Quark’s QuarkXPress 8.12 Updater fixes a number of problems, including text display, spacing, and wrapping issues under certain conditions. For a short list of fixes, see http://8.quark.com/en/techinfo/known_issues.html, and scroll about 75% down to the headline “Resolved Issues”.

The 8.12 updater does not appear to resolve any issues introduced by Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard”.

These include:

• QuarkXPress documents created on Tiger or Leopard (and opened on Snow Leopard) will most likely reflow text or change leading of text, if the text is using PostScript Type 1 fonts. This affects the leading and vertical position of the text, as well as any drop shadows applied to the text.
• In an Interactive layout, if you create a Video object and choose a local (not external) movie file, then export the layout as an SWF file, the video displays incorrectly in the SWF file.
• You cannot print a layout that includes an imported raster EPS file to an HP Color LaserJet 5500 PS.

Recommendation:
Because of the text positioning problem, I wouldn’t recommend upgrading to Snow Leopard until Quark and Apple provide a fix.

Jay Nelson

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.