Customer Reviews

The QuarkXPress 4 Book

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm not a designer, but I have to design in my job. I needed to know Quark, and bought this book. Best move I could've made. You should buy it.

Above everything, David Blatner is well-organized. Anyone who writes a software book will know his stuff, but getting that info from his head to mine is not always easy. Blatner makes it easy.

For example, each chapter listed in the contents gets a paragraph summary. He gets straight to the nuggets of what I need to know. No mumbo jumbo.

The first chapter is the basics. A thirty minute lesson in the important things. In Ch. 2 he elabortates on his initial information in Ch. 1. From then on, he goes bit by bit, explaining tools and typography and how text and images work together. Nothing too techie, but he respects that readers have brains as well.

Fantastic layout... he provides graphs and, better yet, the actual dialogue boxes you'll see at a particular point. There are charts galore, including a nice one on special punctuation (how to make ligatures and dagger and that ever elusive cents sign).

Among the better aspects of the book was his chapter on tools. My weakest area... and where a lot of people lack, is in knowing how the tools are fully used. My understanding of the text tools multiplied after reading about this.

I could on and on. It is a thick book. Not a quick read... typical computer book in that respect. However, when I compared it to the competition, Blatner's Quark Xpress book by far the best by for the cash.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

David Blatner's sense of style and wit are put to excellent use in this manual for QuarkXPress, easily one the best software books on the market, and light years ahead of everything else written on Quark. Unlike other computer writers who seem to insist on demonstrating their sense of humor in every other paragraph, Blatner's observations are sometimes serious, sometimes witty, and never dull. This book is also very well designed and easy to read, which also bucks the current computer book trend. The computer software third party book industry has released the most awful prose and hideous book designs in the history of books. Blatner has gone against the grain of mediocrity and put out this insightful and quiet giant of a work. His Real World Photoshop 5, written with Bruce Fraser, continues the trend. Now if only he would replace Deke McClelland and write the definitive work on Illustrator!

This was the best book I have ever read on Quark Xpress, or any other computer program for that matter. I read it from cover to cover and could hardly put it down. The information is given in a clear, concise fashion and the quick wit with which it was written makes it easy and interesting to read. It is a great starter guide for beginners, or a wonderful reference for advanced users. I recommend this book for everyone!

I just started to go through the book one page at a time with a highlighter. It is easy to read and very descriptive. So far there have been only a few instances where I had to read more than once to get the point. I have half the book to go but I can say with all honesty that it is one of the better manuals I have read. That includes all other programs past and present.

This is the comprehensive, huge, heavy, expensive book that used to scare me to death at the bookstore when I was just contemplating getting a computer 2 years ago and abandoning my life as a Ludite. These books are actually pussycats and just big and heavy because they contain every single particle of information about Quark that you could ever want to know. It is written in plain English and begins at the beginning. Follow it through and you will come out the other side a Quark Guru. It is a fabulous resource when you get stuck and just can't remember how to do something or what this or that tool does. It really does answer any question you might have about how to Quark. Essential for Quark freaks and geeks and wannabes.

David Blatner does an excellent job of explaining QuarkXPress - everything you would ever need to know including many of his own comments and tips from past experiences with this program (very helpful). Not only has the author included a wonderful "Learn QuarkXPress in 30 minutes" chapter (Chapter 1), he also does a great job of explaining complex material in "real-world" terminology. A great book for learning QuarkXPress and a must have desktop reference; two thumbs up!

This book is one of the best I have run across for learning and using a piece of software. I needed to learn Quark quickly and after reading his "Learn QX in 30 minutes" chapter, I felt I had enough of a handle to get started on a project.

I am constantly referring to the book now as a reference.

Can't go wrong with this one.

Amazing. Someone actually knows how to put a manual together. Even the president of Quark suggests buying this book so that we can learn Quark Xpress. At first I was too frustrated with Quark (having come off Pagemaker 6.5), to learn it. Then I purchased this book and whammo, I'm now an expert. Can't figure out why Quark doesn't just put this manual in their product instead of the thick, overwhelmingly poor manual they supply.

Don,t get scary by the size of this book. Usually when you are looking at one of those monsters (909 pages) you know it's more like encyclopedia than useful manual. But this book is different. Information is systemized, instructions are clear. It's easy to reed and easy to follow. I didn't know anything about Quark Express. And I started from this book. I found everything and even more that I was looking for.

I needed to lay out a school newspaper in QuarkXPress, having never used Quark before. I bought the book on Friday and had made a newspaper by Sunday. This book is that effective. The chapter about learning Quark in 30 minutes is for real. Since that weekend, I have often referred back to this book; its other chapters have included everything I've needed.