Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Quark and the Mac
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Just switched to Indesign
Duh their sales are good - how long have people been waiting for an OS X version? Plus, when you consider the $299 upgrade from 4 to 5 and get 6 free offers - who couldn't pass that up? the difference is most that I have spoke with bought ONE copy, not the whole license. That is what I did.
I have been testing ID2 for a year and after a month of hard testing with our printer, today we officially decided to go Indesign. I bought a copy of quark and we will keep informed but this year it is all Indesign.
Just FYI - the "open in publisher" button (I've been told by a friend on the net who got his copy) is gone, as well as the "get edition" button. This will kill many press operations, along with the back save issue, and may halt sales once the word gets out.
If Quark is more responsive then they might be able to pull their collective heads out. Since I haven't seen much change in their corp culture I doubt we will see the updates as promised.
Last thing, can any HONESTLY say they use the html function in Quark? I have found it so unreliable and could more easily copy/past/re-format in a true html editor. I think this direction, and Quark's apparent belief the net is the way to go, just shows their lack of inovation. So much is changing in the press world (printing to plate, advances in printing abilities, networking, workflow processes) you would think they could come up with a great idea. Personally, how about being able to work on a document at the same time? Don't tell me they have the "project" feature, it is not the same. I mean I am laying out a newspaper/magazine/brochure and I want to work on the front page while another person works on page 5. Why not create a check-in/check-out process for pages? This is what I mean by taking advantage of changes in networking and workflows. This would be a huge time saver. But not an option.
I'm just frustrated with Quark and happy to move to Indesign.
Duh their sales are good - how long have people been waiting for an OS X version? Plus, when you consider the $299 upgrade from 4 to 5 and get 6 free offers - who couldn't pass that up? the difference is most that I have spoke with bought ONE copy, not the whole license. That is what I did.
I have been testing ID2 for a year and after a month of hard testing with our printer, today we officially decided to go Indesign. I bought a copy of quark and we will keep informed but this year it is all Indesign.
Just FYI - the "open in publisher" button (I've been told by a friend on the net who got his copy) is gone, as well as the "get edition" button. This will kill many press operations, along with the back save issue, and may halt sales once the word gets out.
If Quark is more responsive then they might be able to pull their collective heads out. Since I haven't seen much change in their corp culture I doubt we will see the updates as promised.
Last thing, can any HONESTLY say they use the html function in Quark? I have found it so unreliable and could more easily copy/past/re-format in a true html editor. I think this direction, and Quark's apparent belief the net is the way to go, just shows their lack of inovation. So much is changing in the press world (printing to plate, advances in printing abilities, networking, workflow processes) you would think they could come up with a great idea. Personally, how about being able to work on a document at the same time? Don't tell me they have the "project" feature, it is not the same. I mean I am laying out a newspaper/magazine/brochure and I want to work on the front page while another person works on page 5. Why not create a check-in/check-out process for pages? This is what I mean by taking advantage of changes in networking and workflows. This would be a huge time saver. But not an option.
I'm just frustrated with Quark and happy to move to Indesign.
Re: Just switched to Indesign
That's Quark Publishing System. Expensive. Still won't be ready till 2004 for OSX.
That's Quark Publishing System. Expensive. Still won't be ready till 2004 for OSX.
Indy and Books
Does anybody have any experiebce designing or composing books in Indy vs Quark? Do you know if there will be a 3rd party extension to let people save Quark 6 to 4.11? Or is the code too different?
Thanks
http://www.planetbret.blogspot.com
Does anybody have any experiebce designing or composing books in Indy vs Quark? Do you know if there will be a 3rd party extension to let people save Quark 6 to 4.11? Or is the code too different?
Thanks
http://www.planetbret.blogspot.com
regardless of the q vs id battle, when you think about it from a business standpoint, quark the company is really missing the boat.
upgrades is where all the money is at! if i was quark, i'd make a decent upgrade every year and sell it for $100-200. according to quark's website, they say they have more than 4 million users of xpress! you do the math, that's quite a few clams... and of course it would be even more as some of those upgrades will be major releases for which you can charge more.
if anyone at quark is reading this, i'd be more than happy to join the team as a consultant for a nominal fee
though i'd still have to use indesign, sorry.
upgrades is where all the money is at! if i was quark, i'd make a decent upgrade every year and sell it for $100-200. according to quark's website, they say they have more than 4 million users of xpress! you do the math, that's quite a few clams... and of course it would be even more as some of those upgrades will be major releases for which you can charge more.
if anyone at quark is reading this, i'd be more than happy to join the team as a consultant for a nominal fee
though i'd still have to use indesign, sorry.
