Layout

When you open a new document in Quark, you will encounter the Dialog Box shown below. This is always the first step in deciding the parameters of your document - Page Size, Columns, Margins. You will decide here whether you are using Facing Pages - the standard left/right publishing layout - or whether you want successive single pages. There is a check box to include an Automatic Text Box in your document and, when starting off, I would recommend that you always check it.

Items and Contents

The method by which you import text and graphics into QuarkXpress is a relatively simple and neat concept - yet it is one which inevitably causes initial confusion. Therefore I make no apologies for beating you over the head with the following:

In order to import Text or Graphics into Quark, you must first have an ITEM - a text or picture box selected in which the CONTENT (text or graphic) then appears.

The Items and Contents concept is directly related to the first two tools you see in the Tools Palette (left). Select the Item or Move tool, and you are dealing with Items. Select the Contents or Text Entry tool (highlighted) and you are dealing with Contents. Always pay attention to which of these two tools are selected.

Tools Palette

The tools palette is the most important palette in Quark and it appears here rather than in the Palette Section because it is so central to the Items/Contents concept. The other tool options are fairly straightforward. Reading down from the Text Entry tool we have:

3.The Rotate Tool - allows you to quickly Rotate Page Items.
4.The Magnifying or Zoom Tool - for different Page Views.
5.The Text Box Tool - Remember, any text that you wish to use must have a Text Box to contain it.
6.,7.,8.,9.Picture Box Tools with different shapes.
10.,11.The Orthogonal Line Tool and the Line tool, for straight and angled lines respectively and finally
12.,13.The Link and Unlink tools - these are used to create a directional copy flow for text between different pages of a document.