Quark vs InDesign

[superninjagoat]

I think for those who have to use these tools every day for their jobs it comes down to muscle memory -- and not having to think about how you're going to get to your final result.

If you gave Keith Jarrett an instrument that sounded exactly like a piano but looked like a trumpet (!), I don't think he'd get the same results, somehow...

People who have used Quark for years prefer it because of its interface, not because they're conservative or old as somebody said earlier. Time is money in production.

Indesign is a fantastic program and I am looking forward to using it but I don't want to see any company with a monopoly on design software -- see the Illustrator v. Freehand discussion further back.

When you look at a page, you shouldn't be thinking 'hmmm... I wonder whether that was done in Photoshop 5 or 7 or whatever...' It doesn't matter.

There are too many users around that need to have the latest of anything.
Doesn't make them a better designer.

I agree. Muscle memory is a lot of the battle.

But there is a (imho) fundamental difference between XPress and InDesign. XPress is centered around fast turnaround time for simple design work. In the Quark philosophy, complicated elements should be produced elsewhere and moved into XPress.

InDesign is designer and workflow oriented. I see that as a breath of fresh air.

If Quark could produce a product that integrated like InDesign and supported modern effects like feathered shadows and native file formats, InDesign would be sunk. XPress is still a more mature design platform. But Quark's too slow to do that.

Adobe, otoh, has no problem adapting to what consumers want. They've already created a piece of software that's light-years ahead of XPress for many small print shop design tasks. They have a way to go before tight-deadline press publications adopt, but it's coming. Just look at PhotoShop. That program meets the needs of artists who want to muck with reality, but it's also THE tool used by photojournalists. Same thing with Illustrator.

It's just a matter of time, I think, before we'll all be learning new muscle memory to the Adobe tune. It's just a question of when InDesign gets the features you (plural) are looking for.

 

[Blue Velvet]

...It's just a matter of time, I think, before we'll all be learning new muscle memory to the Adobe tune. It's just a question of when InDesign gets the features you (plural) are looking for.

I agree with you.

The point I was also trying to make was the prevalence of people who have to have the latest & coolest without knowing the fundamentals.

 

[superninjagoat]

I agree with you.

The point I was also trying to make was the prevalence of people who have to have the latest & coolest without knowing the fundamentals.

That's a pet peeve of mine as well. When you know the fundamentals, you can make a beautiful layout in MS word it you have to (your print bureau would go nuts, however). I've had to produce trifolds in PowerPoint. I wasn't happy, but the result looked nice. I've got "colleagues" who have the fastest computer with the newest software. And they're designs look more like a rebel band of typographers snuck into their shop at night and declared war on the Golden Section.

A tool's a tool. Design's design. Bad design's vaguely nauseating.

Which of the two software programs do you prefer? For me it's still a tossup depending on the project.

 

[Blue Velvet]

... Which of the two software programs do you prefer? For me it's still a tossup depending on the project.

I use Quark 5 all day at work, am moving to OS X & Qaurk 6.1 in the office within the next 6 weeks (new dual 2.5s on order). 10.3.4 at home with Quark 5 in classic (with classic redraw xtension).

However... have got our new copies of Adobe CS in so will be looking closely at Indesign but know little about it so far -- am attracted by certain features already discussed earlier in the thread. We do a lot of 2-colour work so multi-inks were a must-have and now InDesign has them...

We will have both at work and will make moves towards InDesign but not without considering every step along the way. Everybody has to be on board -- can't force anybody here.

So for now, it's still Quark (albeit reluctantly). Although, they've being going insane recently -- sending us coupons for discounts, writing to us, even picking up the phone when you call them! Desparation...

 

[superninjagoat]

I use Quark 5 all day at work, am moving to OS X & Qaurk 6.1 in the office within the next 6 weeks (new dual 2.5s on order). 10.3.4 at home with Quark 5 in classic (with classic redraw xtension).

