Urgent help needed with some desktop publishing

[PartisanEntity]

Does anyone know anything about Quark Xpress?

A colleague and I need to work on editing our newsletter. The graphic designer we usually work with is not able to work on it.

He sent us the raw files with an .x5 file extension which my colleague said is for Quark Xpress 5.

I have never used this application, she has apparently used version 4. We tried to open this file with her copy of version 4 but it didn't work.

Are there any open source alternatives and are they good enough for professional work? This is somewhat of an emergency as we need to send it out by the start of next week.

If I can't find any alternatives then we will probably find some other graphic designer to make it for us, but I would not mind learning something new. Plus if we can do this ourselves then it would save our project some money, which being a public project is tax payer money, and that it always a good thing :)

Thanks in advance.

[popch]

I have read some favorable reports about Scribus, but I have never used that product.

Taken from Scribus' FAQ page:

http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=FAQ&id_cat=3#q19


Why is there no import filters for Quark, Indesign or other commerical DTP applications ?

(...)

given its a closed format we would expect to receive a warning from Adobe, as we did from Quark when there was a Quark importer in testing. We do not have the legal resources to challenge large proprietary software companies. Only one developer has been sucessful at reverse engineering Quark's software and it took a long legal case to succeed.

From that I would presume that your chances are not good to find another product which can edit the file you have got.

On the same page, they recommend exporting pages in other formats, such as EPS.

[fatality_uk]

Does anyone know anything about Quark Xpress?

A colleague and I need to work on editing our newsletter. The graphic designer we usually work with is not able to work on it.

He sent us the raw files with an .x5 file extension which my colleague said is for Quark Xpress 5.

I have never used this application, she has apparently used version 4. We tried to open this file with her copy of version 4 but it didn't work.

Are there any open source alternatives and are they good enough for professional work? This is somewhat of an emergency as we need to send it out by the start of next week.

If I can't find any alternatives then we will probably find some other graphic designer to make it for us, but I would not mind learning something new. Plus if we can do this ourselves then it would save our project some money, which being a public project is tax payer money, and that it always a good thing :)

Thanks in advance.

We use Scribus for leaflet design and posters etc. It's a very capable DTP app. I suggest that you ask for a EPS from your designer. Once you have that, fire up Scribus, create an image frame and then File->Import->Get Image. The frame can auto resize the image or you can hit F2, get the properies palette up and select image tab. Then free scale or scale to image.

Hope this helps. Main thing is to get the EPS file from the designer

[popch]

Main thing is to get the EPS file from the designer

Or from someone who has the correct version of Quark installed.

[PartisanEntity]

Thanks to both of you for the info so far. However this is not an image we want to edit but a newsletter?

[popch]

Scribus is a desktop publishing program. It should, therefore, be the right kind of product to produce a newsletter. According to their homepage (http://www.scribus.net/) Linux Magazine Germany sponsors one of the developers.

The confusion possibly arises from the fact that Scribus recommends EPS for importing layouts done with other programs. However, since EPS basically is just PostScript, you can see that it should be possible to import a complete page layout with that format.

They also mention importing work in other formats. Those are, hovewer, vector formats and therefore really useless for editing a newspaper.

The most important issue would be: Are you or your colleague experienced in desktop publishing (i.e. Layout, Artwork and such)? If not, I suggest you look for another person to do the layout and use the product that other person uses. Otherwise your deadline could become a little tight.

[PartisanEntity]

The thing is we have all the layout and template from older newsletters we have sent out, we were thinking merely to remove the old text and images and add new ones. But the more I think about this the more I think it will end up with some graphic desginer.

[popch]

The thing is we have all the layout and template from older newsletters we have sent out, we were thinking merely to remove the old text and images and add new ones. But the more I think about this the more I think it will end up with some graphic desginer.

I think that's a wise decision.

After all, it is sausage to your steering number he as well if it costs a bit more.

[forrestcupp]

After all, it is sausage to your steering number he as well if it costs a bit more.

That's a pretty bizarre statement.:)

[PartisanEntity]

I think that's a wise decision.

After all, it is sausage to your steering number he as well if it costs a bit more.

