Quark slow down/lag issues

[AlBDamned]

Oh boy, it's been a while since I've had any Quark Express issues but they always seem to arise at the most important times of the production cycle.

I'm using QE 6.5 on my 1.67Ghz PowerBook. It's been fine using my master document, but now there's really bad lag with moving pages and typing into the doc.

The big thing that's changed is all images I'm using are now saved as TIFF files not EPS files as they were previously, as this was causing issues with our production process. Could this be a reason for the slow down? Is there any way to disable the images while I'm just working on text?

Any advice great appreciated. (are you there, Blue Velvet? )

 

[Blue Velvet]

Is there any way to disable the images while I'm just working on text?

You could try working in 8-bit or 16-bit previews although that can limit some in-app image editing, but if that's not a problem then:

Menu>Preferences>Application>Display: Colour TIFFs (halfway down the box)

See if that helps... although I must say that Quark 6 can bog down if there are any drawn objects on the page. Just 3 or 4 bezier wavy dotted lines on a recent layout I did slowed the dual 2.5 G5 to a crawl.

You could also work in different layers, with your copy on one layer and your images on another, enabling you to switch the images off, although any runaround will be difficult to control.

 

[AlBDamned]

Hey BV, thanks for that.

I'm working on mostly grey tiffs so I've reduced that down to 16 from 256 and reduced any colour ones down to 8-bit. It's reduced the lag slightly but still there. Very frustrating really. Nothing like working on a dodgy Quark doc

 

[Blue Velvet]

Whoops. I missed the Greek Pictures option in Preferences. It's moved from where it used to be... just got into the office and looked a little more closely through the entire box options, which is getting a little bloated.

Try that; it's under Preferences>Default Print Layout>General>Greek Pictures (top right).

Hopefully, that should make some difference.

 

[AlBDamned]

Try that; it's under Preferences>Default Print Layout>General>Greek Pictures (top right).

Hopefully, that should make some difference.

Should Greek Pictures be checked or unchecked?

I'm wondering if it's something else as it's not making lots of difference and it's definitely just this document. It's only 36 pages, B&W throughout with a two-colour cover and the pages have just the small section-specific graphics at the moment (I haven't started adding the images to the main articles). Do you think it's reasonable the tiff-images version is so laggy compared with the eps-images version?

 

[Blue Velvet]

Should Greek Pictures be checked or unchecked?

I'm wondering if it's something else as it's not making lots of difference and it's definitely just this document. It's only 36 pages, B&W throughout with a two-colour cover and the pages have just the small section-specific graphics at the moment (I haven't started adding the images to the main articles). Do you think it's reasonable the tiff-images version is so laggy compared with the eps-images version?

Checked if you just want a grey shape to represent the image. However, when you click on a picture box, you can see the picture in all its glory.

Are any of the images adjusted using Quark Vista (i.e. Window> Picture Effects). Are any of the images drastically resized from within Quark or altered in other ways? Are they all greyscale LZW TIFFs at 300-350ppi?

 

[AlBDamned]

Are any of the images adjusted using Quark Vista (i.e. Window> Picture Effects). Are any of the images drastically resized from within Quark or altered in other ways? Are they all greyscale LZW TIFFs at 300-350ppi?

They're not altered but yeah all are 300dpi. There's five images that are 5.3MB, one that's 4MB and about 15 or so that range from 400KB - 1MB (most are 400-500KB). I've been working with it all day today and it's a real struggle.

 

[Blue Velvet]

How much RAM have got in that thing? I'm not sure what else to suggest at this stage.

I dunno; some people say that you don't need the latest and greatest to do print work but I've found that to be untrue. The days of running Quark 4 on a G3 or low-end G4 in OS9 are almost over... apps are becoming bloated, poorly optimised — particularly for multiple processors — and so feature-heavy that I've always purchased the top specced Macs for myself and for work.

I can't run InDesign smoothly on a dual 1.4 with 2gbs of RAM at home, even the dual 2.5 G5s with 2.5gbs of RAM at work choke on some relatively simple Quark documents and also Illustrator files. Reports of Quark 7 being cumbersome and unwieldy even on powerful Macs are legion... when we get new Macs at work next year, they will be whatever the top-line Mac is, quads, octos, whatever, is as they'll have 4-5 years of planned use.

Sorry, I'm rambling and it's not very helpful...

You could also try your luck over at Quark Forums.
http://www.quark.com/service/forums/

 

[AlBDamned]

How much RAM have got in that thing? I'm not sure what else to suggest at this stage.

It's got 1.5GB RAM. No worries though, all help so far much appreciated.

I'm completely flummoxed with it as it's such a puny document. I guess a G4 and tiff rendering just isn't the way to go. Rubbish.

I dunno; some people say that you don't need the latest and greatest to do print work but I've found that to be untrue. The days of running Quark 4 on a G3 or low-end G4 in OS9 are almost over... apps are becoming bloated, poorly optimised — particularly for multiple processors — and so feature-heavy that I've always purchased the top specced Macs for myself and for work.

I can't run InDesign smoothly on a dual 1.4 with 2gbs of RAM at home, even the dual 2.5 G5s with 2.5gbs of RAM at work choke on some relatively simple Quark documents and also Illustrator files. Reports of Quark 7 being cumbersome and unwieldy even on powerful Macs are legion... when we get new Macs at work next year, they will be whatever the top-line Mac is, quads, octos, whatever, is as they'll have 4-5 years of planned use.

It's been fine running it with documents containing no tiffs, but yeah I'd agree. I've been eyeing up iMac 24" and Mac Pro's but god knows the trouble I'd no doubt have with 6.5 and Rosetta unless it was the top end of things.

Crap really. I need to find a job where I don't have to do any Quark!

Thanks again for your help BV, I'll see if Quark forums can help but I'm pretty sure now it'll be a case of getting on with it.