Quarkxpress 2016 DTP app

[wordsworth]

Mecha,

Thanks for the response. I worked in a magazine start-up in the late 80s and for our office of four hard-pressed content providers who also had to do page layout, ad sales, distribution and the like, Pagemaker was a very useful tool. I do know that the hard work didn't stop with us and that the setting studio we used would invariably mop up our failures and ensure that all was fit to print. No small task. The Mac SE and Pagemaker ensured that I would continue to be an Apple user, and not just a journalist but later also an editor and publisher. I did go on to use Quark and grew to like it but I still have fond memories of that business start-up and of my three colleagues, gathered round the SE awaiting Pagemaker's launch each morning. When the Aldus woodcut image initially appeared (at the beginning of, in this case I think, version 3) when launching the program, my three colleagues would wave and greet the woodcut image with a cartoonesque, "Hello, Mr. Aldus!" It never ceased to amuse me. Repetitive humour, I guess.

 

[loveisagiven]

bent christian,

I am going to have to disagree with you. I work with many professional printers and design agencies and all of them have Quark on hand. I think you would be surprised at how many people still use Quark. Sure it is down from its peak in the mid to late 90's but there are still lots of users. It is comparable in features to Indesign and it is every bit as powerful. Quark's style and thinking are a little different from Adobe's and some people like Quark's way better (I use both and there are positives and negatives with each so it comes down to personal preference). I think that it has and will continue to attract users who would like an alternative to Indesign and especially people and companies that don't want to be tied to a subscription model like Adobe forces on people. Quark's customer service and attitude towards its customers was famous for how awful it was back in the 1990's and early 2000's but it has changed quite a bit in the past 10 years.

Mecha

[doublepost=1473281493][/doublepost]I have to agree with 'bent christian'. I was a Quark user for many years (from version 4 to 9.5) in a large corporation, and decided to move to Adobe CS (version 5 to 6). When Adobe crushed Macromedia Freehand; then later decided to force users into a subscription CC service, that was the last straw. Too controlling. No, thank you. I reviewed options, and lo and behold, shining brightly in the sky was the QuarkXPress 2016 star. Our corporation is moving back to Quark. I think you can expect them to gain a fair bit of market share now. Their software is capable and innovative. Bye bye, A!
[doublepost=1473281657][/doublepost]

Yeah, sure. Any or agency shop is going to have a version laying around. We do, too. It's ten years old, though and basically useless. Quark has no mechanism to allow files saved with older versions to be usable (like InDesign IDML). In 2014, they released a converter compatible with Quark 10. I don't think that helps very many, as most of us have long since moved on to more professional software and are at least two versions behind that. The company is still in business, so yes, some people are still using/buying Quark. I haven't seen any professional use this software in at probably eight to ten years. The people who do are always home users and the version is quite old. It is always a pain in the a** to figure out how to make it work across versions. Sometimes we have to request EPS files and deal with the whole thing in Illustrator. Quark is always a nightmare for us.

Quark has an opportunity to get back in considering the backlash over Adobe's subscription service. They have a lot to catch up on, though.

[doublepost=1473281736][/doublepost]Quark has a built in converter from versions older than 9 into 9; and from 9 to 2016. Keep your eyes open - Quark is back! By the way, their customer service is exceptionally good. A real person every time. Finally - I am speaking from a corporate license - not from home.

 

[bent christian]

Quark has a built in converter from versions older than 9 into 9; and from 9 to 2016. Keep your eyes open - Quark is back! By the way, their customer service is exceptionally good. A real person every time. Finally - I am speaking from a corporate license - not from home.

Not interested. InDesign is only one tool print professionals need. We really can't do our jobs without Photoshop and illustrator as well. The more applications one needs, the more reasonable Adobe's subscription price becomes.

 

[MechaSpanky]

bent christian,

I would never say that any subscription pricing for software is reasonable. It might be unavoidable because of corporate greed but to call it reasonable is well, unreasonable. Don't worry, keep on paying Adobe that monthly fee, and one day when you retire, you can keep opening up all your old files and use their software to make lost cat posters....oh wait you won't be able to. You'll have to keep paying Adobe money until either you die or you completely quit using any of their software. Otherwise you won't be able to open up your old files.

