I'm running QuarkXPress 9.5.0.1 on Lion 10.7.5, on a Mac Mini with 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7. We edit articles in MS Word for Mac 2011, then mark them up with styles and import to Quark, at which point the Word styles are overwritten with Quark styles with our specifications. Our main text style is Minion Pro, 13.125 leading, 10.5 pt, -1 tracking.
Since upgrading, I've been observing bizarre behavior of paragraph marks. Some, but not all, are invisible even when I show formatting. See image 1, where, as you can see, there is one paragraph mark at the end of the first text paragraph, but no others, although the text is clearly behaving as though there are paragraph marks:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22969281/Image1.png
The "blank" lines (where there would ordinarily be a paragraph mark visible between a text paragraph and an extract (in this case of poetry) are very hard to select, but when you do manage to click on one, there is a tiny blinking dot/cursor, and you can see that the font is set to 0 pt. See image 2 (tiny dot at left arrow; note 0 pt. at right arrow):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22969281/Image2.png
If you select that line and set it, as it should be, to 10.5 pt., the text below it "disappears" (wha!?!), through the next linked text box (on the next page). It is still there and can be restored Command-Z. See image 3:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22969281/Image3.png
If you highlight the place where the text was from bottom to top, it mysteriously reappears, but only while you have the mouse button pressed down (Huh wha!!?!). See image 4:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22969281/Image4.png
I can "restore" paragraph marks by clicking at the end of the text paragraph, hitting return, then navigating to the beginning of the next text line and deleting back. Then everything behaves as it ought to in those paragraphs. See images 5 & 6.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22969281/Image5.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22969281/Image6.png
I have tried selecting a chunk of text and turning it to 10.5 pt. (text from paragraph mark following beginning of selection to the next text box "disappears," as when selecting just the 0 pt line). I have selected all the text in the document and set to 10.5 (apparently random chunks of text "disappear," sometimes flickering in and out of existence as you scroll past), see image 7.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22969281/Image7.png
Doing a find and replace on paragraph marks without changing the point size does nothing, replacing with 10.5 pt. paragraph marks produces the same "disappearing text" phenomenon. I have downgraded to Quark 9.3 and created new files, but the same behavior recurs (maybe I needed to wipe out some other files hidden in odd places as well?). This happens in multiple different files, and I have shut down and restarted multiple times without effect. Other people who open these same files on slightly different systems (with Snow Leopard, different chips, Quark 9.2 and 9.3, experience the same thing).
Thanks for your thoughts,
Sara