QuarkXPress 8.1 and higher lets you search and replace attributes of just about any item in QuarkXPress — for example, Drop Shadows! Just open the Item Find/Change window (Edit> Item Find/Change).

Note that Item Find/Change lets you find items that have ANY combination of Drop Shadow attributes — not just the attributes you want to change! In other words, you could find items with any Drop Shadow, and then change them ALL to a specific combination of Drop Shadow attributes. Or selectively change one item at a time as Quark finds them for you.

Here’s one more tip about the Item Find/Change feature: you can gang (combine) any combination of requests and perform them all at once. For example, you can change all 1 pt Frames to be 1.5 pt wide, and all Drop Shadows from 100% opacity to 80% opacity.

The Summary tab shows the combination of all changes you’re about to make. Have a look:

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.