Many of you QuarkXPress users out there may have heard of our PasteBoard XT. For those new to it, this Quark XTension, one of the oldest out there, changes the width and height of the QuarkXPress pasteboard. It allows one to adjust by value as well as by percentage, giving a wider range of options than that within the QuarkXPress application. Pasteboard costs only $29.00 and is available for Mac and runs in Quark 7 or Quark 8.

In the past, as in QuarkXPress v3.33 past, there was a version of Pasteboard XTension that was a requirement in order to work with the document. (Ask some of the older ones of us about those times!) We of course adjusted that, however you may find the need for our free XTerminator Quark XT, now called the  Kill PasteBoard XT which will remove the requirement of needing Pasteboard, for really old, almost legacy files you may come across.

Pasteboard XT Xpress 8

FlightCheck Professional v6.5 is now shipping with Adobe CS4 InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, etc and Quark 8 support. After an Adobe CS4 purchase, for example, computers can be licensed for various compatible softwares, like Markzware’s FlightCheck. So, if you buy Adobe CS4 Master Collection, you can use FlightCheck when you preflight.

A question about software licensing was asked, which I think is a good one to share;

Question: Can I use FlightCheck Pro v6.5 on two machines from myself? Such as on a desktop computer and on my MacBook Pro?

Answer: FlightCheck Professional v6.5 is licensed for a single computer. You may load the software on more than one computer, per the license agreement, but if you want to run it on another computer you must first de-activate your single user license on one computer and then activate that license on a second computer. If you need two run on two computers simultaneously then you will need to purchase a second license for FlightCheck. 5-pack and 10-packs of FlightCheck are available and contact your local Markzware reseller to get a reduced price for variable site licenses other than the 5 and 10-packs.  Read more... (239 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

From the show floor of PRINT 09, we post you this interesting film-

Xerox DirectMail on the “Prepress for Digital Printing” Book and retro FlightCheck; a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkj70fyy-CI

Transcript:
How many of you remember this one? Why fight it, preflight it! With FlightCheck. Now this is an old one, going a little bit retro here. I don’t know from when this was exactly, probably about 1999 and maybe even earlier, like 97, or 1996 But anyway that brings us to the next subject of today which is a little letter I got a nice direct mail piece, nice to see that. Not only was it a direct mail piece it was personalized and it came from no other than Xerox.

BREAKING- since this video was made, FlightCheck 6.5 with QuarkXPress 8 and CS4 or Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat and thus PDF support is now shipping! Save one hundred when purchasing here!

When an InDesign.INDD file is really a Quark .QXP layout…….

Hi, David Dilling here from Markzware and here is yet another interesting one. A customer sent in a email with the dreaded “I have a bad InDesign file please help me!” This one was a little bit different in that he knew it was an old file and that there were defiantly issues with it and he couldn’t quiet figure it out. The subject of this movie is “When InDesign isn’t InDesign but QuarkXPress.” Yes follow me on this one. Come check it out on my screen here because it is quiet a common problem, in any event I’m hearing more and more about this and the type and creator being zapped in the file and other issues like this. It’s very important, the file extension use and how you use it on a Macintosh or even a Windows machine of course as well.

It is not as easy as just adding .INDD to a QuarkXPress file and woof magically it become a InDesign file. Visa versa you just can’t take a Jpeg add a .tiff and it becomes a tiff file, it just does not work that way. If it did life would be a lot simpler but that is just not so. Now come check it out on my screen and thank you for watching.

This is a classic (Was all over Twitter last week and in times past), and oh so true, “8 or more ways to drive a graphic designer mad.” Basically, many preflight issues that the newly released FlightCheck Pro v6.5 could help solve… You have to love their first example;
“When you have to send a graphic designer a document, make sure it’s made with a program from Microsoft Office. PC version if possible. If you have to send pictures, you’ll have more success in driving them mad if, instead of just sending a jpeg or a raw camera file, you embed the pictures inside a Microsoft Office document like Word or Powerpoint. Don’t forget to lower the resolution to 72 dpi so that they’ll have to contact you again for a higher quality version. When you send them the ‘higher’ version, make sure the size is at least 50% smaller. And if you’re using email to send the pictures, forget the attachment once in a while.”

Source: http://ghislainroy.com/blog/2007/03/06/8-ways-to-drive-a-graphic-designer-mad  Read more... (241 words, 1 image, estimated 58 secs reading time)

FTP, although as reported here, is almost as old as me, is still the preferred and main method of file transfer to the printer:

This was all in a very interesting and detailed production survey for publishers by FOLIO over at FolioMag.com, where we read:

FOLIO:’s 2009 Manufacturing and Production Trends Survey reports what tools—like ad portals, virtual proofing and XML workflows—continue to come into their own and save publishers valuable dollars, as well as those areas that manufacturing and production execs are avoiding. Facing so many challenges this year, it appears that decision makers are remaining status quo and investing only in upgrades that will save big in the long run.
Source: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/folio-s-2009-manufacturing-and-production-trends-survey

Let’s just check out a couple of the color graphics they had, but, much more when you click through and read the entire article…

