Quark Forums

Special characters in Quark 6.52

I need to insert a Euro symbol and a macron over an “a”. I can do it using the keyboard palette on my PowerMac G5, OS 10.5.6, Quark 7.31. But this is for a freelance project and I own an older version of Quark at home. OS 10.4, Intel MacBook, typeface on both is Sabon MT (postscript).

The keyboard palette (tried U.S. and U.S. Extended) on my MacBook won’t let me insert the special characters. I did it in Quark 7 at work, saved the file down, but when I opened it in 6.5, the Euro became a question mark and the a with a macron was a blank space.

I’ve tried using the function key and other tips and tricks I found online, but none work to give me the two characters.

Since the keyboard palette isn’t an option on the MacBook, I can’t switch to another typeface just for those characters and I can’t change the typeface, as the client has been using it for several years and wants to keep it for this book.

Any ideas on how I can work around this? Thank you.

Hi, eadoherty,

as QuarkXPress 6 - unlike 7 and 8 - only recognized the first 256 chars in an OpenType font I am afraid you only have two options:

1. Look for a font (or fonts) that has these special characters encoded in the first 256 characters (e.g. European fonts).
   Works fine, this way I have personally produced exotic language documents already in QuarkXPress 3.3.
2. Upgrade to QuarkXPress 7 or 8.
   

By the way, 7.5 is a (free) update to 7.31 and fixes some bugs.

Best
Matthias

thanks for the quick reply. Upgrading to Quark 7.0 isn't an option on the MacBook at this time. I've tried searching for "European fonts" in my usual font sources but only get Cyrillic fonts returned. Some have the euro, none have the macron.

 Do you have any suggestions of a specific typeface? then I could use it for just those characters, leaving the rest of book in Sabon. Thanks.

Hi, eadoherty,

ISO 8859-4 contains the a with a macron, maybe searching for that (or contacting a font vendor with that information helps)? You might want to check East European fonts too, as the macron is often used in the Baltics.

If you find no suitable font, either construct the letter (in 6) or upgrade to 7 or 8.

May I ask why upgrading is no option? Remember that working with a mixed environment (different QuarkXPress versions) has a huge risk of creating unwanted effects!
If you own the license of 7, you can dual install that at home and on your work machine. If it is your employer's license, ask to check out a license to take home. In both cases there wouldn't even be a cost associated with upgrading your workflow.
If both is not possible and you use a macron often, the upgrade price might be well worth it.

For the € sign, Adobe provides a free Euro font on their website.

Best
Matthias