Quark announced this month the availability of QuarkXPress 9.2, the new update to QuarkXPress 9 that is free to all QuarkXPress 9 customers. QuarkXPress 9 is award-winning design software that enables millions of creative professionals to publish across digital devices as well as to print and the Web. The best part for authors is that version 9.2 adds new ePUB features, ePUB 3 audio and video support .
QuarkXPress 9.2 and ePUB
QuarkXPress 9 introduced the ability for designers to easily export print layouts to ePUB to create traditional e-books. With QuarkXPress 9.2 designers can now, in addition to converting a print layout to ePUB, create a new project specifically for ePUB export. With the new update, it’s now also possible to:
* Add audio, videos, and hyperlinks to an ePUB e-book
* Create hierarchical tables of content
* Control the format and resolution of pictures on a global or
picture-by-picture basis
* Create new articles, visually crop pictures, and split text
components in a reflow article
* Re-order components by dragging-and-dropping within the Reflow
Tagging Palette
* Specify the default story direction for East Asian ePUB e-books
Along with the new ePUB functionality, QuarkXPress 9.2 also supports audio and video for ePUB 3, the new version of the standard that supports rich media. Read more about QuarkXPress 9 and ePUB here.
QuarkXPress 9.2 and iPad Publishing
A key component of QuarkXPress 9 is App Studio, which offers designers a cost-effective way to create and publish enriched, interactive content to digital devices, such as the iPad. With QuarkXPress 9.2, App Studio templates support iOS 5 Newsstand and meet new Apple guidelines for iCloud storage. In addition to the many enrichment options already available with QuarkXPress 9, QuarkXPress 9.2 and App Studio now include:
* New Play/Pause/Stop/Toggle play actions that allow designers to
build buttons that control other media elements such as sound and
video
* A Hide Controls option for sound and video that allows designers
to make the control bar for a media player invisible
* A Loop option that designers can use to specify that a sound or
video element should loop its playback