Re: Indy and Books
i put a book together in Quark 4, and did an InDesign version too. it did not import into ID well at all, i had to rework the whole damn thing.
personally i have to say quark was the better tool for that job, but then i do have years of experience with quark....
oh, and drbyers...shut up. if you cant bring anything constructive to the forum, don't bother posting
i put a book together in Quark 4, and did an InDesign version too. it did not import into ID well at all, i had to rework the whole damn thing.
personally i have to say quark was the better tool for that job, but then i do have years of experience with quark....
oh, and drbyers...shut up. if you cant bring anything constructive to the forum, don't bother posting
I suppose you are implying that an Adobe monopoly would be a bad thing? I agree but...first, Adobe has ALOT of ground to gain in order to completely drive Quark from the market. Second, if they DID manage to do that and were the only show in town, just as Quark once was, and they began to slip in innovation or keeping up with changes. Then someday some young startup will come along and bring an innovative product and attitude to market that will put them out of business.
There's a great segment in this article which talks about this very question...
quoting from the creativepro article...
The next era of page composition is coming, whether Quark and Adobe participate in it or not. History would indicate they won't, and they could go the way of Linotype, Monotype, Ludlow, Compugraphic, Scitex or any of the many long-departed composition systems manufacturers. I'd probably put Adobe more in the Kodak or Xerox category, however. The company will be fine and may even prosper, but we won't see revolutionary products from them in the future. Those typically come from outsiders who aren't restricted by so much knowledge of the past.
bold added for emphasis...end quote...
Competition is always there, no matter how hard they may be to find, and monopolies never last forever. They become too comfortable with themselves and the way they have always done things, and there is ALWAYS someone better, faster, smarter coming up behind you.
How true, how true and how sad for Quark, but this is how the free market system works...if you don't innovate, you fade away. Reminds me of a great quote...
"If you always do what you've always done, you're gonna always get what you've always got."
Well, this is sort of like the chicken or the egg problem. Who upgrades first?...'Yoouuu do it!....Uh Uh, youuu...Ohhhh no, not us, you do it...No, No, we insist, you go ahead...
And what is Quark's brilliant solution to this self-made dilemna? Buy Quark 5 so you can then backsave to 5 from 6 then backsave to 4 from 5...
I...I think it finally happened...my eyes have rolled COMPLETELY back into my head!
Rustus
edited for stupid lack of sleep induced spelling mistakes
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
The difference between Quark 3.3 and 6.0 is barely enough to justify a $100 upgrade fee.
The key phrase here is "decent upgrade". Quark isn't familiar with the concept. Their product evolution appears to be the product of a single programmer who works on improvements after his day job and a shift at Java World.
It wouldn't even take ten monkeys typing for 10 days to write a more compelling upgrade than Quarks programmers have come up with. This lack of saving from 6 down to 4 smacks of Apple's non OS9 booting Macs a non-technical, business driven decision to cripple a product.
I have to use Quark every day. I get to use InDesign once in a while. I'm the only person in the Creative Department using OSX. People in Production have to be able to open the work I produce and they're running Quark 4. Hence, no ID2 for work that's going to end up in production and I'm stuck running Quark in Classic since it doesn't save down far enough from OSX.
Quark is a lame company that makes a reliable if not inspired product.
I'd have to disagree to some extent.
Though it's easy to say that, on the surface, Apple's decision was ego based, and it may have been in part, their decision was mostly based on the master plan they have for the adoption of OSX. Apple cannot sit idly by while one lame company (as you called them
) single-handedly tries to stall the adoption of their OS.So Apple did what anyone should do...move on without them. Sooo, what has happened? Well, lo and behold, Quark now has some very serious competition from a company that was ready to move into the future with Apple.
Ego induced CEO urination contest? Perhaps.
Smart business decision? Absolutely.
Re: Re: Just switched to Indesign
I know a little about their publishing system. The few people that I know who have used it, do not like it - they call it buggy, I don't know since i have never used it. Like you said, it still will not be available for OSX until 04 - maybe. This also doesn't make much sense.
I know a little about their publishing system. The few people that I know who have used it, do not like it - they call it buggy, I don't know since i have never used it. Like you said, it still will not be available for OSX until 04 - maybe. This also doesn't make much sense.