However... have got our new copies of Adobe CS in so will be looking closely at Indesign but know little about it so far -- am attracted by certain features already discussed earlier in the thread. We do a lot of 2-colour work so multi-inks were a must-have and now InDesign has them...

We will have both at work and will make moves towards InDesign but not without considering every step along the way. Everybody has to be on board -- can't force anybody here.

So for now, it's still Quark (albeit reluctantly). Although, they've being going insane recently -- sending us coupons for discounts, writing to us, even picking up the phone when you call them! Desparation...

They answer the phone now? wow!

I do hold a certain fondness for XPress, and in a sick way, I'd like to see them beat InDesign. Do you think they're desperate enought to start listening to customers too? Cause that would be fantastic.

 

[Blue Velvet]

They answer the phone now? wow!

I do hold a certain fondness for XPress, and in a sick way, I'd like to see them beat InDesign. Do you think they're desperate enought to start listening to customers too? Cause that would be fantastic.

Letters telling us how many more engineers they have now, new sales team in UK, new office in London. Coupons giving us approx.US$700 off our orders of Quark 6.... Immediate email replies to license consolidation issues, the removal of the stupid mobile licensing (you can now install your copy of Xpress on 2 macs)... They're trying very hard and won't give up without a fight.

Sneak previews of Quark 7 have been already held at a developers conference under strict non-disclosure agreements (unicode support for soomebody who asked for it before)

ps. Speaking of work, I better do some... back in a few hours.

 

[phonic pol]

When you look at a page, you shouldn't be thinking 'hmmm... I wonder whether that was done in Photoshop 5 or 7 or whatever...' It doesn't matter.

There are too many users around that need to have the latest of anything.
Doesn't make them a better designer.

Granted, having the latest software doesn't make you a better designer but it's crucial to know what tools are out there and how they can lead to improvements in visual results and increased workflow. I think that's the essence of this thread and helps us all develop as creatives'.

This post has been particularly interesting because we have input from people with different professions using software with different priorities e.g. newspapers are all about speed opposed to other areas of graphics that focus less on speed, though still important, and more on the creative impact of, for example, corporate identities, marketing and advertising etc.

I agree, lets not get hung up on whether an image was created in Photoshop 6 or cs but, at the same time, let's acknowledge that the same designer has more at his or her disposal in version cs over 6 and it's important to make sure you have the tools that suit you best whatever your creative niche. Most of us are in the business of delivering the best we can in the shortest timeframe and often a software update can give us a temporary edge, be it a speedier method of what we currently do or a quicker way of creating a favored effect.

There is one more essential point to consider when choosing your software and hardware and that is; if your options give you the same results, which one is going to give you the most pleasure? Most of us have answered that with the Mac vs. PC debate – they both do the same job, right? But at the end it’s largely down to preference and I get the impression here that indesign is winning people over and I sense a larger shift happening within the industry. I think Quark will have to pull something magnificent out of their sleeves, and soon, if they are to remain #1.

 

[superninjagoat]

Granted, having the latest software doesn't make you a better designer but it's crucial to know what tools are out there and how they can lead to improvements in visual results and increased workflow. I think that's the essence of this thread and helps us all develop as creatives'.

This post has been particularly interesting because we have input from people with different professions using software with different priorities e.g. newspapers are all about speed opposed to other areas of graphics that focus less on speed, though still important, and more on the creative impact of, for example, corporate identities, marketing and advertising etc.

I agree, lets not get hung up on whether an image was created in Photoshop 6 or cs but, at the same time, let's acknowledge that the same designer has more at his or her disposal in version cs over 6 and it's important to make sure you have the tools that suit you best whatever your creative niche. Most of us are in the business of delivering the best we can in the shortest timeframe and often a software update can give us a temporary edge, be it a speedier method of what we currently do or a quicker way of creating a favored effect.

There is one more essential point to consider when choosing your software and hardware and that is; if your options give you the same results, which one is going to give you the most pleasure? Most of us have answered that with the Mac vs. PC debate – they both do the same job, right? But at the end it’s largely down to preference and I get the impression here that indesign is winning people over and I sense a larger shift happening within the industry. I think Quark will have to pull something magnificent out of their sleeves, and soon, if they are to remain #1.

