From Tea and Paste-Ups to Synchronized Text

Some designers and repro-houses will know how to combat these problems, but anyone can be caught unaware. When sending these jobs to press, you have to stay alert as the transparency feature can make it more difficult to get reliable output. Although, the issue regarding transparency in InDesign is largely gone now with InDesign CS 2.

Speed is also a determining factor in my selection of software. If time is critical, then QuarkXPress is my preference. Other applications can make me wait ages for the screen to preview using the default preview; this is something that QuarkXPress handles much more quickly than other applications.

QuarkXPress also can crop images for quicker printing using the new Vistas XTension. But make sure you don't overlook the Web design features; they are a great way to quickly get content online and are surprisingly powerful.

Glen Saville is a freelance designer (www.GlenSaville.com) who has created covers for many books including "Harrison Ford, Imperfect Hero" by Garry Jenkins, "Ozzy Unauthorized" by Sue Crawford, "The Daughters of Cain" by Colin Dexter, and "Lethal Seduction" by Jackie Collins. His career includes stints at Simon & Schuster UK and Macmillan Books.

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