QuarkXPress 2015 released: the DTP tool gets a speed boost and long-document tools
The venerable page layout application lost the war against Adobe's InDesign for page layout years ago, and seen its core purpose eroded as we've ditched paper for digital media online and in apps. Nothing in this release is likely to help it regain its throne - though some studios and designers will prefer that you can buy a licence rather than renting Adobe's Creative Cloud - and it's notable that even Quark's current description of itself depicts itself as a developer of tools and services aimed at larger companies and organisations who have a huge number of documents they want to create and template (with QuarkXPress as a design tool within this environment).
With this in mind, Quark is making much of new features aimed at designers working with long documents - such as automatic creation of footnotes and end notes, a faster table tool with better Excel importing, and text variables that can automatically populate reoccurring fields.
For many users - if there are that many users of QuarkXPress left - the biggest new feature is a new 64-bit architecture that allows QuarkXPress to access all of its host computer's RAM - boosting performance, especially with larger documents with lots of high-res images.
Designers using QuarkXPress 2015 can also use a dedicated Orthogonal Line tool, work in larger and custom page sizes, and have the ability to design interactive eBooks with fixed layouts and page sizes (for example, for specific tablets such as the iPad).
Other new features include:
QuarkXPress 2015 costs £799 plus VAT, or £299 as an upgrade from any version from v3 onwards (assuming you can find the licence code from 1992).