QuarkXPress 6.1 Soon?

I wish they would add backward compatibility with Xpress 4.x, but this probably won't be the case.

The current lack of backward compatibility of both Xpress 6 and InDesign CS with older versions make file-sharing with other printers a real pain.

Well I think a update is better then none at all.

Maybe when Quark 7 will be alot better then 6.

My sig' says it all.

I hate Quark 6 so I could care less. That's just me though.

was it tested?

after re-installing qxp6 3 times now, i wonder if the app was tested at all. there are major re-draw issues on our 2ghz g5, it is very slow, pdf export does not apply bleeds correctly, crashes 3 times a day and printing is all over the place. i think was rushed out, even though it took far too long to arrive.

not happy after spending £1200 in total. is in-design the way to go?

Oh, brother, don this robe and join the fold. Seriously, as a former Quark user, I can assure you: anyone with half a brain that does a couple of real world jobs in InDesign never looks back to Quark. At least no one that I know -- and I've see many people convert to InDesignism.

I design for a living. I can't afford to watch Quark f' up anymore.

Run while you still can.

while im not out in the field yet, as a student who takes gfx classes i must say i've heard nothing but bad about quark. at the school i go to for said classes the only thing i've heard about them from teachers is how they are a pain to deal with and have horrible customer support.

All that stuff you've heard?

It's true.

gee wonderful, after owning a mac for a year its lovly to hear one company get so much hatred, really makes you wonder why they are the "standard"

I don't design for a living, but at work we have Quark and have to use it occasionally to deal with old pamphlets and other documents.

We run Windows 2000, so it's not the Mac version, and it's an old version too - 4.1.

But the program is so utterly crappy that I can't imagine willingly giving them money. Unless they started from scratch with a new team of programmers (talented ones, this time) I don't think they'll be able to make this thing sensible or really usable. Even really basic things simply don't work. It's bizarre to use, and almost impossible to make do what you want it to do.

This is from the perspective of somebody who has some design sense, probably could be a designer if I had the interest, and can usually figure out how to use almost any program in just a few minutes of playing around with it. But I can't make Quark work!

My limited experience with this old version, combined with what I read in threads like this, means that if I'm ever in a position to choose Quark or Indesign, it sure as hell won't be Quark!

And it takes real effort to make something bad enough that I get this decisive about it. Usually I have the "things can get better, give them a chance" attitude ;-) Quark 4.1 on Windows is bad enough that I won't even try newer versions. It's not worth the pain.

the thing that bother's me with quark is it took them the longest to get their os x app out the door, and it seems to be completely horrible compared to everyone else's migration. so first off they kept alot of people on mac os 9. couple that with the fact that the application itself feels really clunky to work with. and that its like they just slapped aqua right on top of version 5, that took them two years?! oh wait, i forgot about "multible undo's" yea, that was a cool feature....back in word 97. case in point its got to be one of the worst mac os x apps i've ever seen, and its just plain an eye sore to look at, never thought id say that about an aqua app.

I work for Quark and I can tell you a little bit about the 6.1 update. Unlike our previous updates (all our version 3 and 4, and 5.01) the 6.1 updater will add some features.

We've reintroduced the Edit Original function so using our Edit Original XT will no longer be necessary.

We've also reimplemented Table Import features. We had a Table XT that worked only for one version of Office for Windows because that was the only version our developers in India had. This extension will import tables from virtually every version of Excel for both Mac and Windows.

In addition to Excel, QXP 6.1 will import several versions of Word into XPress.

We fixed several hundred bugs in 6.1 including the bugs that are making it diffucult to run 6.0 in Panther.

They aren't telling us a whole lot about when the 6.1 release is scheduled for. There was a press release several weeks back. I know that the updater is finished because I've seen a working copy of it.

I typed this sentence using InDesign and pasted it into the MacRumors Reply window.

Out of spite.

-The Grinch
(Dr. Seuss would have used InDesign... )

NoNotMe:

It's ironic that, as a Quark employee, your username mimics the attitude of the company, especially in the tech support area. Just an observation.

(dons flame-retardant suit)

Hey, it's all fun until someone gets a 50 character serial number put out, right?

Welcome to MacRumors -- you jumped into a hot topic right off the bat!

Cheers,

Originally posted by mangoman
NoNotMe:

It's ironic that, as a Quark employee, your username mimics the attitude of the company, especially in the tech support area. Just an observation.

(dons flame-retardant suit)

Hey, it's all fun until someone gets a 50 character serial number put out, right?

Welcome to MacRumors -- you jumped into a hot topic right off the bat!

Cheers,

Click to expand...

Normally on forums I go by my real name, but for my job security I figure I'll try and remain a little more anonymous.

I actually only work Customer Service. I'm sure you're aware that our Tech Support department is in India. I can definitely agree with your correlation between my username and our support department's attitude. I've heard some insane stories. I guess its pretty typical for techs to just release calls they don't like. The Indians all have their own aliases over there to sound American so by the time a customer calls our department we have no idea who they actually spoke to.

All jabs aside (and you're a good sport about it to your credit), thanks for updating this post with information. I'll admit, anti-Quark turds like me are a dime a dozen. With that, I'm gonna stuff a sock in it, as they say, and let current Quark users discuss.

(exit, stage left...)

I'll work with 4.1 in OS9 for the time being: it works well, so why change?

–717

Re: was it tested?

Originally posted by a6rnh
after re-installing qxp6 3 times now, i wonder if the app was tested at all. there are major re-draw issues on our 2ghz g5, it is very slow, pdf export does not apply bleeds correctly, crashes 3 times a day and printing is all over the place. i think was rushed out, even though it took far too long to arrive.

not happy after spending £1200 in total. is in-design the way to go?

Click to expand...

I would say Indesign is the way to go. I used Quark and had no major problems up to 4.1. With Quark 5, they seemed to go a route I didn't care for (adding html but still leaving some other things like multiple undo's out and many other text edit features).

I read a column comparing the latest Quark 6.0 and Indesign CS (3.0) and I think the author summed it up well. He said that Quark hasn't changed much over the past 10 years. They have added features but that is about it. The down side to that is they may add features but never go back and improve on older features based on customer feedback. Indesign has done this - but then again they are new one the block and pretty much had to. All things considered, Indesign played catch up very quickly to Quark. I use Indesign and am glad I do. Works great with OS X and with the PDF workflow, I print to more printers now with fewer problems.

Nonotme - thank you for your input on this topic. I know you said some new things were added but Quark does seem to be falling far behind. Could you tell me, does anyone at Quark actually think people will use it to layout web pages? I don't know of a single person who does this. All the graphic and web designers I know, know how to use Quark but laugh at the idea of using it to put out a webpage.

[edit] the reason I ask is using Quark to layout a web page would be like using MS Publisher to layout a brochure. Yes, it can be done but why put it in a pro program like Quark? Seems like a waste of R&D time and $$$ while leaving your core group behind.

Quark is sooo cutting edge... for 1991. Pass, go InDesign, a real page layout program. Quark go die now, people who stick with it are clueless, it's crappy, lackluster, and sooo 1990s, nobody should care, makes Microsloth look like a progressive company.

quark, web and india

so now i realise why i get a quark technical support message from 'tom', yet he cannot seem to write in correct english. hey, that's not a racist jibe, but why do they have to given american names? bizzarre!

and yes, i know absolutely no one who uses quark to do web design!! why don't they go back to basics and get the dtp features working correctly first?

6.1 had better be a serious update, because qxp 6 runs terrible on our dual 2ghz g5 with 1mb ram!

get it sorted..