I view Adobe-apologists like the people in the Matrix. They are ignorant and happy. They don't want to know the truth because ignorance is bliss. I for one took the red pill when Adobe offered me a choice and I've never looked back. In fact, I'm happy that Adobe forced me to look elsewhere. I'm happy that I've found other, better alternatives to Adobe's software without their crime syndicate-like pricing scheme.

Mecha

 

[bent christian]

I don't pay for the software I use professionally, so I don't care about any of that. I can crack what I use at home. My personal needs are not sophisticated. JPEG may not be around in 30 years. No one knows what the future will bring.

As a professional who works in production and design, I much prefer a standardized software set that I and the other people I collaborate with know well and fully understand. In the professional world, time is money and everyone being on the same page, not having to buy, learn, and use 20 different software packages is an advantage. Always archive a common file type along with your native files (TIFF, PDF, EPS). At the very least, most pieces that are only a few pages or less can be reassembled in another application. It is generally not the big deal you make it out to be.

 

[MechaSpanky]

bent christian,

How can you talk about subscription software's price being "reasonable" when you don't even pay for it yourself? Of course for some companies, the subscription model is good but for individuals it sucks.

Quark has changed a lot and for the better. I do think that if they play their cards right, they can win back a lot of lost customers. Sure many of their old customers are complete Adobe-sheep now but there are many people out there who are unhappy with Adobe's subscription policy and I think that it will eventually come around and bite them.

Mecha

 

[bent christian]

How can you talk about subscription software's price being "reasonable" when you don't even pay for it yourself? Of course for some companies, the subscription model is good but for individuals it sucks.

If you are an independent designer, familiarize yourself with common output file formats and make sure your files are on-point. At that point, you can use whatever application you want. Nobody will know or care. The reality of this industry is that designers are notoriously harebrained. If every designer knew what they were doing, we wouldn't need anything other than a PDF to print your work. For those who only use one or two applications, yeah, it can suck. But these people are generally not professionals. We were spending $2500-$3000 per terminal every few years to keep up with what clients were using. We now have access to everything Adobe makes for $50 per month. Do the math.

 

[MechaSpanky]

bent christian,

There are many professionals who use only two or three apps. They have no need for the entire "master" suite. The Master Suite is a gimmick. Very few people would ever need or use all of the apps in the Master Suite but it makes it sounds good when they offer you all their software titles, even though you will never use many of them. It is similar to how cable companies make you buy a crap load of channels that you will never watch.

I did do the math and it always comes up Adobe + subscription = Crummy Deal. Why were you spending $2,500 - $3,000 per terminal every few years before? The Master Suite for CS 6 was $2,599 and that was the full price, not the upgrade but there would be no need to pay the full price every time and you obviously already had a license. The upgrade price was lower, $899 so if you divide that by 2 (for 2 years) you get $449.50 per year. Now you are paying $600 a year and you are renting only. The funny thing is, you said every "few" years and that is the real kicker because before you had a choice of when to upgrade you could have stretched it a bit and lowered your price per year. For some people the subscription might be close to the same price as before in a per year analysis but for others it is much more expensive. Not to mention the restrictions that Adobe has imposed, it sounds like an all around bad deal to me.

Adobe-sheep do not realize and will not accept that it isn't as good of a deal as they think it is. For some reason they can't understand why people don't like subscription based software. I, as someone who opposes it, can see the allure of the subscription based software model. For young, foolish people it is cheaper and easier to get the software. The problem is, they can't see the big picture and realize the actual costs. $50 or more for life sounds more like a prison sentence to me. Plus you have lost control over many things. What if Adobe decides to up the price to $100 a month? What will you do? Nothing because you are locked in. You can't use older versions of their software because you only rented them. You will simply say "Oh yes, sir, yes" like some kind of Yes-man from the movies.

