DENVER - December 14, 2005 - Quark Inc. today announced that it has acquired the business and assets of A Lowly Apprentice Production Inc. (ALAP), a leading provider of extended technology for the publishing and graphic design industries. With the acquisition, Quark has acquired ALAP's products, which add valuable functionality to the Quark product family. In addition, ALAP founder Paul Schmitt has joined Quark as vice president of product development. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. “Quark's acquisition of ALAP is an ideal strategic fit for both companies. ALAP's popular imaging, impositioning, and productivity tools are a natural complement to QuarkXPress, and they put more useful features into the hands of our customers,” said Linda Chase, interim president of Quark. “ALAP's imaging technology will work with the outstanding QuarkVista technology in QuarkXPress, and adds sophisticated compositing and Photoshop support to QuarkXPress. We'll also be able to put low cost impositioning software into the hands of our customers and deliver a more complete portfolio for automated digital workflows.” “This is very exciting for both Quark and ALAP. There's a strategic fit between the Quark and ALAP product lines, and our customers will see immediate benefit from the closer collaboration in development on QuarkXPress 7 and future products,” said Paul Schmitt, president of ALAP and Quark's new vice president of product development. “As a longstanding XTensions developer, we're extremely familiar with Quark technology, and we're confident that we'll integrate our products into the Quark family very quickly.”