Quark Enters the OS X Zone

Quark Inc. this week said it will finally ship the latest version of its desktop publishing software designed specifically for Apple Computer’s OS X operating system.

Available for Macs and PCs, QuarkXPress is a page layout tool used by graphics designers to arrange text and images for books, newspapers, magazines, and other publications. A crowd of about 150 Quark users gathered at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. campus Tuesday for a firsthand look.

“My apologies to all of you for being late, but the good news for us is it’s a really great product, I promise you,” related Quark CEO Fred Ebrahimi.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs called the release, “the most anticipated application of the year for our professional customers,” and quipped that QuarkXPress 6 for Mac OS X is the last barrier for moving to its Jaguar platform. Jobs had often eluded to Quark lagging behind in porting to OS X in previous presentations.

List price in the United States is $1,045. Users of QuarkXPress 5 can upgrade for $199. The upgrade price for users of QuarkXPress 4 is $299, while QuarkXPress 3 users can upgrade for $499.

The upgrade requires Mac OS X version 10.2, “Jaguar” or later. On Windows, QuarkXPress 6 requires Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

Version 6 builds on past success and adds PostScript level 3 features such as DeviceN color. PDF creation technology has been incorporated into QuarkXPress 6, allowing users to output PDF files directly from QuarkXPress without purchasing a license from a third-party software vendor like Quark’s biggest rival Adobe.

The Denver-based company said its new publishing software also changes to the layers feature, broadened table creation functionality, and the ability to link tables to each other or link a table cell to a text box. QuarkXPress 6 also includes an industry-standard XML parser and a revised XTensions interface.