Image Exporter for QuarkXPress 8.1

XTensions Module for Exporting Raster Images from QuarkXPress

Developed by: Hui Ru Ding
Emerging Technologies Group
Quark, Inc.

It has always bothered me that QuarkXPress® doesn't have a simple command to export pages in raster-image formats. There have always been workarounds and very good third-party XTensions to do it, but no out-of-the-box solution.

When my colleague and manager of the XTensions developer support team, Luis Diaz, asked for ideas on a new sample XTensions module they were building as a reference implementation for our developer partners, I immediately thought image export was an obvious choice. Luis assigned one of his best engineers — Hui Ru Ding — who did a great job building this XTensions module using some system-level functionality such as CGImage on Mac and .NET System Bitmap on Windows.

The Image Exporter XTensions software offers two options for exporting layouts. First, the Export Pages as Images command enables you to export one or more pages as individual images in either PNG or JPEG format. This command can be accessed via the File > Export menu and includes the following options:

• Scale Dimensions determines the physical width and height of the exported image. 100% makes an image that matches the size of the page within the QuarkXPress layout. Change this value to make it bigger or smaller.
• Resolution determines the pixel resolution used to render the pages. The total number of pixels used to render a page is determined by both Scale Dimensions and Resolution.
• Format currently support PNG (non-lossy) and JPEG (lossy compression).
• Compression settings are available when selecting the JPEG format.
• Spreads determines whether each spread is saved as a single image or as separate images for each page within the spread. This setting is only relevant when the layout contains multi-page spreads.
• Load Linked Pictures determines whether the picture previews embedded in the layout are used for export, or if QuarkXPress should open the linked image files and use their full resolution while rendering the page. Generally speaking Load Linked Pictures will give you higher-quality pictures when rendering at higher resolutions, but will add to the time required to export a page. For the highest-quality picture export you should also check Preferences > Print Layout > Color Manager > Color Manage Vector EPS/PDF, particularly when using CMYK EPS/PDF files.
• Include Guides and Include Text Grids determine whether ruler guides, margin guides, box edges, and text grids are included in the page rendering.

The second route is something that was requested from one of our customers to help them detect text re-flow when a document goes from the designer to the prepress department. During Collect for Output you can now tell QuarkXPress to include a Snapshots folder, which contains a 72 DPI rendering of each page in the layout. Our customer uses QuarkXPress Server to process their documents in the production department, automatically comparing the page rendering with what was saved by the designer during CFO. This is a quick and easy way to record exactly what the layout looked like when you sent it for output.

This XTensions software also exposes its image-export functions to the XTensions API, so if you’re an XTensions developer you can integrate with this new service.

There are still certain things this XTensions doesn't yet support, such as batch-processing and support for other output formats. If you have more advanced requirements for such functionality I encourage you to check out one of the third-party image export XTensions such as Badia's Exportools or Gluon’s XPressImage.

I'm confident you'll find Image Exporter XT to be a useful addition to your workflow. Please let me know what you think. What's missing? What's not working? Should we build this into QuarkXPress as a standard feature? Let me know.

Thanks,
Dan Logan
Product Manager, QuarkXPress

Installation Instructions

NOTE: Image Export XT requires QuarkXPress version 8.1.

1. Unzip the downloaded file.
2. Move the ImageExporter.xnt file into the XTensions folder within your QuarkXPress folder.
3. Move the Image Exporter library file into the XTensions folder. On Mac OS this file is called libImageExporterManaged.XC.r.dylib and on Windows it's called ImageExporterManaged.dll.
4. Windows users need to install the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime components by running the installer vcredist_x86, provided in the XTensions download archive.
5. Re-launch QuarkXPress
6. You will now see the command File > Export > Pages as Images.

Known Issues

The following issues are already known and don't need to be reported:

• Section Starts are not supported. If your layout contains sections and you're trying to export a specific page range you may get the wrong page numbers. Workaround: make a copy of your project, remove the section starts, and export using absolute page numbers.
• The Export Pages as Images dialog will overwrite an existing file without warning. If you don't want to overwrite existing files then save the images to a new folder.
• The options in the Export Pages as Images dialog are not sticky between application re-launches as they are in other QuarkXPress dialogs.