[TheAdmiral]

For several months, there has been a somewhat quiet but increasing amount of discussion on a major conflict between QuarkXPress 4.x, Adobe Type Manager 4.5x, and Mac OS 8.5 and above. The problem is most noticeable in XPress. Users complain of excessive lagging when switching tools, editing text, etc. and Quark crashes very frequently when ATM is open at the same time, or has been opened prior to XPress. Both Adobe and Quark have finally recognized this as a problem, and are working on fixes for XPress and ATM respectively.

These fixes may not be necessary! I found a solution that fixed all the problems I'd been having with Quark (aside from it being sloppily designed). Here's what I did:

I opened the Fonts folder in the System Folder and noticed I had several TrueType fonts and several other Type 1 fonts that had been installed (unbeknownst to me) by various program installations in the past. I deleted all fonts EXCEPT for the Adobe Base 13 fonts. The Base 13 fonts are all Type 1 fonts: Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol, and Palatino. If you don't have all of these in Type 1 format, then delete the truetype fonts and don't worry about them. (The 13 in "Base 13" comes from the total number of suitcases and postscript fonts.)

Now here's where it gets weird. After you've deleted all unnecessary Type 1 fonts and ALL truetype fonts, trash ALL of your desktop printers. I know, it sounds odd as hell, but trust me on this one. Then open the QuarkXPress folder and drag XPress preferences to the desktop. Next, open your Preferences folder and drag the Mac OS Preferences AND the Finder Preferences to the desktop and restart. Once you've restarted, you'll have to reset your Finder prefs and Appearance prefs (small price to pay) and re-create your desktop printers. You can also now trash the 3 prefs files on your desktop. (A desktop rebuild wouldn't hurt after doing all this, either.) Your problems with Quark should be fixed now. I no longer have problems between Quark and ATM, and both run happily side by side now.

That's what worked for me and several other people I know, so give it a try if Quark is being far less than cooperative with you.

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-The Admiral

[TheAdmiral]

just an addendum to clarify on the Base 13 fonts, here's a list of the base 13 fonts:
- Couri, CouriBol, CouriBolObl, Courier (suitcase)
CouriObl
- Helve, HelveBol, HelveBolObl, HelveObl, Helvetica (suitcase)
- Symbo, Symbol (suitcase)
- Times (suitcase), TimesBol, TimesBolIta, TimesIta
TimesRom

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-The Admiral

[mkbhatia]

From: Ed Sikorski
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 12:13:50 -0500
To: the Macintosh News Network <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Quark 4.1 issues

Dear MacNN,

I read the note from Gile Hoover and also wish to contribute that Quark
4.1 problems are NOT just defined to G4s.

A client I support, experienced issues with Quark 4.1 crashing and
SEVERE
slowdown after opening a file and working with it. I even experienced
the
slowdown with their PowerComputing Tower and a G3/266 desktop, all
running OS 8.6
and Quark 4.1. (the font fix from Apple is installed)

The tip about the fonts is helpful but I resolved it by disabling
features of Adobe Type Reunion Deluxe (seems Adobe and Quark are STILL
incompatibles). By adding the application to the list in the control
panel of Type Reunion Deluxe, deleting the Quark Preference file,
rebuilding the desktop, running FontAgent and repairing/orgainzing fonts
on each workstation, I was able to prevent the issue. I wonder if anyone
has Type Reunion (or Deluxe) on these machines? Maybe its the font issue
(from last article), Type Reunion and Quark?

If it is just a duplicate font issue, running FontAgent 8 may have fixed
it.


Sincerely,

Ed Sikorski

[Don Foy]

I solved my ATM/Quark problems by using Suitcase instead.

All of a sudden, all five machines are more stable. Almost rock solid in a heavy-use publishing environment.

This a known problem with Quark and OS 9 or OS 8.6 with Font Manager Updater. Quark says the fix will come in Xpress 4.1.1. I'm hoping it will come in OS 9.0.4 since it is a change in a Mac toolbox call Apple put in.
More on this is in a big fat forum folder over at MacFixit's OS 9 forums under "OS 9/Quark 4.04 stall"

My experience has been that yes, Suitcase 8 is the least affected of the font managers, with ATM and Font Reserve having a stall when deselecting a text box, whereas Suitcase hesistates a sec (on an old 8500/180).

I did two things to get rid of this stall on my 8600/G4/400 under OS 9:

I trashed ATM preferences (lite, not deluxe). (And I keep trashing them every time I get a hiccup.)

I got rid of the TrueType/Type 1 font mix in suitcases in the Fonts folder in the System Folder. (I actually got rid of Times/Palatino/Courier and kept only the OS system fonts: Geneva, New York, Monaco, Chicago, Charcoal, Textile, Gadget, Sand, etc. I preferred to open Times/Courier/Palatino via my font management software...to each his/her own.)

I'm using FontReserve 2.52 and I have not so much as a hiccup when selecting/deselecting items/fonts/tools.

It will be nice to see if Apple AND Adobe AND Quark all implement some sort of change, whether all of their fixes will work together or whether we'll be back to square one!