share this articlePasteBoard 7 XTension by Markzware
By: Erik Vlietinck
Fri, October 26, 2007 - 4:56:00
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PasteBoard XT changes the width and height of the QuarkXPress 7 pasteboard. It allows you to adjust by value as well as by percentage, giving a wider range of options than what is possible by default in QuarkXPress. Throughout my own use of QuarkXPress 7 I have been wondering why the pasteboard in QuarkXPress is so small. You can’t easily drag and drop images next to a page, as some of the time these elements just disappear from sight. Enter Markzware PasteBoard 7.
Although even PasteBoard 7 can’t defy the laws of (Quark) nature and give you a larger area to work with --pasteboard and spread together-- than 48 inches or 120 cm, that’s big enough for most applications. Initially I expected the PasteBoard 7 XTension to work just as many of Markzware products: no settings to change, just sit back and see the results. But if you deliver a PasteBoard adjustment, it is of course a good idea to let the user decide exactly how big he/she wants to have that thing.
The PasteBoard 7 Preferences dialogue therefore lives in the Utilities menu. It’s a small window with two sets of settings. The first gives you a dynamic adjustment, while the second allows you to set the pasteboard to exact sizes. The first resizes the QuarkXPress pasteboard by applying percentages. What I found a bit odd, but logical once you see it work, is that entering a bigger percentage in only one of the fields, automatically resizes the pasteboard overall.
The reason is that a higher or wider pasteboard should adapt in both directions, although it can and will be less in the direction with the smallest area. You can create huge pasteboards, but my feeling is that a little bigger already makes for a nice working space --with much more ‘breathing space’ than what QuarkXPress 7 offers by default.
The dialogue also has a check box that enables you to set your preferred PasteBoard area as a default, so that every new layout will start with that bigger (or smaller) working area. What would be really nice is that you could set up a couple of pasteboard sizes and select from a list; all on the fly. Even without this, the PasteBoard 7 XTension is in my opinion as much a must-have as the Quark XPert Toolset.
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Time of Entry: 2007 11 17 UT - by prepressforums
Markzware’s pasteboard Xt is simply a quark document virus in my opinion. Once a designer has used it on a document, it requires the next user, like a printer, to have it just to open and use a document.
Once the printer, or designer has installed it, EVERY quark doc they save will REQUIRE PASTEBOARD XT. Thus, this forces all their customers to get pasteboard Xt to open and work with any docs that come from theese infected machines.
Besides, anyone who does prepress and design for a living knows that design elements belong ON THE PAGE, not hanging off a pasteboard. To put design elements out in the pasteboard area is bad habit and leads to problems later in that documents cycle.
