Quark Forums

Noone else find it incredible being not possible to assign fill&stroke attributes to text, just the way any other graphic app does? Editable text, I mean, not those boxes created from text...
Please Quark...

Don't want or need.

Quark has enough problems trying to be more than a layout program.

If it is just a word or two, do in illustrator as a graphic.

GWamser:

Don't want or need.
Quark has enough problems trying to be more than a layout program.
If it is just a word or two, do in illustrator as a graphic.

Trying to be more than a layout program doesn't mean forgetting to be a good layout program. It's not always a matter of "a word or two", it may concerns every title in a magazine which needs a lot of last-minute revisions to be made in real-time or many other cases like this. It should not be so hard to implement.

I kind of agree with both sentiments here. I do think Quark is trying too hard to do too much and not concentrating on putting XPress back up there on top slot as the defacto page layout program.

However I think better control of type would be a bonus - but I believe there are Xtenstions available to do just that and this, I think, is the way forward for such things. Let Quark concentrate on the core of the program and keep it extendable so that third party software companies can write specialised XTs for it.

Then we all win - a core program that's superb at what it does, and without too many 'bells and whistles' for those who don't need them, plus the ability to add said extras if they are required.

Just my tuppence worth. :wink:

Greg

Right thing!
The fact is that, as far as I know, there's no Xtension out there to do this (that I feel to be a bit more than a bell or a whistle...). :cry:

I do know there's an Xtension (sorry, the name escapes me) that will convert multiple lines of text to outline, and do a much better job than XPress which of course can only do a line at a time. But as for one that'll keep the type 'live' - no idea. That would, however, be perfect for your purpose.

I guess till then it's Illustrator or Photoshop.

Greg

Yes, I know it. It's OutlinesXT from Gluon, that converts text to boxes far better than Xpress does. I already use it, instead of Illustrator. The advantage is that I can hold my "master" editable text in the work area, to be ready for editing and reconverting. And I also use ItemStyles from Xpert Tools to manage fill&stroke attributes for the converted-to-box text. It works as a decent workaround, but it's always a 4 step operation (edit the text, convert to box, apply the ItemStyle, position the object) instead of one-step. When you have some hundreds of them in a weekly magazine it's not exactly a pleasure...