Drag Selections from Photoshop to QuarkXPress
In QuarkXPress 8 and higher, you can drag just about any kind of graphic or text file onto a page, from anywhere you can normally drag a file — the desktop, Adobe Bridge, Extensis Portfolio, iMedia Browser, etc. You can even drag text directly from inside a Word document onto a layout page, or even a selection of an image from inside Photoshop onto a page in QuarkXPress.
Now, I don’t recommend dragging Photoshop selections into a layout destined for print, because dragging a selection from Photoshop creates an embedded, 72dpi picture in QuarkXPress. But it’s a useful trick to know in several situations, such as when you’re mocking up a Web app, or when creating a Web page in the Web space in QuarkXPress.
Unfortunately, once you’ve dragged your selection into QuarkXPress, you can’t just drag that selection back into Photoshop, but you can copy and paste it: get the Picture Content tool from the Tools palette (you can also double-click on the picture to switch to the Picture Content tool, or in later versions of QuarkXPress, press the R key on your keyboard):
Copy the picture box content (Edit> Copy or Command/Ctrl-C), and then switch to Photoshop. Create a new, empty Photoshop document (just press Command/Ctrl-N: the new Photoshop document will automatically have the exact dimensions as your copied picture), and then paste it in (Edit> Paste or Command/Ctrl-V).
A more flexible way to export this picture or ANY picture on a QuarkXPress page is to choose File> Save Picture.
You can then choose the file format and other attributes for your new image file — optionally including any image areas that you cropped out in QuarkXPress! The result is a new image file containing what was inside your QuarkXPress picture box:
Note: your selection in Photoshop must be rectangular to drag it into QuarkXPress. A non-rectangular selection results in an empty picture box in QuarkXPress.
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.