Quark today announced the availability of QuarkXPress 7 as a Universal application for Mac OS X 10.4. The QuarkXPress 7.01 update, which is available free of charge for Mac users of QuarkXPress 7.0, was built to run at peak performance on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs. QuarkXPress is the first major design and publishing tool to be released as a Universal application, and its new graphics engine, XDraw, leverages the power of Quartz 2D to achieve the highest-quality rendering of text and graphics, notes the company. “We’re very excited to have the latest hardware and the latest version of QuarkXPress,” said Mark Konik, vice president of technology at Quark. “QuarkXPress takes full advantage of the speed of the Intel-based Macs, and now we do more work in less time while maintaining tight deadlines and stay in step with the industry.”