momentarily shocking to see your layout undergo such a dramatic change when you're not expecting it. (In fact, the reduction of scary warning dialogues to only those actions that cannot be reversed with undo was planned.)

That's a simple enough concept, so let's step off in a slightly different, but related, direction.

Draw a box with the box tool (by default this content is none).

 

Select the text content tool.

 

Double click the box.

 

Begin typing (or paste copied text).

 

You have just converted a box with none content to a box with text content, without manually converting the box type. The same is true of lines. Draw a line, double click it with the text content tool, and begin typing. This sort of intuitive behavior is partially how Quark was able to reduce the number of tools in the tool palette.

The box behavior described above is true of pictures as well. If you have a box of none content and you import, paste, or drag and drop a picture, the box becomes a picture box.

If the box already has picture or text content, double clicking the box will not change the content. If it's a picture box with picture content and you double click it with the text content tool, QuarkXPress 8 makes a guess at your intent and assumes that since you have already defined content for the box that you must want to modify that content. Since the content in our example is a picture, you are automatically switched to the picture content tool — ready for picture positioning. Imagine the opposite if you start with a text box and double click it with the picture content tool.

Unlike typing, the import, paste, and drag-and-drop features impose a change on the box type and import the content you have chosen.

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