So prepress is continuing it’s migrating in-house by publishers. No surprise there, as it helps streamline the preflight process (note: FlightCheck Pro v6.5 is shipping with Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, PDF CS4 support and Quark 8 checking – preflight and package with FlightCheck!) – And we see that XML and the conversion to a more readily readable file format is also on the move:  Read more... (202 words, 3 images, estimated 48 secs reading time)

ZUR SOFORTIGEN VERÖFFENTLICHUNG

Neue Preflight-Software zur lückenlosen Qualitätssicherung im Digitaldruck

Markzware FlightCheck® Professional jetzt mit Unterstützung für QuarkXPress 8 & Adobe Creative Suite 4

RIJSWIJK, Niederlande, 31. August 2009: Das Unternehmen Markzware, anerkannter Preflight-Experte und -Erfinder, veröffentlicht ein wichtiges Upgrade der beliebten Preflight-Software FlightCheck Professional für Macintosh. FlightCheck Professional 6.5 bietet vollständige Unterstützung für QuarkXPress 8 und Adobe Creative Suite 4 / CS4. Die leistungsstarke neue Version gestattet Druckereien, Grafikdesignern und Verlagen ein effizientes Preflight zur Vermeidung kostspieliger Produktionsfehler.

Die mittlerweile üblichen kleineren Auflagen und kürzeren Abwicklungszeiten erfordern eine bessere Qualitätskontrolle bei digitalen Druckdateien. Adobe PDF-, InDesign-, QuarkXPress- und andere Dateien enthalten mehrere Elementkategorien wie Schriftarten, Farben, Bilder, Dokumenteinstellungen usw., die alle potenzielle Fehlerquellen bei der Druckausgabe sind. FlightCheck ist deshalb so beliebt, weil es flexibel zur Überprüfung sämtlicher Dokumentelemente in Dateien verschiedenster Formate eingesetzt werden kann. Viele halten es für das beste Tool zur Qualitätskontrolle.

Angesichts der derzeitigen wirtschaftlichen Lage müssen Dokumente in Druckereien und Verlagen genau geprüft werden, um Neudrucke zu vermeiden und wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Drucker, Verleger und Grafikdesigner können sich hier voll auf http://www.markzware.com/flightcheck_professional/ FlightCheck 6.5 verlassen und von seinen Funktionen profitieren.  Read more... (534 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Color management is like colour management only spelled differently. That about sums up color for many in print media; it is the same color on that screen as on my printed brochure, only it looks different, cries the corporate customer, to the prepress operators dismay. In this tutorial video we get into the deep details on how FlightCheck Professional (Out any day now with CS4 and Quark 8 support) can help you in preflighting color …

… and for that matter preflighting colour (ok, enough jokes with words, but some do call it color preflighting) in a detailed fashion -

a full transcript is below: In this movie I would like to address some problems you might encounter when you work with InDesign layouts QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator (YES, FlightCheck does preflight Illustrator files and package all fonts and images too! Video: How to preflight Adobe Illustrator files…) or any other layout application in which you are able to use colors. Let’s dive in…

 Read more... (980 words, estimated 3:55 mins reading time)

David Creamer has reviewed Markzware’s document conversion tool, Q2ID v4 in the current issue of “Layers Magazine.”

FROM QUARK TO INDESIGN IN A SNAP

The main focus of Q2ID v4 is to support InDesign CS4 and QuarkXPress 8 files. One important thing that’s changed in this version is the updated conversion notes PDF, which now lists most of the conversion issues you might encounter. Another change is that you can use either the InDesign Open menu or the new Markzware menu. Quark files with multiple layouts can be converted individually or all at once; multiple Quark files can be converted, too.

This version appears to fix most of the issues I noted in the last version, including keeping the proper based-on settings, better translations of Quark’s transparency effects into InDesign (with one major exception noted below), and better layer translation between programs.  Read more... (333 words, 1 image, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

There is a great offer going on through the channel (resellers only) via many of Quark’s resellers in Europe. Buy QuarkXPress 8, new or Upgrade version and get Markzware’s document conversion solution, ID2Q (Adobe InDesign to QuarkXPress XT) for FREE! Normal value of 199 Euros (190 Pounds)! Here are links to some of the participating regions that we could find in Europe:

Purchase or Upgrade to QuarkXPress 8 from ANY version and get ID2Q for FREE!

Koop QuarkXPress 8 of upgrade vanaf een willekeurige versie en ontvang ID2Q GRATIS!

När du köper eller upgradraderar till QuarkXPress 8 från valfri version får du ID2Q Konstnadsfrit!

Køb eller opgrader til QuarkXpress 8 fra enhver tidligere version, og få ID2Q GRATIS!

Kjøp eller opgrader til QuarkXPress 8 fra hvilken som helst versjon, og få ID2Q GRATIS!

Achetez QuarkXpress ou mettez à jour votre ancienne version et recevez gratuitement ID2Q.

What a great deal and easy way to still use Quark within workflows from colleagues or customers that are using InDesign (CS2, CS3 or CS4). Also you can watch how easy it is to use ID2Q but also see some of the exciting Flash animation and HTML features that Quark 8 offers which their competitors do not here:  Read more... (205 words, 6 images, estimated 49 secs reading time)