"Quark promises greatness in XPress 7"

[abrooks]

Quark's taking a leaf from Apple's book and using open standards in QuarkXPress 7.

The company promises the next-generation of its desktop publishing application will offer: "More design features with job-driven workflow capabilities and multi-channel publishing" features. The aim is to, "transform the business of creative communications", the company said.

The company revealed itself to be a member of the Ghent PDF Workgroup (GWG); the International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress, International Color Consortium (CIP4); the Networked Graphic Production (NGP) initiative; and the Print On Demand Initiative (PODi).

Powerful creative tools

XPress 7 features will include transparency controls, built-in image use and editing tools, and colour management; OpenType and Unicode support. Font features include an easy way to insert special characters without looking up keyboard commands.

The application will let users specify the opacity of the pixels that make up any items or content in QuarkXPress - text, pictures, blends, boxes, frames, lines, tables, and more. QuarkXPress 7 will be able to manage opacity levels for any colour rather than on an object-by-object basis.

The transparency features extend the capacity to create automatic feathered drop shadows and alpha channels for masking pictures.

New colour management controls include on-screen simulations for soft proofing. A user can preview how RGB prints to CMYK on-screen or how CMYK prints in grayscale. The company hopes to encourage colour management with such tools.

Workflow management

Workflow automation features will let users "define job parameters that provide centralized control and streamline design, layout, and production processes", the company said.

Support for Job Definition Files also features in this release, making it easier to create work and to send final results to print. The use of 'Job Jackets' within XPress will help users specify parameters for design, content, production and output.

Changes in project specifications can be made to the job jacket and will be automatically updated to all projects that use that resource. Job are compatible with JDF elements; they can be mapped to JDF elements and vice versa.

Built-in preflighting

QuarkXPress 7 will also offer comprehensive rule-based preflighting features, checking fonts, colours, images, and more elements to ensure production can go ahead.

Creatives will be able to publish multiple print and Web layouts, quickly and reliably, from the same content. Users will be able to create multiple document types, sizes, and media and reuse any content, image or design element; streamline development processes through open standards; and more.

Support for output in Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML) adds the features of database publishing to the application. In PPML, all the static content, multiple instances of same static content, synchronized content, and master page elements will be recognized as reusable objects and saved in the memory.

XML project files

Quark has also opened the QuarkXPress file format by creating QuarkXPress Markup Language (QXML), a DOM schema for QuarkXPress projects. The structure of the QuarkXPress project is defined according to DOM so that developers can easily access, update, and create QuarkXPress project elements.

DOM exports the QuarkXPress project as XML, which allows any application that understands the schema of a QuarkXPress project to access the QuarkXPress data and process it. The application that accesses the QuarkXPress schema can be running on any platform and using any language. In brief, it is a live representation of QuarkXPress projects as XML.

[evilernie]

Yeah great. Will it finally make a decent pdf!? God I wish I didn't have to use Quark day in and day out.

All these nifty new design features, transparency etc. I heard they are in some other program already...and they actually work. I think it's called inDesign or something...

Sounds like Quark is adding more features that will not work and cause headaches.

Oh, and what will it cost to upgrade? $800?

Rant over.

[Blue Velvet]

Sounds good but every feature they raved about in Quark 6 before release, when put to the test, appears to be touched by the poo-stick.

They can't even get a reliable screen-redraw in OSX. I remain sceptical...

Any goss on release dates?

[iGary]

I've been considering Quark 6.5 and switching from InDesign, but I can't seem to get consistent answers.

Quark is definitely on the offensive against Adobe with their latest line of advertising. Very brutal.

[Blue Velvet]

Gary, I swear to you that Quark is a nightmare to deal with. It's not worth the money... stick with InDesign.

We only use it here because of inertia... we plan to transition to InDesign within the next 1-2 years.

[chaosbunny]

Wow, and will it finally stop looking like you're working in Os 9? But there would be one feature I'd really care about: the ability to save XPress files as InDesign!

[chaosbunny]

Ahhh, at least I'm not the only one who thinks working with quark is annoying...

