Graphic Designers: XPress to the Web?

Factual Questions
1

How do I port documents from Quark XPress to the Web?

2

Beyond Press. This will export the text and images from a Quark Xpress to an HTML document, but you’ll probably be spending alot of time cleaning up the HTML (as I do day in, day out). Even so, it’s better than doing it from scratch. Good luck!

corvidae

3

More info, please.

Is this a plug-in? (Sorry, Xtension?) Is it a 3rd party app? Does Quark make it? Where do I get it? Is it free? If not, is it worth it? What is the airspeed velocity of a coconut-laden swallow?

4

Depends. If you want HTML, there seem to be several Xtensions people like, as corvidae says. The caveat with HTML is that the appearance of your work is, to some extent, determined by the browser the viewer is using.

On the other hand, you might want to export a PDF file and post that on a website. A PDF will appear and print virtually identically on any platform (fonts and all), so they get just what you designed. On the downside, PDF’s are slower and larger than HTML files.

Personally, I put enough work into refining design that I will go for PDF in almost all cases.

5

I’ve been toying with some of the Xtensions myself at work since it’s what I do mostly anyway. So far, all they generally seem to do is allow you to convert StyleSheets in Quark to HTML StyleSheets when being transferred to HTML, so as to keep most of your styling intact.
Problem I’m finding with it mostly is that:

  1. Font Embedding is far from perfect, and Quark is a yypographically heavy program in some regards.

  2. Different browsers take the tagging differently, lots of clean up is necessary.

  3. It was quicker for me to lay out a page I did in Quark all over again in DreamWeaver and Have it come out looking clean and pretty though in different fonts because browsers and HTML just don’t support most fonts.

The technology is getting closer, but it’s not quite there. What I do like about Quark 4.11 is the PDFexport feature. very handy, skips all those tedious steps, and PDF is still great for the web while keeping the look, and AcrobatReader is free.