Color matching has long been an Achilles’ heel in desktop publishing — what you see or scan is usually not what you get when your publication comes off the press. By teaming up with Electronics for Imaging, Quark has addressed this critical need of color publishers. QuarkXPress 3.2 includes the EfiColor XTension, which uses EFI’s color profiles (used also in the EfiColor for Photoshop plug-in and in EFI’s Cachet color-matching software for scanned images) to ensure the greatest fidelity of color images from scan or online creation to final print. It’s a must-have for professional color publishers. For QuarkXPress users publishing in black and white, version 3.2 offers less incentive to upgrade, since its other enhancements are minor, even if welcome.
EfiColor is invisible much of the time you use QuarkXPress, so it is easy to underestimate its value. You typically see EfiColor only when you import files (when you select a file to import, the dialog box shows what profile EfiColor applies to the image) and when you define colors (EfiColor alerts you if a color falls outside the target printer’s range).
EfiColor works by applying profiles — essentially, electronic color filters — to an image in two stages: when you import a file and when you print. In the EfiColor Preferences dialog box, you specify, for example, that your scanned RGB images come from a Hewlett-Packard ScanJet IIc and your computer-generated images were created using SuperMac Technology’s SuperMatch 20 T monitor. Unless you specify otherwise during import, your RGB files will have these profiles applied. In the same dialog box, you specify the output device, such as SWOP-coated (standard web offset-printing press using coated paper, such as that used in Macworld) so EfiColor can apply the appropriate profile to both RGB and CMYK images at output.
EfiColor works well for RGB images. But it is less successful with CMYK images, since it assumes the color has already been calibrated. That’s not a safe assumption — an RGB image created in Photoshop and converted to CMYK in Photoshop is still affected by the monitor’s color characteristics, so what you see on screen may not match the output. (Use the $199 EfiColor for Photoshop plug-in if you work with CMYK TIFF files in Photoshop.) Worse, EfiColor does not work at all with EPS files, whether CMYK or RGB. And if the bundled profiles don’t cover your hardware, you’ll have to buy them from EFI ($129 to $529 each; 415/286-8600).
In noncolor areas, the new version of QuarkXPress represents a continuing refinement of the program. For example, you can now set QuarkXPress to keep a backup copy of your document. You can also have it save a user-specified number of prior versions, so you can go back to a previous design if you take a wrong turn on your design path.
One of my favorite enhancements is the smart-quotes feature, which converts the keyboard’s straight quotes (") to open and close typographic quotes (“ ”) as you type. It even works when you’re replacing text. Plus you can choose quote characters from several languages, not just English. My other favorite feature is the ability to use mathematical expressions in dialog boxes. For example, if a picture box’s width is 22p7 and you want to double it, you can change it to 22p7*2 rather than calculating to get 45p2 and entering that number. Likewise, you could halve the width by changing it to 22p7/2.
Other welcome changes are the ability to skew text and picture boxes (and their contents), specify the style to be applied to text in a subsequent paragraph, size text with the mouse, and choose between tiled and stacked windows when you have multiple documents open. The bundled Font Creator XTension lets you create variations of multiple-master PostScript typefaces, while the bundled Cool Blends XTension lets you apply nonlinear blends (such as diamonds) to box backgrounds (but if you share files with others, they’ll need this XTension to open any document using its effects).
Not all changes are so nice. Selecting the New option in the File menu now displays a submenu that requires a choice of Document or Library. Quark has elevated the status of libraries by letting you open them with the standard Open dialog box (they’re no longer buried in the Utilities menu), but this adds a step to creating a new document.
The Document Layout palette has also changed, as has how you apply master pages in it. This has always been an awkward process; the change in version 3.2 is meant to simplify master-page application, but it drew mixed reactions among Macworld editors.
Current users of QuarkXPress will like most of the changes in version 3.2. New users will appreciate the fine control the program has long offered over layout and typography. All users will continue to be frustrated by Quark’s cavalier attitude toward customer support (technical support itself is usually decent, but it’s common for customers to be frustrated when seeking program updates, replacements, drivers, or other such help), which is a shame, considering QuarkXPress users’ often-fierce loyalty.
Gruman, Galen. (November 1993). QuarkXPress 3.2. Macworld. (pg. 51).
Quark, Inc.
Applications
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2020-09-14 / 
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QuarkXPress_3.2.zip
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
