Will QuarkXPress run on OS X Mountain Lion?

Tue, Jul 24, 2012

Quark, Tip, Upgrade

Apple announced today that tomorrow Mac OS X v10.8 Mountain Lion will be released.

If you are planning to upgrade to Mountain Lion and use QuarkXPress, please read this; it’s Quark’s official statement on QuarkXPress’ compatibility with Mountain Lion:
http://forums.quark.com/t/28997.aspx

QuarkXPress and OS X Mountain Lion

With the release of OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) on Jul 25, Apple introduced a new security feature called Gatekeeper, which helps you to keep your computer free of malicious software that you downlaoded. Gatekeeper allows only software from trusted sources to be installed: Apps from the Mac App Store, and apps from registered software vendors who have built their installers with a Gatekeeper signature.

Because QuarkXPress 9.3 was released before Apple introduced this new feature, Gatekeeper (at its default settings) does not allow the installer for QuarkXPress 9.3 (or earlier) to launch if you try to install from a downloaded Installer.

However, there are two ways to install QuarkXPress 9.3 (or earlier) under Mountain Lion:

  • Control+click/right-click the installer icon and choose Open.
  • Open System Preferences, click Security and Privacy, display the General tab, and then click Anywhere under Allow applications downloaded from. (After installation, be sure to return this setting to its default state.)

While Quark has been testing with Mountain Lion for several months, the team is currently wrapping up testing. So in a few weeks, Quark will release a free update for QuarkXPress 9 that is compatible with Gatekeeper and has been extensively tested on the release version of Mountain Lion. That version of QuarkXPress will be the first version officially supported on Mountain Lion.

Until this upcoming version is released, Quark recommends that you use QuarkXPress 9.3 on Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, or Lion.

 

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This post was written by:

- who has written 27 posts on Planet Quark.

Both an engineer and a layout artist, Matthias bridges the gap between technology and people. Before joining Quark, Matthias pioneered print, Web, and multimedia products for multiple German publishing companies. For the past 15 years, he has played a central role in shaping Quark’s desktop and enterprise software. During the past nine years Matthias has focused on interactive and digital publishing solutions. He is an active participant in design and publishing communities and represents Quark in the Ghent PDF Workgroup. Matthias is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences worldwide, helping both individual designers and large organizations to uncover the possibilities and implications of digital publishing, including the business considerations, design and technology implications, and business capabilities offered by digital design and publishing tools. Follow me here: Twitter & Forums

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6 Responses to “Will QuarkXPress run on OS X Mountain Lion?”

  1. Matthias Guenther Says:
    30. July 2012 at 6:27 am

    Update July 30:
    Current test results and customer feedback show that QuarkXPress 9 seems to work fine under Mountain Lion with the exception of the Gatekeeper limitation, so that we are positive to be able to release an updated version of QuarkXPress 9 in a few days.

  2. Matthias Guenther Says:
    7. August 2012 at 2:38 am

    Update Aug 6:
    current test results and customer feedback show that for _most_ customers QuarkXPress 9 seems to work fine under Mountain Lion with the exception of the Gatekeeper limitation.

    However when using Mountain Lion with a few _specific_ Graphics Cards, the Welcome Screen of QuarkXPress causes the application to crash. So far we know of ATI/AMD Radeon HD 5750M, ATI/AMD Radeon HD 5770 and ATI/AMD Radeon HD 6750M having this issue.

    Remedy: Remove the “Welcome Screen.xnt” from the XTensions folder.

    We are working on a permanent fix for this.

    More details here: http://forums.quark.com/t/28997.aspx?PageIndex=4#114829

  3. Matthias Guenther Says:
    13. August 2012 at 11:24 pm

    Update August 14:

    Quark just released QuarkXPress 9.3.1, which is officially supported under Mountain Lion:
    http://www.quark.com/support/downloads/Details.aspx?fid=234

  4. Dana Says:
    27. December 2012 at 2:26 pm

    I currently have a Mac OX X 10.6.8 and am about to upgrade to Mountain Lion. I have QuarkXPress 6.5. What do I need to do to ensure my QuarkXPress works and I can access old docs? Thanks!

  5. Matthias Guenther Says:
    2. January 2013 at 3:56 am

    Hi Dana, QuarkXPress 6 is still PowerPC code and therefore needs a PowerPC processor or an emulation like Rosetta.
    As Apple doesn’t support Rosetta under Mountain Lion anymore, you won’t get QuarkXPress 6 to run on Mountain Lion.
    Your best option is to run QuarkXPress 9 on Mountain Lion, which is fully supported, see here.
    The only other option I can think of is virtualizing Snow Leopard (which Apple might not allow) or using a virtual Windows.

  6. Jay Nelson Says:
    18. January 2013 at 2:59 pm

    Hi Dana.
    First, please please upgrade to QuarkXPress 9. It works well on Mountain Lion, while 6.5 may have problems. Other than that, I would find all my QuarkXPress documents and add an “.qxp” file extension to their names. That way, newer/upcoming versions of QuarkXPress will be assured of claiming them as its own. (And I know: it sucks. We don’t use Macs because we want to deal with stupid file extensions. But that went out the window with Mac OS X, in some cases. Ugh.)

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