QuarkXPress 6.1 Almost Here?

[MacRumors]

CreativeMac noted in November that Quark was planning on introducing QuarkXpress 6.1 in the "near future". The update is said to have Panther support, performance enhancements, better Excel integration and font tools.

MacBidouille notes translates an account of 6.1 being demoed by Quark in Belgium. The report notes additional features, bug fixes, Panther compatibility and QuarkDDS.

[mangoman]

I don't mind saying it for the umpmteenth time: Good riddance, Quark. I'll be doin' mine in InDesign.

[Freg3000]

Funny....I was just reading this thread.....

So does Panther compatibility mean basic support, or further enhacements to it? I haven't heard of any reports of Quark not working in 10.3.

[ITR 81]

Most places still use Quark and probably will still use it until they stop making it.

[mangoman]

Originally posted by ITR 81
Most places still use Quark and probably will still use it until they stop making it.

At this stage in the publishing game, we can officially refer to them as 'suckers'.

[macnews]

Amen. Good-bye Quark. It isn't that Indesign is so much better in terms of features, it just is better at running in OS X (you think Quark could have done a better job since it took them so long to move to OS X), has better customer support, easier install, no draconian copyright protections (sorry, the hardware config requirement reminds me of AutoCad or CadKey back in the mid 90's), is cheaper (esp. when buying Illustrator & Photoshop in bulk licenses) and creates better PDF's which opens up the number of Printers I can use (I'm talking professional presses since they now don't care what program created the files w/pdf's).

Indesign has changed the way I look at providing files - something Quark never did. From a "need" point of view, I don't need Quark to go out of business so a printer will switch to Indesign thus allowing me to use their press. I would like Quark to lose it's position as #1 for all the years of rotton attitudes and "it's got to be something you are doing" answers for problems with their software.

[rog]

Yes, but in order to download it you have to pay $14,000 and then Quark representatives call you daily for a week and tell you where to go.

[MacsRgr8]

Originally posted by mangoman
At this stage in the publishing game, we can officially refer to them as 'suckers'.

He he....
Sometimes u r forced to work with it. As some publishers refuse InDesign still, so it is possible u must keep Quark.

[dfbills]

6.1 appears on this page:

http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/tech_info/

but the page is missing

[MacsRgr8]

Ha ha....

Typical.

Good find.

[TomSmithMacEd]

What is Quark?! I've never knowen what it is.

[mvc]

This groundswell of user opinion about Quark is quite amusing, especially if you have been in the game long enough to remember when Pagemaker was King and suddenly Quark showed up with a better feature set and user model - how we all mocked Pagemaker as we switched to Quark back in '93 or thereabouts.

What goes round comes round they say, and Adobe learnt their lesson after years of humiliation playing second fiddle with 'Pagebreaker'.

Indesign was created to:

A). Match or exceed Quark's capabilites and ease of use feature for feature, without having to be locked into an outdated user model.

B). Pay close attention to legitimate user feature requests that Quark had been studiously ignoring for over 5 years.

C). Leverage Adobes depth of understanding (and dominance) of the entire prepress process, and thus simplify the whole experience for users. Quark could never achieve this, they are a technological island.

Quark has lost its way because of YEARS of arrogance, and I predict by 2005 THEY will be in the same boat as Pagemaker was.

[MacDuff]

Is Quark still the standard like some of you say? I learned Quark a few years ago when it completely the standard, but I'm really curious if still is. I'm hearing different things from you guys. Indeed the people at Quark are completely arrogant and they don't have the customer support that Adobe does.

But there's got to be some survey/statistic that reveals what is being used the most at firms and compainies.

[MacsRgr8]

Standard or not....

To be honest I don't like it when ONE brand/company/product is "set" as a standard.
Like saying Windows is standard for operating systems. Sure, we know it is most used, or "likely to be used", but it is not a standard.
InDesign should not be a standard, as XPress shouldn't. They should both be there to ensure competiton. But both should be supported. If you send your DTP project to a publisher, it shouldn't matter which OS or DTP software you use.

Just my € 0.02

[medea]

I believe this may turn out to be a case of "too little, too late." So many users/companies have made the switch to indesign so they could os x, and that is a lot of money to spend, they are of course people who still have not made the switch to x because they have been holding out for Xpress, how many people like that are left I am not sure of though.

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by mvc
This groundswell of user opinion about Quark is quite amusing, especially if you have been in the game long enough to remember when Pagemaker was King and suddenly Quark showed up with a better feature set and user model - how we all mocked Pagemaker as we switched to Quark back in '93 or thereabouts.

What goes round comes round they say, and Adobe learnt their lesson after years of humiliation playing second fiddle with 'Pagebreaker'.

Indesign was created to:

A). Match or exceed Quark's capabilites and ease of use feature for feature, without having to be locked into an outdated user model.

B). Pay close attention to legitimate user feature requests that Quark had been studiously ignoring for over 5 years.

