If you are a new user of QuarkXPress, then this article may just point out some of the mistakes you may be making. So read through our list of common errors made by QuarkXPress user and see how many of them you yourself are making!
Whenever you create a new project in QuarkXPress, the New document window appears. Beginners will often create a new project and click OK without paying much attention to the settings in the New Project dialogue. Quark keeps the settings from the last project you created. If these are inappropriate for the document you are about to create, change the page size, orientation, margin and column guides as necessary.
Having set margins when creating a new project, many new QuarkXPress users will still feel inclined to position their text and picture boxes inside the margin guides, leaving an extra space. Remember, the blue lines represent the margin guides not the edges of the page. Normally, the edges of your text boxes will need to be positioned on the margin rather then inside them.
Another common error is excessive use of ruler guides. These are created by dragging either the vertical or horizontal ruler onto the page and can be used to align elements using Quark's handy snap-to-guides features. Snapping two elements to the same guide ensures that their edges are aligned. This is a great feature when used in moderation. However, a lot of users create so many guides that it becomes difficult to see which guide relates to which element on the page. In general, guides are quicker to use but measurements are more accurate.
Incorrect use of guides is another basic error frequently encounter among QuarkXPress users. A typical scenario is where you want to create a new element and align it with something that's already on the page. So you drag a guide onto the page and align it with the existing element. Then you create your second element and snap it to the guide. This means that only the first element is actually aligned with the guide. Remember, the snap is what makes guides useful. So dragging a guide and aligning it to the edge of a box by eye won't do. You need to go back to the first element and ensure that it too is snapped onto the guide.
Automatic text boxes is another source of confusion for many QuarkXPress users. This option can be activated when creating a new document and allows you to use Quark in a similar way to a word processing package. Each page in the document automatically has a text box on it and once this box is filled with text, a new page is generated, also containing a text box.
The automatic text box feature is great for long documents. However, you will often see QuarkXPress users activating this option when creating short documents or even documents consisting of a single page. They make the assumption that all the feature does is to save them the trouble of creating a text box. In fact, if the text box ever becomes filled with text (which can easily happen as you experiment with different text formats), a new page is immediately generated and your single page document becomes a two page document.
Another simple error new QuarkXPress users tend to make, is clicking on the text box tool then trying to edit text. This one is not so serious since it's a non-starter: the only thing you can do with the text box tool is create text boxes. The correct tool for editing text is the Content tool, the second tool on the QuarkXPress toolbar.
Confusion between the item and content tools is another common problem for new users. The item tool is to be used for moving elements on the page and for working with grouped elements. To edit the contents of t text or picture box, use the content tool. This confusion eventually will resolve itself for most users, since each time it arises, they will find the right tool sooner or later even if only through trial and error.
Many new users also insist on always ensuring that they select the item tool whenever they want to resize a text or picture box. In fact, you can resize a box regardless of whether the item or content tool is selected.
QuarkXPress novices also tend to create far more text boxes than they need to. The worst error people will make is to create a separate box for each different style of text. In actual fact, you can put as many different formats as you like in a single Quark text box. You only need separate text boxes for items which have no direct relation to each other within the layout or which require conflicting text box attributes. So if some of your text is spans two columns and another bit spans one column, you will clearly need to boxes.
Beginners in QuarkXPress will often spend a lot of time aligning headings within a text box, for example vertically centring, forgetting that, since the box will not print, all that matters is the position of the text itself on the page. A good way of curing this one is to get into the habit of pressing F7 (a shortcut for View - Guides). This keystroke toggles the visibility of the QuarkXPress margin and ruler guides as well as the edges of boxes that have no frames. This means that you are always reminded of which elements will actually be visible when the document prints. - 15634
Whenever you create a new project in QuarkXPress, the New document window appears. Beginners will often create a new project and click OK without paying much attention to the settings in the New Project dialogue. Quark keeps the settings from the last project you created. If these are inappropriate for the document you are about to create, change the page size, orientation, margin and column guides as necessary.
Having set margins when creating a new project, many new QuarkXPress users will still feel inclined to position their text and picture boxes inside the margin guides, leaving an extra space. Remember, the blue lines represent the margin guides not the edges of the page. Normally, the edges of your text boxes will need to be positioned on the margin rather then inside them.
Another common error is excessive use of ruler guides. These are created by dragging either the vertical or horizontal ruler onto the page and can be used to align elements using Quark's handy snap-to-guides features. Snapping two elements to the same guide ensures that their edges are aligned. This is a great feature when used in moderation. However, a lot of users create so many guides that it becomes difficult to see which guide relates to which element on the page. In general, guides are quicker to use but measurements are more accurate.
Incorrect use of guides is another basic error frequently encounter among QuarkXPress users. A typical scenario is where you want to create a new element and align it with something that's already on the page. So you drag a guide onto the page and align it with the existing element. Then you create your second element and snap it to the guide. This means that only the first element is actually aligned with the guide. Remember, the snap is what makes guides useful. So dragging a guide and aligning it to the edge of a box by eye won't do. You need to go back to the first element and ensure that it too is snapped onto the guide.
Automatic text boxes is another source of confusion for many QuarkXPress users. This option can be activated when creating a new document and allows you to use Quark in a similar way to a word processing package. Each page in the document automatically has a text box on it and once this box is filled with text, a new page is generated, also containing a text box.
The automatic text box feature is great for long documents. However, you will often see QuarkXPress users activating this option when creating short documents or even documents consisting of a single page. They make the assumption that all the feature does is to save them the trouble of creating a text box. In fact, if the text box ever becomes filled with text (which can easily happen as you experiment with different text formats), a new page is immediately generated and your single page document becomes a two page document.
Another simple error new QuarkXPress users tend to make, is clicking on the text box tool then trying to edit text. This one is not so serious since it's a non-starter: the only thing you can do with the text box tool is create text boxes. The correct tool for editing text is the Content tool, the second tool on the QuarkXPress toolbar.
Confusion between the item and content tools is another common problem for new users. The item tool is to be used for moving elements on the page and for working with grouped elements. To edit the contents of t text or picture box, use the content tool. This confusion eventually will resolve itself for most users, since each time it arises, they will find the right tool sooner or later even if only through trial and error.
Many new users also insist on always ensuring that they select the item tool whenever they want to resize a text or picture box. In fact, you can resize a box regardless of whether the item or content tool is selected.
QuarkXPress novices also tend to create far more text boxes than they need to. The worst error people will make is to create a separate box for each different style of text. In actual fact, you can put as many different formats as you like in a single Quark text box. You only need separate text boxes for items which have no direct relation to each other within the layout or which require conflicting text box attributes. So if some of your text is spans two columns and another bit spans one column, you will clearly need to boxes.
Beginners in QuarkXPress will often spend a lot of time aligning headings within a text box, for example vertically centring, forgetting that, since the box will not print, all that matters is the position of the text itself on the page. A good way of curing this one is to get into the habit of pressing F7 (a shortcut for View - Guides). This keystroke toggles the visibility of the QuarkXPress margin and ruler guides as well as the edges of boxes that have no frames. This means that you are always reminded of which elements will actually be visible when the document prints. - 15634
About the Author:
The The writer of this article is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Solutions, a UK IT training company offering QuarkXPress Classes at their central London training centre.
