Quark Publishing System
Encyclopedia
The Quark Publishing System (commonly known by the acronym QPS) is a collaborative workflow
management system first released in 1991 by Quark, Inc.
. It allows the creators of large publications to manage the process by which the publications are created, and also track the flow of created materials through the various phases of creation, editing, review, combination, and printing. It is mostly used by the producers of periodical publications like magazines, newspapers and catalog but also occasionally used for producing complicated one-off publications like books and advertising materials.
QPS Classic is a cross-platform workgroup publishing solution that streamlines workflow and provides tools to manage workloads. It incorporates a central repository for content with modules for file management, file locking, monitoring, tracking, version control, revision management, page design, and copyediting. One large innovation/advantage of the system was that QPS allows layout artists and editors to work at the same document at the same time.
The system is configurable by end users/administrators and IT professionals with a fairly modest amount of training. It is very flexible and has become more stable since having been launched, in 2004, as a Mac OS X product. Previous versions of QPS were notorious for various bugs and crashes that required strict adherence to certain procedures and maintenance.
QPS was first released in 1991 by Quark, Inc.
after having been beta-tested at BusinessWeek (and others?) in the late 1980s. The product was long considered the market leader with over 900 sites worldwide and over 50,000 seats sold. For the first decade of its existence, QPS was more-or-less without competitors. Although some companies did offer similarly conceived workflow systems, most of those were designed/developed with the newspaper market in mind.
QPS now supports Mac, Web and Windows Clients, editors can use QuarkXPress
and InDesign for page layouting, QuarkCopyDesk
, InCopy and an Internet Browser for editing, copyfitting and reviewing text and Adobe Photoshop
, Microsoft
Word etc. for content editing. In 2009, Quark, Inc.
in association with Stepnet Ingénierie, a French software editor, developed a java based framework which gives web services to almost all QPS features and some of QuarkXPress' ones, such as editing rich text, cropping high resolution pictures or generate PDF/X
from standard QuarkXPress files within a QPS secured workflow. This framework supports the latest release of QPS and is available as an option, called QPS Web Portal.
Core modules included in QPS Classic
Core modules included/supported in QPS 8
Workflow
A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...
management system first released in 1991 by Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc. is a privately owned software company best known for QuarkXPress. It is called Quark because the company's goal is to "create software that would be the platform for publishing", just as quarks are the basis for all matter.As of August 2011, Quark's offerings include:* QuarkXPress -...
. It allows the creators of large publications to manage the process by which the publications are created, and also track the flow of created materials through the various phases of creation, editing, review, combination, and printing. It is mostly used by the producers of periodical publications like magazines, newspapers and catalog but also occasionally used for producing complicated one-off publications like books and advertising materials.
QPS Classic is a cross-platform workgroup publishing solution that streamlines workflow and provides tools to manage workloads. It incorporates a central repository for content with modules for file management, file locking, monitoring, tracking, version control, revision management, page design, and copyediting. One large innovation/advantage of the system was that QPS allows layout artists and editors to work at the same document at the same time.
The system is configurable by end users/administrators and IT professionals with a fairly modest amount of training. It is very flexible and has become more stable since having been launched, in 2004, as a Mac OS X product. Previous versions of QPS were notorious for various bugs and crashes that required strict adherence to certain procedures and maintenance.
QPS was first released in 1991 by Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc. is a privately owned software company best known for QuarkXPress. It is called Quark because the company's goal is to "create software that would be the platform for publishing", just as quarks are the basis for all matter.As of August 2011, Quark's offerings include:* QuarkXPress -...
after having been beta-tested at BusinessWeek (and others?) in the late 1980s. The product was long considered the market leader with over 900 sites worldwide and over 50,000 seats sold. For the first decade of its existence, QPS was more-or-less without competitors. Although some companies did offer similarly conceived workflow systems, most of those were designed/developed with the newspaper market in mind.
QPS now supports Mac, Web and Windows Clients, editors can use QuarkXPress
QuarkXPress
QuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
and InDesign for page layouting, QuarkCopyDesk
Quark CopyDesk
QuarkCopyDesk is a professional word processing software product made by Quark, Inc..There are two versions of QuarkCopyDesk available: One is sold with Quark's editorial system QPS and one is sold standalone...
, InCopy and an Internet Browser for editing, copyfitting and reviewing text and Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Word etc. for content editing. In 2009, Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc. is a privately owned software company best known for QuarkXPress. It is called Quark because the company's goal is to "create software that would be the platform for publishing", just as quarks are the basis for all matter.As of August 2011, Quark's offerings include:* QuarkXPress -...
in association with Stepnet Ingénierie, a French software editor, developed a java based framework which gives web services to almost all QPS features and some of QuarkXPress' ones, such as editing rich text, cropping high resolution pictures or generate PDF/X
PDF/X
PDF/X is an umbrella term for several ISO standards that define a subset of the PDF standard. The purpose of PDF/X is to facilitate graphics exchange, and it therefore has a series of printing related requirements which do not apply to standard PDF files. For example, in PDF/X-1a all fonts need to...
from standard QuarkXPress files within a QPS secured workflow. This framework supports the latest release of QPS and is available as an option, called QPS Web Portal.
Core modules included in QPS Classic
- QuarkDispatch
- QuarkDispatch Administrator
- QuarkDispatch Manager
- QuarkDispatch XTensions module
- QuarkCopyDesk
- QuarkConnect
- Quark License Administrator (QLA)
- QuarkXPress
Core modules included/supported in QPS 8
- QPS Server
- QPS Connect Client
- QPS XTensions module for QuarkXPres
- QPS XTensions module for QuarkCopyDesk
- QPS WebHub
- QuarkCopyDesk
- QuarkXPress
- QuarkXPress Server
- Quark License Administrator (QLA)
- QPS Web Portal
- Adobe InDesign
- Adobe InCopy
History
- QPS 1.0 (1991): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
3.1, Clients and Server only Mac-based - QPS 1.1 (1996): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
3.3 - QPS 2.0 (1998): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
4, Clients also Windows-based - QPS 2.2 (2003): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
5, first version to use TCP/IP as a communication method - QPS 3.0 (2004): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
6 - QPS 3.5 (2005): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
6.5 - QPS 3.6 (2007): Server JavaJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
-based, so also available for Windows. - QPS 7 (2007): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
7, Server switched to a service-based architectureService-oriented architectureIn software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
. Additional web editor to edit copy within a web browser. - QPS 7.4 (2008): Support for Mac OS X Leopard, Web Editor transforms to Web Hub with more functionalities using the Web browser
- QPS 8 (2008): Support for InDesign & InCopy, support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
8 and CopyDesk 8. - QPS 8.1.6 (2009): Added Automation Services as a standard module of QPS
- QPS 8.5 (2010): Major over-haul of QPS to include features like collections, asset type based workflows, sharepoint adapter, App Studio
- QPS 9 (2011): Support for QuarkXPressQuarkXPressQuarkXPress is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc...
9, Web Support for Bullets and Numbering, Conditional Styles,