C). Leverage Adobes depth of understanding (and dominance) of the entire prepress process, and thus simplify the whole experience for users. Quark could never achieve this, they are a technological island.

Quark has lost its way because of YEARS of arrogance, and I predict by 2005 THEY will be in the same boat as Pagemaker was.

My experience with page layout programs lies with Aldus Pagemaker (yes, back when it was Aldus, and not Adobe), and I don't have much experience with Quark XPress or InDesign. I downloaded demos for both XPress 5 and 6 and InDesign. XPress 5 felt somewhat dated and awkward. When I would right-click on some features (such as text, or a box, etc.) I would expect certain features to appear (Font, Style, etc.). I was hoping that XPress 6 would bring a certain amount of Mac-ness to its interface. Nope. XPress 6 still felt like 5, except it was OS X native finally. However, when I tried InDesign, it embraced more of the OS X interface which made it feel more natural to me. In the end, if I was to choose a program for page layout, I would probably select InDesign.

[bensisko]

It depends on what you mean by "most people still use Quark..."

If you mean the Quark filetype, then yes, most people do use Quark.... EXCEPT MOST people use InDesign to create Quark Files.

Quark has lost more than 50% of the market. Quark's main audiance are people who absolutely refuse to switch (and are probably still useing OS 9...), and the backend printers for which InDesign still hasn't caught up with....yet.

It's pretty much that Designers and those involved with layout and such are using InDesign, and those who do the actual printing are using Quark. It will be soon that Quark goes the way of OS 9, dead in a coffin on the Adobe InDesign stage.

So long Quark. It was fun while it lasted... Wait a minute, no it wasn't!

[kenyabob]

So does Quark 6 work in panther?

[~Shard~]

Quark sucks. Sorry for not putting much more effort into the post, but there isn't much more to say, and Quark isn't worth it. Bash me if you will, but I don't think I'm alone here...

[Armsreach]

Though I am a devout InDesign user, the nature of being a graphic designer is that there are times that you have to use Quark. I own Quark 6 and there are features I wish that InDesign would implement, however, there are a few major problems that I hope this update will address...

A) Shoddy type support. In a few different studios, Quark has been ignoring printer fonts for some standard post script fonts such as Univers and Garamond. The only solution for us was to create outlines. Not a very efficient way of doing things.

B) I've sent a few files that were two color jobs to print and recieved film back for full cmyk plus my two spot colors. The first time I figured that I just screwed up my images. The second time I made the printer check (that's an expensive error). Everything was set for only the two spots, however, Quark was converting the images to CMYK and outputting film for them (they were duotoned images).

These are two basic things that should have worked with this version, especially since Quark 6 didn't offer much in the way of innovation.

While InDesign itself has a few major flaws itself, I think it is a far superior program and hopefully there will be a much stronger sway in the market since it is so cost effectively bundled with photoshop and illustrator. I don't want it to take over the market, but a market that sees 60/40 share between the two programs in either direction will ultimately be the best for those of us using the programs.

(sorry to get a bit off topic, but it's inevitable when talking about Quark).

[bensisko]

To those who want to see an equal market: Shouldn't the product be worthy though? I think that alot of people agree that Quark sucks and doesn't hold a match stick (let alone a torch) to InDesign, and I don't think that a product (Indesign) should be kept from market dominance just for the sole purpose of keeping Adobe on their toes.

The big problem in keeping Quark around is that, as long as Quark is still being made, Quark filetype will still be standard.

Personally, I think that the industry should come up with a seperate filetype that nobody can claim as their own and will be standard.

As soon as Quark dies, we can all get on with our lives. Yes compitition is good, but it should be WORTHY competition.

[ITR 81]

3 Universities which just ordered some G5's from Apple have actually asked for Quark to be installed because they still do not trust to use Indesign and most of their connected businesses do not use Indesign. My friend just got job as graphic designer and he could've not got 85k job if he didn't know Quark.

If you want a good paying job you have to know how to use Quark because most businesses in the world still use it.

[cthorp]

I Design and produce print collateral. I have done so since 1990. I have switched to In-Design. The argument that printers don't support In Design is a joke. I just ran a job with Qubecor World and all they wanted was PDF's. A lot of printers now just want PDFs and Qurk is lame at producing them.

[cthorp]

Universities are ussually cluless when it comes to design. AND anyone making 85K in design is hired for their mind not their hand. If you have an 85K porfolio they can work around a preference between Quark and In Design. Also if you have the experience to get an 85K job you were probably working when Quark was it. Anyone with the ability to pull in 85K must be able to present a convincing argument for a concept so they should have no problem making an argument for using In Design.

[mangoman]

Originally posted by cthorp
Universities are ussually cluless when it comes to design. AND anyone making 85K in design is hired for their mind not their hand. If you have an 85K porfolio they can work around a preference between Quark and In Design. Also if you have the experience to get an 85K job you were probably working when Quark was it. Anyone with the ability to pull in 85K must be able to present a convincing argument for a concept so they should have no problem making an argument for using In Design.

Agreed all around.