That was back when we were using QuarkXPress 4.1 on Mac OS 9.2. Talk about painful. Yeah I know, 4.1 was layout nirvana. I've heard it before, believe me. But to an editor and erstwhile Web designer in 2001, 4.1 was a bit clunky.

So now today we have XPress 7, and I gotta say, it's pretty sweet. Fact, it's 160 new features sweet, according to what Jurgen Kurz, who touted that number at the launch party. So now, all the things I wish were there five years ago have arrived. Here are my favorites.

1. Transparency. This one's a no-brainer. XPress 7 supports item opacity, drop shadows, alpha channels, PSD layer transparency and blending, and transparent backgrounds in TIFFs and PSDs. Quark goes about transparency a bit differently, though. In XPress 7, anywhere you can control color you can apply an "opacity setting," which means even single characters in a word can be see-through.

2. Composition Zones. This is a great feature, as it removes the limitation of one user per project. XPress 7 users are now able to divide pages into zones and collaborate on those pages over a shared network. This lets, for example, a layout artist finalize the look of an ad while a writer drafts the final copy. My only qualm here is the cost of XPress 7 versus Adobe's InCopy. Are companies really going to shell out $1,000 to give a writer a copy of Quark, or $250 for an InCopy license?

3. Universal Binary. OK, technically not a feature. And, technically not part of this release. But Quark promises that XPress 7 will be available in UB—and therefore able to work on both Power PC and Intel-based Macs—by the end of summer. This gives XPress 7 a leg up against InDesign, which won't be UB until Spring 2007.

4. Output Styles. QuarkXPress 7 includes styles for saving files as EPS, PDF and PPML. That ensures consistent output for individuals and groups, especially when preparing a single file for multiple destinations, like prepress and Web.

5. Multiple Layout Views. Now you're no longer limited to viewing a layout in a single project window. You can now split the window into multiple panes and open a project in each new window. That means, among other things, that you can now view different parts of a project at the same time. So if you make a big change in one part, you can immediately see how it affects the rest of the document.

I really shouldn't stop at five. There are a lot more features to love. And even the small ones—retaining picture attributes when replacing pictures, identifying layer items with colors, and non-destructive mask manipulation—are cool.

But enough about what I like. Check it out for yourself.

ed. note: This article as it was originally published neglected to mention that Quark sells software called QuarkCopyDesk, which is designed for editors and writers working in a production environment. The software competes with Adobe's InDesign.

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