Helpline services in English for the desktop publishing giant will become free on 1 December for all QuarkXPress users worldwide.

Quark UK marketing director Gavin Drake said: "We want to show our customers that we're serious and we want to say thank you to those customers for making us the most successful desktop publishing company."

Current technical support service plans cost from 29 for a single-incident plan to 179 for a one-year plan.

Drake did not put a figure on the cost of the project but said: "It costs a lot of money to run a technical support centre, and you have to bear in mind that all our phone lines are free international lines."

Technical support in English will also be available for free to users registered in other languages. However, Drake said there were no plans as yet to roll out free technical support in other languages.

UK customers can call the helpline during business hours (9.30am-6.30pm) on 00800 1787 8275.

Quark operates a single worldwide English-language technical support call centre, at Chandigarh in India.

Story by Josh Brooks