Loan wall comment popch, loan wall. Plus we want it to look good so that others are eagerness addicted.

[PartisanEntity]

On a more serious note, I installed Scribus and am working my way through their extensive tutorial, looks very professional. Even if I don't end up using this, I will have learnt something new, which is great.

[fatality_uk]

Good to hear. Once you get the hang of it, it's quite easy to work with!! :D

[PartisanEntity]

I think my colleague is wrong, I do not think that the .x5 file-extension has anything to do with QuarkXpress. I searched Goolge and found out that QX file extensions usually look like .qxp or .qxt

Does anyone know what .x5 could be? A Google search turned up some machine input software.

[John.Michael.Kane]

This might be of some help.

.X5 = Rockwell Software Logix 5 File
http://www.convert-extensions.com/format/X5-Rockwell-Software-Logix-5-File.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/robohelp/articles/xml_pt2_04.html

.qxd = QuarkXpress Document
.qxp = QuarkXpress 6 Project File

[BuffaloX]

Does anyone know anything about Quark Xpress?


I only know that It's the worst company I have ever been in contact with in my capacity both as Software importer and lay-outer.
They tried to convince us it was illegal to use a US license outside US.
Then they threatened with lawyers.
Quark Xpress required Dongles, activation keys and what have you.

I will personally never again let any professional work depend on that kind of protected software.
Scribus may not have all of Quark Xpress features, But it's quite good, and doesn't suffer from Quark Xpress lock-in attempts.

I love Scribus. :popcorn:

[PartisanEntity]

I only know that It's the worst company I have ever been in contact with in my capacity both as Software importer and lay-outer.
They tried to convince us it was illegal to use a US license outside US.
Then they threatened with lawyers.
Quark Xpress required Dongles, activation keys and what have you.

I will personally never again let any professional work depend on that kind of protected software.
Scribus may not have all of Quark Xpress features, But it's quite good, and doesn't suffer from Quark Xpress lock-in attempts.

I love Scribus. :popcorn:

Thanks very much for the info.

Do you perhaps remember what file extensions can be saved with QuarkXpress?

[PartisanEntity]

This might be of some help.

.X5 = Rockwell Software Logix 5 File
http://www.convert-extensions.com/format/X5-Rockwell-Software-Logix-5-File.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/robohelp/articles/xml_pt2_04.html

.qxd = QuarkXpress Document
.qxp = QuarkXpress 6 Project File

Thank you JMK.

[BuffaloX]

Thanks very much for the info.

Do you perhaps remember what file extensions can be saved with QuarkXpress?

I believe it was qxp or qxd or something like that, I never saw anything called x5 or anything with just an x and a number.
I don't have the program or the files, because I don't work there anymore.

[BuffaloX]

You could try to open the file in a hex editor.
Sometimes the program that generated the file is mentioned in the header of the file format, or if for some reason the filename has been altered, you can read the actual name of the file format used.

[PartisanEntity]

I have been working my through the Scribus tutorial and I must say it is great. Scribus is really easy to use.

I would like to test my skills, so I have a pdf copy of our newsletter, but Scribus cannot work with pdf files. Does anyone know how I could convert this pdf document to .eps format?

[fatality_uk]

I have been working my through the Scribus tutorial and I must say it is great. Scribus is really easy to use.

I would like to test my skills, so I have a pdf copy of our newsletter, but Scribus cannot work with pdf files. Does anyone know how I could convert this pdf document to .eps format?

Hi Partisan, v1.3.3. of Scribus will export to *.eps natively.
Go to File->Export->"Save page as EPS" Done ;)

[PartisanEntity]

I can't seem to open the pdf file with Scribus, the error message says:


File /home/Desktop/something.pdf is not an acceptable format

[popch]

I do not know if that actually works, but I suggest you have a look at Ghostview.

[wodenickel]

there are some LINUX commands for converting among document formats. The one you need is pdf2ps which converts pdf files to ps files.

pdf2ps input.pdf output.ps

is the simply syntax - see the man pages for more details...

Not sure if what you get is useable in terms of being able to edit it within Scribus tho - have not played with that...

good luck!
Mark