[evilernie]

Originally Posted by Blue Velvet

Gary, I swear to you that Quark is a nightmare to deal with. It's not worth the money... stick with InDesign.

We only use it here because of inertia... we plan to transition to InDesign within the next 1-2 years.

I could be wrong, but I sense a bit of sarcasm in Gary's post...


Oh, and I couldn't agree more. I'm stuck with Quark because my company is too stupid and cheap to fork out $500 for CS2 which would get me not only inDesign, but upgrade my Photoshop and Illustrator too.

That is a MUCH better bargain than just one lousy Quark upgrade!!

[iGary]

Originally Posted by Blue Velvet

Gary, I swear to you that Quark is a nightmare to deal with. It's not worth the money... stick with InDesign.

We only use it here because of inertia... we plan to transition to InDesign within the next 1-2 years.

Thanks, I respect your advice.

That does that, going to order my CS 2 upgrade today.

The designers here at work love/hate it, but they all use both.

I think the only reason we wtill use Quark is due to the pre-press issues InDesign can have when ripping.

[evilernie]

Originally Posted by iGary

I think the only reason we wtill use Quark is due to the pre-press issues InDesign can have when ripping.

I work for a printer. I'm in the design department, we have a separate pre-press department. They have both Quark and inDesign (unlike us in the design dept. ), and they actually now prefer inDesign. Believe it or not, it causes them less problems than Quark. inDesign had ripping issues at first, but that seems to not be the case so much anymore.

[emw]

InDesign doesn't give us any problems, especially when we people print to PS and Distill to PDF. Still odd things happen with PDF direct from InDesign, probably more to do with setup (and perhaps those fun CID fonts) than anything else.

We're pretty much application agnostic here, although Quark has been promising improvements since time began, and we haven't seen much come to fruition. I think the whole experience with the version 5 "upgrade" soured a lot of people, and has only been exacerbated by subsequent problems with new versions.

Quark promising better version 7 is more kid crying wolf. By the time they come out with something meaningful, no one will believe them.

[iGary]

Originally Posted by emw

InDesign doesn't give us any problems, especially when we people print to PS and Distill to PDF. Still odd things happen with PDF direct from InDesign, probably more to do with setup (and perhaps those fun CID fonts) than anything else.

We're pretty much application agnostic here, although Quark has been promising improvements since time began, and we haven't seen much come to fruition. I think the whole experience with the version 5 "upgrade" soured a lot of people, and has only been exacerbated by subsequent problems with new versions.

Quark promising better version 7 is more kid crying wolf. By the time they come out with something meaningful, no one will believe them.

Well I hear a lot about big publishing houses switching, and our printer, the largest in Canada, says that they have seen exponential growth in their client's use of InDesign.

Sounds to me if Quark is scared.

[Blue Velvet]

Because the demo of Quark 6 is functionality-limited (no printing, saving & PDFing) rather than time-limited, many of the problems weren't realised until we had had a few months work with it.

[emw]

Originally Posted by iGary

Well I hear a lot about big publishing houses switching, and our printer, the largest in Canada, says that they have seen exponential growth in their client's use of InDesign.

Sounds to me if Quark is scared.

We've seen quite a few of our customers moving to InDesign as well. Quark still has the lion's share, but perhaps not for long.

Of course, I'm not sure how fond I am of having all my creative eggs in Adobe's basket. Quark's pretty much the only thing they don't own right now.

[iGary]

Originally Posted by emw

We've seen quite a few of our customers moving to InDesign as well. Quark still has the lion's share, but perhaps not for long.

Of course, I'm not sure how fond I am of having all my creative eggs in Adobe's basket. Quark's pretty much the only thing they don't own right now.

I think Quark will be fine, but Adobe's offering a fully integrated solution that (usually) plays nice with everything in the suite and people like that.

I compare it to iPod, iTunes and the ITMS - a fully integrated solution.

Quark still has it's die-hards who will never use, but apparently a lot of people have had it with their elitist "take it or leave it" attitude and are excercising the "leave it" option. Especially after v.6 and the activation crap.

