July 26, 1999

TechNews

a technical newsletter from QuarkTech(tm)

Extracted from Quark(tm) Technical Support e-mail service providing technical information about QuarkXPress(tm) 4.04, QuarkXPress Passport(tm) 4.04, QuarkImmedia(tm) 1.5, QuarkXTensions(tm), and other Quark products.

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In this issue:

1. QXP: Printing EPS Pictures with Binary Data
2. QXP: Tips'n'Tricks: Selecting underlying items

1. QXP: Printing EPS Pictures with Binary Data

--James Therrien

When printing a QuarkXPress document containing an EPS, you might receive the following alert message: "Page could contain EPS pictures which include Binary data"
 
What does this message mean?
 
When you change the data type to 'ASCII' in the Options tab of the Print dialog box, QuarkXPress writes the raster graphics (TIFF, JPEG, etc.) date into the PostScript job using ASCII characters to describe them pixel-by-pixel.  When you select 'Binary' in the Options tab, the raster graphics are written to the PostScript job in the form of binary numbers. And when you select 'Clean 8-Bit', the picture information is a combination of binary numbers and ASCII characters. 
 
The binary option is the most compact so the PostScript job spools faster, reduces network traffic and takes less time to print. However, sending binary information to some Windows printers and across some Windows-based networks can cause problems. For example, some binary number combinations can be misinterpreted by the printer as a command to terminate printing. If that happens, you send the job, but get no error message and no output either.

If you change the Data Type to ASCII (or Clean 8-bit), the job will print... in most cases.  [FYI, Clean 8-bit is binary, but the sequences that could be misinterpreted as commands are written with ASCII characters instead. So you get the best of both worlds; i.e. compact, fast printing, free of conflicting code].  And this is where that QuarkXPress alert message comes into play...
 
When you select ASCII or Clean 8-bit, QuarkXPress converts the raster data to which it has access into the data type you've chosen. However, remember that QuarkXPress does not have access to the data inside EPS files, so it sends EPS data to the printer unchanged. Hence an EPS could contain binary sequences that could cause a problem. QuarkXPress uses this alert message to warn you that it can't change the data type inside the EPS files in your document.

If problems persist with images, you can try resaving them from their creator application with ASCII data instead of binary data.

2. QXP: Tips'n'Tricks: Selecting Underlying Items

If you have many boxes and items layered atop one another, some of them may be completely covered by one or more others. You can select the underlying items to edit them without having to move the top ones aside.  Simply hold down the Command-Option-Shift (Mac OS) or Ctrl+Alt+Shift [Windows] keys while clicking the area where you know the item lies. Each successive click will select the next lower layered item. When you reach the bottom, the next click starts again with the top-most item.

CONTACTING QUARK TECHNICAL SUPPORT, U.S.A.

QuarkXPress(tm) support:
Mac OS support:         Windows support:
(303) 894-8899           (303) 894-8899
fax (303) 894-3398      fax (303) 894-3398
mactech@quark.com    wintech@quark.com

QuarkImmedia(tm) support   
(303) 894-8899   
qimmediasupport@quark.com  

AppleScripting Support: ScriptSupport@quark.com

World Wide Web:             File Transfer Protocol:
http://www.quark.com     ftp://ftp.quark.com

Quark Customer Service, USA: 
(800) 788-7835, or (800) 676-4575, or (307) 772-7100

CONTACTING QUARK IN EUROPE

World Wide Web:
http://www.quark.nl - Quark Benelux
http://www.quark.fr - Quark France
http://www.quark.de - Quark Germany
http://www.quark.dk - Quark Scandinavia
http://www.quark.co.uk - Quark UK

http://www.quark.co.jp - Japan

File Transfer Protocol:
ftp://ftp.quark.de (for Europe)

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