Free Trial QuarkXPress: Can We Expect It?
The QXP document format is not a publicly documented format, which means that in order to open and edit these files, Serif would need to reverse-engineer the file format itself. This task is unlikely to be trivial, as it requires a deep understanding of the internal workings of QuarkXPress.
Alternatively, Serif could try to convince Quark to provide documentation on the QXP file format or an SDK (Software Development Kit) that allows developers to create software that can open and edit these files. However, this seems unlikely given the proprietary nature of the QXP format.
Given these challenges, it's likely that a free trial version of QuarkXPress will not be released in the near future. This is similar to the situation with INDD files, which are also proprietary and cannot be easily opened or edited by third-party software developers.
It remains to be seen whether Serif will find a way to reverse-engineer the QXP format or convince Quark to provide the necessary documentation. Until then, users who need to work with QXP files may be limited in their options for editing these files.