I think what Blue Velvet and I were getting at was more the type of person that thinks he knows how to do graphic design just because he has the best equiptment. Like a person with a great set of woodworking tools that can't doesn't know woodworking. (that person wouldn't have a table leg to stand on, see! yuk yuk yuk!)

If you are a creative, know how to use the programs AND know good design, great. You can use the tools to their advantage. But tools do not the designer make.

 

[Tremaine]

As a creative director for a large publisher, I must say that Quark remains the industry standard. It will not be going away anytime soon. If you are a designer or someone who wants to work professionally in print, you have to know Quark. I can count on my hand how many companies I know that have switched to InDesign. A couple of them say that they have just as many problems with InDesign as they did with Quark.

There are plenty of positives and negatives to both. They are just tools that produce similar results. In my company, we use Quark because designers and production artists are more efficient with it (they know it better). That said, as a home user, freelance designer, etc, I would use InDesign for the cost benefits.

 

[zarathustra]

I hope Quark dies a quick death...

We have been on InDesign since 1.0 (a dog of a product) and beta tested 2.0, CS and now the next major release of InDesign.

I have InDesign running pretty much all the time and cannot even compare it to Quark. They are in a different league. Once I broke all the habits that were ingrained in me from using Quark, InDesign was a breath of fresh air.

The fact that I can customize my keyboard layout alone is a lifesaver. i have customized all the most often used commands and features into a set. Instead of having to go through dialog after dialog, I just give it a 3 finger salute.

I would love to answer any questions as far as "I can do this in Quark, how come you can't in InDesign..." or "This is so much better in Quark, while InDesign sucks ...".

99% of the time that Quark users criticize the shortcomings of InDesign they have not actually tried to do it in InDesign. Or the problem is between the keyboard and the chair.

Any pre-press or press that is still using Quark exclusively are simply outdated. just like we don't use photo plates anymore, an all quark workflow is on the way out. It will still have it's place kind of like linotype presses and 1 color Heidelberg presses do. I can send my work a 100% of the time as a PDF and 95% of the time as an InDesign document.

 

[Blue Velvet]

...Once I broke all the habits that were ingrained in me from using Quark, InDesign was a breath of fresh air.

Just out of curiousity:
How long did it take you to break all your Quark habits? How did you manage your transition and did you use both apps. equally for a while?

In fact, anybody here with interesting & valuable comments on switching over would have a grateful audience of at least one... tell all!

 

[&RU]

I have been using Quark for as long as I can remember. I still use XPress 4.1 because certain clients are trapped in the stone age. I didn't want to like InDesign. I tried it out when I purchased the CS Suite and now I really don't like XPress. I don't need Xtensions or Distiller to get my work out anymore. Being able to work at full resolution is a treat too - again without an Xtension. The fact that it is set up similarly to Photoshop and Illustrator helps more than you realise - especially when you switch between them alot.

I could go on, but as you can see - I lean towards InDesign.

 

[Tremaine]

Is it possible to save an InDesign file in Quark 4.0 format? So someone in the stone age can open it.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Is it possible to save an InDesign file in Quark 4.0 format? So someone in the stone age can open it.

Unless I missed it, nope.

 

[Belly-laughs]

The secret is that XPress uses dialogue boxes to imput information, so I can hit shift+apple+D (opens the character dialogue), tap tab four times, hit "-3" and enter and BAM, I've baseline shifted my text and my focus is back in the document. It sound like a lot of work, but it is so much faster than hitting the keyboard command for the character pallet in InDesign, then putting the curser in the appropriate text field, going back to the keyboard to type "-3" and enter, and then putting your cursor back in the document to change focus. (There is a way to change your focus in InDesign via the keyboard, but I can never get the damn thing to work in a way I deem useful -- compared with XPress.)

