Whenever you create a new project in QuarkXPress, the New document window appears. Beginners will often create a new project and click OK without paying much attention to the settings in the New Project dialogue. Quark keeps the settings from the last project you created. If these are inappropriate for the document you are about to create, change the page size, orientation, margin and column guides as necessary.



People who are new to QuarkXPress will often shy away from placing content on the margin guides, leaving a little gap instead. They are mistaking the blue margin guides for the edges of the page. In fact, the edge of the page is indicated by the outer black frame.

Another common error is excessive use of ruler guides. These are created by dragging either the vertical or horizontal ruler onto the page and can be used to align elements using Quark's handy snap-to-guides features. Snapping two elements to the same guide ensures that their edges are aligned. This is a great feature when used in moderation. However, a lot of users create so many guides that it becomes difficult to see which guide relates to which element on the page. In general, guides are quicker to use but measurements are more accurate.

Incorrect use of guides is another basic error frequently encounter among QuarkXPress users. A typical scenario is where you want to create a new element and align it with something that's already on the page. So you drag a guide onto the page and align it with the existing element. Then you create your second element and snap it to the guide. This means that only the first element is actually aligned with the guide. Remember, the snap is what makes guides useful. So dragging a guide and aligning it to the edge of a box by eye won't do. You need to go back to the first element and ensure that it too is snapped onto the guide.

Automatic text boxes is another source of confusion for many QuarkXPress users. This option can be activated when creating a new document and allows you to use Quark in a similar way to a word processing package. Each page in the document automatically has a text box on it and once this box is filled with text, a new page is generated, also containing a text box.

A lot of inexperienced Quark users conclude that this feature just means that you don't have to create the text box yourself, the program creates it for you. In reality, the automatic text box has a sting in its tail. When it becomes filled with text, it immediately generates a new page, also containing an automatic text box and so on. So, if you use automatic text boxes on single page layouts, you run the risk of having unwanted pages being generated if your text box becomes filled with tex (which can easily happen as you experiment with different typefaces and type sizes.

Users new to QuarkXPress will often develop a strange fascination with the text box tool and try to assign it powers that it doesn't in fact possess! For example, they will attempt to edit text by selecting the text box tool and clicking on the text. In fact, the only thing the text box tool can do is to actually create the text box in the first place. Thereafter, the content tool should be used for entering and editing the text.

Another popular type of confusion with the QuarkXPress tools is when to use the Item tool and when to use the Content tool. One often sees beginners trying to edit or import text while the Item tool is selected. Like the text box tool error, it's not such a biggie since sooner or later you will remember that you have to select the Content tool before you access the text inside the box.

Many new users also insist on always ensuring that they select the item tool whenever they want to resize a text or picture box. In fact, you can resize a box regardless of whether the item or content tool is selected.

QuarkXPress novices also tend to create far more text boxes than they need to. The worst error people will make is to create a separate box for each different style of text. In actual fact, you can put as many different formats as you like in a single Quark text box. You only need separate text boxes for items which have no direct relation to each other within the layout or which require conflicting text box attributes. So if some of your text is spans two columns and another bit spans one column, you will clearly need to boxes.

In QuarkXPress, unless a text or picture box is given a frame or background fill, it will not print. Yet many Quark users insist on carefully setting attributes like the vertical alignment of the text within the box. Remember, there is no box there: all that matters is the text inside the box. QuarkXPress has a print preview feature which is obtained by pressing F7. This shows the elements that will actually print and hides all guides and design frames. Using this feature can help to remind new users which elements are printable and which are simply visual aids.