It only makes sense in that it takes longer to write more software. I had a chance to compare a 3rd party Indesign 1.5 Publishing System and a Quark 4 Publishing System at a trade show a few years back.
THey both did the same thing, but the interface was like chalk and cheese. The ID PS was a neat little pallette and an extra galley text editor. The Quark PS had too many windows, loose in design it felt like you were building the program as you worked.
The Quark system cost about 6 x more than the Indesign system. (The cost differential between ID and Quark are amplified here in Australia.)
THey both did the same thing, but the interface was like chalk and cheese. The ID PS was a neat little pallette and an extra galley text editor. The Quark PS had too many windows, loose in design it felt like you were building the program as you worked.
The Quark system cost about 6 x more than the Indesign system. (The cost differential between ID and Quark are amplified here in Australia.)
For a lot of cases you're right, of course, but sometimes a bad product/solution *will* dominate the market *ad infinitum* just because it became big enough early enough - for example VHS and - of course - DOS/Windows.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
A short "ad infinitum"!
VHS was the standard, but is well on the way to being replaced by DVDs and hard-drive recorders. They had a good run of about 25 years.
Unlike VHS, Windows has evolved dramatically, though the domination here is more about the company than the product. Microsoft has been dominant less than 20 years and already are grasping at straws to find an encore to Windows. Evolution won't overtake Windows, a paradigm shift will. OSX is very similar to Windows and that shift will not be coming from Apple. Somebody will come up with it someday and everyone else will just smack their heads.
ID upped the ante with incorporating better compositing elements into their software, but it's really an evolutionary step that Quark could have made if they weren't so complacent. In another 10-15 years, something completely different by a young, upstart company will change the face of publishing again. That's not that long if you consider how long the printing business existed before computers revolutionized that field.
- j
VHS was the standard, but is well on the way to being replaced by DVDs and hard-drive recorders. They had a good run of about 25 years.
Unlike VHS, Windows has evolved dramatically, though the domination here is more about the company than the product. Microsoft has been dominant less than 20 years and already are grasping at straws to find an encore to Windows. Evolution won't overtake Windows, a paradigm shift will. OSX is very similar to Windows and that shift will not be coming from Apple. Somebody will come up with it someday and everyone else will just smack their heads.
ID upped the ante with incorporating better compositing elements into their software, but it's really an evolutionary step that Quark could have made if they weren't so complacent. In another 10-15 years, something completely different by a young, upstart company will change the face of publishing again. That's not that long if you consider how long the printing business existed before computers revolutionized that field.
- j
Domination
Then Adobe bought PageMaker, slapped an Adobe logo on the soon-to-be PageMaker 6, and really made it their product at 6.5. Now it pretty much had feature parity with Xpress in most things, and even was ahead in some areas. But that didn't matter since PageMaker was anathema to large-scale DTP by that time.
At this time, PageMaker 7 was in the works, rewritten with a totally new way of doing things and taking advantage of new technologies (like OS X), and it was going to be the Quark killer. Quark, at this time, had started resting on its laurels as Aldus had done.
Due to market perceptions of the PageMaker brand, Adobe decided to rename PageMaker 7 to InDesign 1.0, which had some growing pains until becoming usable at 1.5 and awesome at 2.0 (they added some templates, toolbars and bug fixes to PageMaker and released it as 7.0 for the corporate and home market).
Will we now see a repeat of the first paragraph?
A long time ago, there was a company called Aldus, with a product called PageMaker, which ruled DTP. Then Aldus got cocky and stopped improving PageMaker much. During this time, another company called Quark came out with a better product and trounced PageMaker in the market. Everyone moved to Quark.
Then Adobe bought PageMaker, slapped an Adobe logo on the soon-to-be PageMaker 6, and really made it their product at 6.5. Now it pretty much had feature parity with Xpress in most things, and even was ahead in some areas. But that didn't matter since PageMaker was anathema to large-scale DTP by that time.
At this time, PageMaker 7 was in the works, rewritten with a totally new way of doing things and taking advantage of new technologies (like OS X), and it was going to be the Quark killer. Quark, at this time, had started resting on its laurels as Aldus had done.
Due to market perceptions of the PageMaker brand, Adobe decided to rename PageMaker 7 to InDesign 1.0, which had some growing pains until becoming usable at 1.5 and awesome at 2.0 (they added some templates, toolbars and bug fixes to PageMaker and released it as 7.0 for the corporate and home market).
Will we now see a repeat of the first paragraph?