InDesign; select text, hit option+shift+up/down arrows... In fact, most palette commands and menu items can be assigned shortcuts of your preference, shortcuts can be saved as different sets etc. You can even use Quark shortcuts throughout.

 

[VooDooPope]

As a quark user from the begining I was reluctant to switch. Once I did I was so glad to be done with Quark.

IMO Indesign is a far supperior product. My wife is also a designer and she wants to switch but the creative director at her company is an old fart who doesn't want to learn a new program. I've tried to tell him that if you know Illustrator and Photoshop then you already know Indesign (Not 100% truth but real close).

The only thing about indesign I don't like as much as I like in quark are way style sheets operate. That said being able to load the eye dropper with type specs makes this an issue only on the rarest of occasions.

 

[zelmo]

I manage the prepress department for a commercial printer, around $20 million in annual sales volume (avg job is only $1200 - do the math and shudder). Historically, about 85% of all files (Mac/PC) were coming in Quark. Less than 5% were InDesign through v2. With CS, Adobe has a definite winner on it's hands. The design community has noticed, big time. In about one years' time, we have seen InDesign climb to almost 30% of all incoming files.
We used to rush out and purchase 25 copies of Quark whenever an upgrade came out, because we had to start preparing for the onslaught of early adopters. We only have 7 copies of Quark 6, while we have increased InDesign from 2 copies to 6. I'm sure we'll be adding copies of InDesign before we have to purchase Quark upgrades.

Quark or InDesign? Whatever you are comfortable with. I'll take either all day long. I'd just like to stop getting Publisher, Word and Powerpoint files from clients who think a $100 app is all they need to produce stellar print documents that color separate easily.

 

[zarathustra]

Just out of curiousity:
How long did it take you to break all your Quark habits? How did you manage your transition and did you use both apps. equally for a while?

In fact, anybody here with interesting & valuable comments on switching over would have a grateful audience of at least one... tell all!

I have used Quark for a good 4 years by the time InDesign showed up and we were simultaneously using Quark 3.32 (I think) and Quark 4 with InDesign 1.0 & 1.5 for about 8 months until InDesign 2.0 came out. Since then we have completely abandoned our Quark licenses and have gone to an all Adobe suite.

I would say that the first 3 projects were difficult, but by the 5th, I was wondering why in the hell didn't Adobe come out with it earlier. There is an option in InDesign to simulate the keyboard layout in Quark, if that's what you like. However, I found it easier to just use my Illustrator and Photoshop knowledge and experiment.

About the only thing that Quark and ID have in common besides being layout apps, is that you place Frames that can contain placed files, Text or a set of paths. From there it is a weird iteration of Illustrator.

The type engine is so much more developed than in Quark (OpenType, Unicode, Single line and Paragraph compositor, Optical Kerning, Optical Margin Allignment etc.)

So all in all, I would say that as long as you don't try to do things the Quark way, but instead concentrate on logical, intuitive ways of doing things, you will get a hang of it in no time.

 

[ethernet76]

Both have there upsides. For advanced design you'd see in graphics design, you'd probably want to go with Indesign.

However, there is one thing Quark is better at. Speed design. Being in the fast-paced news design sector, I prefer quark because it is no frills and is linked well with certain non-adobe products like NewsEdit Pro - a brilliant workflow manager for text and photos.

However, indesign has a lot of benefits, being able to get file info from a picture without opening the files.

We recently switched to Indesign from Quark 4. I'm not a fan of Indesign mostly because I have to use new shortcut keys, and what I could do in 30 minutes now takes an hour or so.

However, the industry standard is now Indesign, and I can think of a couple of places that are switching to Indesign from Quark 4 or pagination.

So, in the long run I'd think indesign would be a better bet.

