QuarkXpress has been the dominant program in the professional DeskTop Publishing market for several years, both on the Mac and the PC. Potential users need to master both a complex program and the many demands of the publishing and printing process.

Like other titles in O'Reilly's 'In a nutshell' series, it is not a tutorial but a detailed reference aimed at experienced users of QuarkXpress or similar software. After the prelims, the book uses over 500 pages to explore in great detail, all the commands in the current version 4.0. Although the screenshots are taken from the Mac version these are very similar to the PC version; however any differences between the two platforms are clearly identified. As the Mac is so dominant in this market, there are many books on QuarkXpress that don't even mention the PC!

As it works though the commands, it covers common uses, common errors and special uses. This is followed by a section on common techniques showing how the commands work together. The last appendix covers all the keyboard shortcuts.

Most importantly, as well as explaining all aspects of creating documents, it gives detailed instructions on outputting these for professional printing. Needless to say, the book was produced using QuarkXpress.

This book is highly recommended, but not for novices in this field.