Yesterday I downloaded the demo version of QuarkXPress 7.3.1 to test some AppleScripts on my PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz running Mac OS X 10.5.5. But I run into problems when I want to assign a color to an object:
set color of text box 1 to "Cyan"
-- throws an exception: "unknown object type"
After much fiddling, I got around this problem using code like follows:
set cyancolor to a reference to name of color spec "Cyan"
set color of text box 1 to cyancolor
Is this a new feature in QuarkXPress? Will I face the same problems with Quark 8? I don’t want to spent my time updating hundreds of script 
P.S.: Does anybody know if Shirley W. Hopkins - author of AppleScripting QuarkXPress - runs a website?