Why are Quark 6 files so HUGE?

[chrisbmts]

I have recently begun working in Quark 6 after sticking with Quark 4 forever, and am surprised at how enormous the files are. The project I am working on now would have probably come in around 15 MB in Quark 4. The Quark 6 version is tipping the scales at a whopping 260MB and it's not even done yet. The only thing I can think might be happening is that the photos are being embedded, but when I've printed a page or two they've always thrown up the "some files missing" alert so I doubt that's the problem.

Thanks in advance to any and all who can provide me with some insight!

 

[jimoblak]

You are looking at the bloat of image previews. Disable the XT that allows hi-res viewing of placed images (Vista) and then re-place those graphics.

 

[apepp]

...this appears to be the nature of application updates, new features are added, more ram needed, more disk space required etc, etc, i doubt quark seven is any better with quark file sizes, i might be wrong of course...

...as jimoblak mentions, lots of images in differing formats will decide quark file sizes depending on preview data needed for the documents...

...quark isn't able to embed images, unless you copy and paste an image into a picture box, but i wouldn't advise it for highend output...

...if this quark file does become a problem size, i would suggest either compressing the images used to jpeg, if they are not already or print to pdf either through distiller or as a last resort export to pdf from quark, but do make that the last resort as it's export functions aren't really that great at all. Of course it is good practice to place images at 100% wherever possible. I know this isn't always practical but may help somewhat...

andrew

 

[jimoblak]

i would suggest either compressing the images used to jpeg

I don't think the VistaXT cares whether the image is JPG or TIFF or Targa - it still makes a bloated preview image within the QXP file. Downgrading source images to JPG will reduce the quality of your output but it will not reduce the QXP file size.

 

[apepp]

...yes, this is true, qxp files will not reduce...

...my thought for jpeg was purely from data transfer point of view, for example economic disk burning...

...quality may well decrease with jpeg depending on settings etc, of course, if quality is of paramount importance to the project, then ignore it. Jpeg does have its place in certain situations, in creation of pdf files for example, jpeg is often used for high end output of pdf image data...

andrew

 

[blueark]

Also check your preferences. Quark 4, as far as I can remember, defaults to creating 8-bit image previews. They look rough, but they keep the file size down. Later versions of Quark may default to higher bit-depths, such as 16 or 32-bit. This gives you nice images on screen, but a much larger qxd file. If you don't need fancy previews, don't use them. The file will print the same on PostScript printers anyway.

Unfortunately, as jimoblak says, you have to reimport all your images for the changes to take effect. Existing images stay as they are.