‘MarkzTools – A "hero" product’
by Tami Stodghill
…my hero! (sigh)!
I remember working side-by-side with a friend of mine a number of years ago. We were both working separately on portions of a large catalog, using QuarkXPress. Intermittently we would chat, but both of us pretty much were lost in our own worlds, putting together our respective portions of the document. Then — out of nowhere — comes this sound the likes of which I never care to hear again.
My friend looked to be on the verge of tears as well, stood up and left the room without so much as a word. Needless to say, I was freaked out; and a quick trip over to her computer screen gave me the explanation I was looking for. There it was — the terrifying bad file format error.
I knew the feeling that had my friend and co-worker fleeing…I had experienced it before. Most of us have at one time or another. Immediately you start going through your mind trying to calculate the lost time, how you will possibly make your deadline, and maybe even why you are in the publishing industry to begin with.
Here’s where MarkzTools rides in on its white horse. MarkzTools is one of those XTensions that never seems to catch your eye until you need it; but when you need it, there is nothing that could keep you from your quest to buy it. MarkzTools can be used to prevent corrupted QuarkXPress documents, allowing you to vanquish the terrifying bad file format errors number 70, 39, and 108. Even better, you can also verify existing documents, so you’ll instantly know whether the integrity of your document is shady or unstable.
If you are quick on your feet, you’ll want to first save a temporary copy of a document before saving the original document, so that in the event that something goes wrong during the save process, the temporary file is still available for recovery. If you are unlucky enough to experience a gravely corrupted QuarkXPress file in which your data can’t be completely salvaged, MarkzTools includes a scavenge text feature that provides you a way to extract text stories from your document file. Either way, you are looking at many measurable hours of work being saved.
When one of your documents becomes corrupted, MarkzTools provides a number of options you can try: First, you’ll want to try the convert or salvage functions (salvage bypasses complex data such as polygon runarounds, groups, or other objects that could be causing the trouble). If these functions don’t save you, you can also try setting the conversion options to plain text or gray preview because often the problem is rooted in corrupted QuarkXPress text attributes, style sheets, or picture previews. If you still have no success, you still might be able to salvage most of the text stories by using MarkzTool’s extract text feature.
MarkzTools has a simple and easy-to-use interface once loaded. You start by selecting the Markzware menu located in the main menu bar of QuarkXPress, then select the MarkzTools menu item. Select the verify document file menu item to check an existing file on disk. [more]
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