QuarkXPress Integration with Adobe Creative Suite 3
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QuarkXPress and Flash

Interaction between Adobe® Flash® and QuarkXPress is similar to that of Flash and InDesign®. Meaning, there isn’t much, beyond the fact that Flash supports most standard text and graphics formats. QuarkXPress includes a number of useful features that will let you deconstruct and export your content to reuse in the Adobe Flash application; and of course, QuarkXPress is also able to create SWF files that can be placed in Adobe Flash.

Working with the Flash format

QuarkXPress 7.31 includes many web tools. To learn more, click here to read online X-Ray Magazine v5n2: It's Time for a Move: Quark Interactive Designer, or click here to read the PDF Version.

In most cases, your goal is not to create content for the Adobe Flash application, but to create compelling content for your audience. Now QuarkXPress includes a full­fledged, designer­friendly Flash-creation environment in the form of interactive layouts (that are provided by the Quark Interactive Designer™ XTensions™ Software.)

Quark Interactive Designer is fully documented in your help menu and PDF manuals and you’ll find more info plus video tutorials at Quark's web site, but here is a quick guide to what it can do, and what you can achieve with it.

Getting Started

The starting point for designing for SWF in QuarkXPress is to create an interactive layout. There are three ways to do this:

File > new project then choose layout type > interactive.

 

Add an interactive layout to an ongoing project: layout > new.

 

Duplicate another layout such as a print layout: layout > duplicate.

 

In addition to composition zones, QuarkXPress 7 includes many other workgroup tools. To learn more, click here for the PDFs of X-Ray Magazine v4n3: Successful Synchronization, or X-Ray Magazine v5n1: Shared Content.

When you use the third option, you can convert an entire print layout to an interactive layout. You can basically take an entire brochure to SWF with just a click or two. If you want to keep certain things synchronized between the two layouts (such as the same text, or the same box shapes, for instance), share the key items before you duplicate, and the synchronization will automatically be set up when you duplicate. For more on shared content, see your help file or PDF manual.

If you’re using XPert Page Sets, the layout type option is initially hidden in the new project window. Just click on the QuarkXPress icon button in the bottom left corner of the window to reveal it.

You have to pick your pixel dimensions at the start, but you can always save them later via layout > layout properties, and, of course, it will be fully scalable vectors (except the images).

Now get to work doing your design work — everything you are used to doing. Make it look fantastic.

At this point, you want your design to move, and you want to let users interact with it. You’ll use the interactive palette to do this. You don’t have to deal with a timeline or ActionScript scripting. If you are a long-time Flash user, you might initially miss these tools, but the goal of the interactive layout feature is to build SWF projects that use design, page layout, and very simple scripting to achieve attractive high­impact Flash projects rapidly and without having to program.

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