 

[ethernet76]

I manage the prepress department for a commercial printer, around $20 million in annual sales volume (avg job is only $1200 - do the math and shudder). Historically, about 85% of all files (Mac/PC) were coming in Quark. Less than 5% were InDesign through v2. With CS, Adobe has a definite winner on it's hands. The design community has noticed, big time. In about one years' time, we have seen InDesign climb to almost 30% of all incoming files.
We used to rush out and purchase 25 copies of Quark whenever an upgrade came out, because we had to start preparing for the onslaught of early adopters. We only have 7 copies of Quark 6, while we have increased InDesign from 2 copies to 6. I'm sure we'll be adding copies of InDesign before we have to purchase Quark upgrades.

Quark or InDesign? Whatever you are comfortable with. I'll take either all day long. I'd just like to stop getting Publisher, Word and Powerpoint files from clients who think a $100 app is all they need to produce stellar print documents that color separate easily.

What percent of files you get are PDF? Even back in highschool we were using FTP to upload files to our printer in Indiana.

 

[Sparky's]

I've been using Quark since 2.x in the late '80s, all the way to 6.1 now. I switched to InDesign as my main app 2 years ago. Here is a publication that (even though may seem a little biased) has a great deal of information and being as it is Volume 1 Issue 1 I look forward to my subscription.
http://www.indesignmag.com/idm/trialissue.html

For additional information about InDesign check out: http://www.prepressforums.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=index&c=1

This is a relatively new forum but it's growing rapidly. It is dedicated solely to Printing Pre-press and has attracted many knowledgeable professionals.

The Quark vs InDesign debate will eventually end up as the Ford vs Chevy issue (please don't start)

I am totally committed to InDesign not only as a far superior program over Quark but also as a small part of the Adobe suite that works together to increase our productivity and ease of product deadline.

 

[zelmo]

What percent of files you get are PDF? Even back in highschool we were using FTP to upload files to our printer in Indiana.

I would bet that fewer than 5% of the files we get come in pdf. More than half of those are not correct - no bleed, wrong size, fonts nort embedded, something not correct). We make pdf's as soft proofs on maybe 25% of our jobs, which the clients often use for internal purposes. Haven't really seen the pdf explosion Adobe was predicting several years ago.
As for ftp, that is certainly a growing file delivery method, but CD rules. Can't remember the last time we got a zip. Remember when they revolutionized file delivery just a few years back? Now we have a box of old zip drives in a closet.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I'd just like to stop getting Publisher, Word and Powerpoint files from clients who think a $100 app is all they need to produce stellar print documents that color separate easily.

Be nice to some of us like that.

I was forced to use MS Publisher for almost 2 years in producing our newspaper ads. It was only after my boss wanted some really tight spacing of text blocks, that I was able to convince that we needed to move to a more "professional" set of tools.

And could not be happier with InDesign.

 

[zelmo]

Be nice to some of us like that.

I was forced to use MS Publisher for almost 2 years in producing our newspaper ads. It was only after my boss wanted some really tight spacing of text blocks, that I was able to convince that we needed to move to a more "professional" set of tools.

And could not be happier with InDesign.

Hey, we printers love real design folk. It's the ones who pretend they are designers, or who decide that any administrative assistant with MS Office can produce all their publications, that truly frighten us.

Publisher is not the worst. We had a client who wanted us to convert their Broderbund Print Shop Deluxe file into a 3 PMS job, because they didn't want to spring for 4CP. It only took a couple hours to completely re-create their job in Quark (pre-InDesign days).

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Hey, we printers love real design folk. It's the ones who pretend they are designers, or who decide that any administrative assistant with MS Office can produce all their publications, that truly frighten us.

Publisher is not the worst. We had a client who wanted us to convert their Broderbund Print Shop Deluxe file into a 3 PMS job, because they didn't want to spring for 4CP. It only took a couple hours to completely re-create their job in Quark (pre-InDesign days).

Be kind to newbie design folks. We really do try hard. Never pretended to be a real designer, I beg forgiveness and try to learn from the printers we use.

Had a laugh about the admin assistant comment. Just got a word file from one of group of a flyer they wanted me to add graphics to so they could send it out for printing. Some are just trying to protect their jobs, others just want to do it all themselves.

With the customer with the Print Shop Deluxe file, I hope you billed them out for the time.