QuarkXpress 6.1 Mac OS 10.X Really Slow Using AppleScript

System Involved: Mac OS 10.3 Panther, QuarkXpress 6.1, AppleScript

What the system is for: I have an AppleScript that drives QuarkXpress on
an invoice merging station.

The Problem: QuarkXpress is extremely slow when driving it with
AppleScript. On the other hand, when I have my script open in any script
editor, QuarkXpress runs as fast I think it should. This is a good sign
as I now know that QuarkXpress is capable of some decent speed. However,
as this is a production machine, I cannot have people running the script
from within an editor. The script has been redone several times using
the most efficient code I can find. Although I have made the whole
process faster, I have not managed to speed up QuarkXpress at all. Also
like to mention that the speed is the same with all of the QuarkXpress
extensions both loaded or unloaded.
I had this problem using OS 10.2 Jaguar, and was told that Panther was
faster. So I upgraded. While Panther is a whole lot faster, QuarkXpress
is still slow.

So does anyone have any ideas?

Do you run the script from within the scripts menu in Quark?

Running the script from within the scripts menu will be faster than just double click your script from for example the desktop.

Thanks for the tip, however…
I just got done running several tests this morning using a variety of methods. Here are the results.
The script is 266 lines of code.

Ran from desktop: 23 Seconds to run.
Ran from Quark Script Menu: 23 Seconds to run.
Ran from Script Debugger: 10 Seconds to run.
Ran from Script Editor: 10 Seconds to run.

There doesn’t appear to be any bottleneck areas. Any part of the script that deals with Quark is just all around sluggish. This is such a generalized problem that I really can’t make any speculations as to the cause. Still looking for ideas.

Disclaimer: I’m not a Quark user.

Does it make a difference if Quark is frontmost or hidden when the script is running? Some apps seem to work faster when frontmost and others work faster when hidden.

– Rob

Just tried that as well to no avail.

This mac is a basic system, with running only the 5 Scripting Additions needed to run this one script. I have Extensis Suitcase and QuicKeys X2 on here. Even when I turn off Suitcase and QuicKeys, my script speed is still slow.
I’m one inch away from purchasing a G5 to see if that will speed this script up.
I know that it’s possible to make my script run fast as I have seen it happen (see first post). However, there must be something that I am unaware of. Is it possible that QuarkXpress does not use the processor as efficiently as the Finder or Script editor? The script in question also does various tasks using the Finder and the speed is not dimished at all. Just got done testing all my theories on a duplicate machine with the same issues. So…still looking for suggestions.
By the way… Thanks for everyones help so far.

Is it possible to trim QuarkXpress 6.1 to only bare essential files to make it as fast as possible? What are some of the components that are known to slow Quark down? I only have the “CompressedImage Import.xnt” and “Script.xnt” Quark Xtensions loaded.