Their recent ad campaign is full of FUD.

[leekohler]

My company's switching to InDesign as well in about a month. Their whole reason was cheaper licensing.

[Blue Velvet]

Originally Posted by iGary

Especially after v.6 and the activation crap.

Adobe CS2 also has product activation. There is no escape...

At least InDesign can handle file-names & linked files with more than 22 characters in their names.

[neildmitchell]

Quark is the devil!

[narco]

I've used Quark for the past 11 years, and all the way until two months ago I swore I'd never leave them -- mostly because I know the program inside and out. But now I'm not so sure.

I have a Dual 2.0ghz G5 with 3 gigs of RAM. The only reason why I upgraded was due to Quark being sluggish when placing large images, or even opening documents (Loading..............................).

But after the upgrade, it was STILL sluggish. Not only that, but after the Tiger upgrade, Quark is about as reliable as Safari (which is really bad). The program that used to crash on me the most (Microsoft Word) is actually pretty stable. What's going on?

So now I've finally made the transition. I created/changed all the current advertisements in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, and only use Quark to place text and make the PDF. I'll wait until I buy CS2 to make the final switch. I almost feel bad for little ol' Quark -- they coulda been a contend'ah.

Fishes,
narco.

[iGary]

Originally Posted by narco

I've used Quark for the past 11 years, and all the way until two months ago I swore I'd never leave them -- mostly because I know the program inside and out. But now I'm not so sure.

I have a Dual 2.0ghz G5 with 3 gigs of RAM. The only reason why I upgraded was due to Quark being sluggish when placing large images, or even opening documents (Loading..............................).

But after the upgrade, it was STILL sluggish. Not only that, but after the Tiger upgrade, Quark is about as reliable as Safari (which is really bad). The program that used to crash on me the most (Microsoft Word) is actually pretty stable. What's going on?

So now I've finally made the transition. I created/changed all the current advertisements in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, and only use Quark to place text and make the PDF. I'll wait until I buy CS2 to make the final switch. I almost feel bad for little ol' Quark -- they coulda been a contend'ah.

Fishes,
narco.

Quark 6 is crashign on our G5's all the time after Tiger.

[Sirus The Virus]

I actually prefer Quark over InDesign. Its much simpler and easier, and better too.

[dvdh]

I used Quark 6, kind of liked it, but then I got CS2, so it looks like no more Quark for me. (unless, of course, InDesign really pisses me off)

More on topic though: Quite frankly I have a hard time believing anything Quark promises now, especially given the amount of time it took them to get something to run on OSX. Too bad, they used to be 'the' company in desktop publishing. Even if they do pull off 'greatness', it will take more than that to win back jaded users who have now firmly embraced Adobe.

[narco]

Originally Posted by iGary

Quark 6 is crashign on our G5's all the time after Tiger.

Mine usually crashes when I insert a new image, or when I'm going through fonts. Also, every time I quit Quark, it crashes at the very end. Doesn't really bother me much since I WANTED the program to quit, but it's kind of annoying.

Fishes,
narco.

[paulypants]

I feel more comfortable with Quark than InDesign because I've used it longer. However, Quark's decision to use India-based customer support is starting to drive me away, they can barely speak English let alone solve problems -- they read from a script and become agitated when you ask them something that the answer isn't written down in front of them. That and the Quark License Administrator is a nightmare...it eats up 100% CPU on our server when its running and we can't figure out why, turn it off and can't use Quark.

[Sparky's]

Originally Posted by iGary

I've been considering Quark 6.5 and switching from InDesign, but I can't seem to get consistent answers.

Quark is definitely on the offensive against Adobe with their latest line of advertising. Very brutal.

Consistent or not, I'm here to tell you, InDesign is the answer!!!

35+ years in commercial printing 20 of which have been involved with DTP and the last 3+ using ID instead of Quark!

2 years ago I would have said otherwise but since using it and seeing the versatility and convenience of ID I will never go back. I even am in the habit of converting every Quark document (and PageMaker) I have in our Customer files to ID.