Kona Software Makes Applescript Work For Quark Users

New software maker debuts PDF-making helper, offerson custom Applescript solution work for Mac XPress Users, InDesign solutions promised

KonaPDF…automates what can be a tedious and some­what frus­trat­ing task of gen­er­at­ing PDFs from Xpress documents

A new soft­ware mak­er, Kona Software, offers the pos­si­blilty of sim­pli­fied solu­tions for Mac-based QuarkXPress â„¢ users–using automa­tion through Applescript.

Thier first com­mer­cial effort–a QuarkXPress automa­tion they call KonaPDF–automates what can be a tedious and some­what frus­trat­ing (not to men­tion time-eating, if one has the task of fre­quent­ly pro­duc­ing a num­ber of PDFs for proofs) task of gen­er­at­ing PDFs from Xpress documents.

According to Kona’s infor­ma­tion page on KonaPDF, the script solves the prob­lem by automat­ing often-tweaked Print dia­log func­tions, allow­ing the user to select low-res (300 dpi) PDF proofs for client review, or high-res (2400 dpi) almost-ready-for-press PDF proofs. KonaPDF then goes to work, accord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s web page:

“

It takes a fold­er of QuarkXPress doc­u­ments and auto­mat­i­cal­ly pro­duces a set of Postscript .PS files, plac­ing them in a watched fold­er ready for Acrobat Distiller to turn into PDFs. All you have to do is select the fold­er of Quark doc­u­ments and the Distiller watched fold­er. It’s as sim­ple as that. 

”

The soft­ware is also tout­ed as tak­ing into account lay­out sizes, gen­er­at­ing appropriately-sized final PDFs, as well as log­i­cal­ly name­ing each file for you.

Though KonaPDF for QuarkXPress is it’s only prod­uct so far, Kona Software also promis­es devel­op­ment for InDesigners in future. They also adver­tise cus­tom script­ing ser­vices, for those who have a work­flow automa­tion need (unques­tion­ably many exist) that they think can be solved by Applescript.

The KonaPDF script is adver­tised at a price of 6 Pounds (ster­ling). At the time of this writ­ing, that equals about US$11.12. Payment is through PayPal on thi­er website.

While we have not had the oppor­tu­ni­ty yet to review the soft­ware and there­fore can­not yet rec­om­mend it, it cer­tain­ly looks like a tool Mac-based XPress lay­out artists can make use of, and deserves a look.