In the beginning of the so-called new age of publishing, if you looked up the word "fear" in the dictionary, you'd find the word "Quark."

Like most of the older generation, I was dragged --- kicking and screaming --- into the Quark era, convinced that my brain would explode. But I was wrong. I discovered that if you could draw shapes, use Microsoft Word and import photos and artwork from programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand, you could actually produce decent-looking pages for a magazine or newspaper.

Now, with the introduction of QuarkXpress 6.0 ($1,045), it has become even easier to use.

Like most page-layout programs, Quark was originally developed for the Macintosh. In fact, if you go into many of today's newsrooms, you'll discover that what have become known as "Quark layout stations" are still Macs.

But when publishers became aware that they could save a bundle by having editors become page designers, Quark began showing up on PCs in the office --- and the revolution began. It has now become the standard for page makeup in the industry.

Most of the changes in the new version are subtle, actually refining what was originally in earlier versions of the program. They include:

• Support for Mac X and Windows XP operating systems.
• Multiple undo, which, to me is the biggest improvement. Older versions would only allow you to go back only one step. Now you can reverse one action or a series of actions.
• You can link text cells in tables to each other or any text box in a layout. Plus, you can enhance the table by applying color to each element of the table.
• You can now specify which layers of a page to print from the print dialogue box. Previously, you had to suppress print output for each layer in the Attributes dialogue box.
• You can create page-to-page hyperlinks (as you would with Web pages).
• Creating Web pages has also become easier, with the addition of cascading menus, easier CSS font control and the ability to add rollovers.
• Pictures can now be displayed on the screen using the file's full resolution.

Other, more subtle changes include the addition of a Layout menu for Mac and PC versions and QuarkXpress and Window menus on Macs. Also, commands to display and hide feature palettes have been moved from the View to the Window menu.

More information on the program and how it compares to earlier versions can be found at www.quark.com.

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