The subscription model might be better for big corporations but for many, it is a bad deal.


Mecha

 

[kingtj]

I dislike the subscription model too, but not really for the same reasons you're stating here.
The big issue I have with it is the fact you're stuck using the "installer" program they provide to manage all of the applications, their licenses and their upgrades. Adobe has *always* had a poor track record of writing setup/installer programs anyway -- and I've seen no evidence the one for the Adobe Creative Suite is any better. Where I work, we've definitely had a few issues with Adobe apps that decided they weren't properly activated and what-not.

And even if it all works fine, people with slow Internet connections suffer with very lengthy download times. At least with a physical DVD, you can just pop it in and get things loaded fairly quickly.

But at the end of the day, it's probably irrelevant. The computer industry has mostly moved to the model of downloading your software electronically, and more and more apps are going to subscription pricing since electronic downloading makes this easy to implement for the developers.

Arguing that it was cheaper to skip upgrades on purpose for a while and keep using the older software amounts to complaining that "things were so much better in the old days". The companies selling subscriptions intend for you to use their latest versions of everything, period. There will be no more option to stick with older versions of their software.

The argument that they've locked you in, though? That's true to an extent, but really no more than anything else in the computer world. I remember 20-30 years ago hearing the same complaints from Finance departments of companies because they put all their data into a proprietary Accounting package that didn't have a way to easily export it and import it back into a competing product. There was no software subscription involved there at all. But you simply locked YOURSELF in to using the application because of the time you put into getting your CONTENT into it.

bent christian,
I did do the math and it always comes up Adobe + subscription = Crummy Deal. Why were you spending $2,500 - $3,000 per terminal every few years before? The Master Suite for CS 6 was $2,599 and that was the full price, not the upgrade but there would be no need to pay the full price every time and you obviously already had a license. The upgrade price was lower, $899 so if you divide that by 2 (for 2 years) you get $449.50 per year. Now you are paying $600 a year and you are renting only. The funny thing is, you said every "few" years and that is the real kicker because before you had a choice of when to upgrade you could have stretched it a bit and lowered your price per year. For some people the subscription might be close to the same price as before in a per year analysis but for others it is much more expensive. Not to mention the restrictions that Adobe has imposed, it sounds like an all around bad deal to me.

Adobe-sheep do not realize and will not accept that it isn't as good of a deal as they think it is. For some reason they can't understand why people don't like subscription based software. I, as someone who opposes it, can see the allure of the subscription based software model. For young, foolish people it is cheaper and easier to get the software. The problem is, they can't see the big picture and realize the actual costs. $50 or more for life sounds more like a prison sentence to me. Plus you have lost control over many things. What if Adobe decides to up the price to $100 a month? What will you do? Nothing because you are locked in. You can't use older versions of their software because you only rented them. You will simply say "Oh yes, sir, yes" like some kind of Yes-man from the movies.

The subscription model might be better for big corporations but for many, it is a bad deal.
Mecha

 

[MechaSpanky]

kingtj,

You're missing the point about having you locked in. With perpetual licenses, if you decide not to upgrade then you still have access to the program, just not newer versions of it. You can, if your hardware will allow, continue to use it for as long as you wish. With the subscription model, once you quit paying you quit having a way to open and alter your files (unless you plan ahead and save the in a more neutral format but that isn't always ideal). That is very different from the situations that you described. In the situations that you described, you are locked into using one kind of software (the files are not easily opened in another app) but with the subscription model you are locked into paying (continually) to use the same software you used to create the files in order to have access to your files. Quite different.

I never said anything about skipping upgrades. I said that you can upgrade on your own schedule, and so you could do it at 20 months or 24 months and not at 18 months when the software was released. I also mentioned that if you waited too long then you would have to pay more to upgrade.

I do agree with you on the crappy installers and a lack of trust in the way that Adobe does things.

Mecha

 

[MacGizmo]

Adobe and their stupid f#%king installers. Don't get me started. I love the Adobe apps, but I've never seen such a mature company have so much difficulty writing a simple installer for so many years.