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QuarkXPress 6.1 Almost Here?
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from a designer's perspective, i like indesign because it's very fluid, intuitive and has many more modern features available.
from a prepress manager's perspective, i only have one customer that uses indesign and they send me pdfs because it's easy. i've just upgraded to quark 6 and so far, beyond a couple little hiccups, it's working great. there are things i think are sorely lacking in quark, but because about 90% of the jobs we do are created in quark i have to use it. i'm happy enough to use it daily because a prepress environment runs smoother when things are simpler. quark does less fancy stuff so it's easier to deal with when things don't go right. i'm sure indesign files work great at other prepress dept's, but we had trouble with them (again, from the one customer we have who uses it), so we had them send pdfs instead, which has worked fairly well.
in specific regard to armsreach's post about problems with spot colors in quark, here's a little info i picked up this week when we had a problem with a quark 6 file that may or may not be relevent: when EPS files are saved out of quark 6 and sent to a RIP, duotone or fake duotones need to be saved out using the deviceN color setting. the default setting is CMYK, but deviceN is the one that recognizes spot and multi-color info. doublecheck with your printer to see if this has anything to do with the problem you had.
from a prepress manager's perspective, i only have one customer that uses indesign and they send me pdfs because it's easy. i've just upgraded to quark 6 and so far, beyond a couple little hiccups, it's working great. there are things i think are sorely lacking in quark, but because about 90% of the jobs we do are created in quark i have to use it. i'm happy enough to use it daily because a prepress environment runs smoother when things are simpler. quark does less fancy stuff so it's easier to deal with when things don't go right. i'm sure indesign files work great at other prepress dept's, but we had trouble with them (again, from the one customer we have who uses it), so we had them send pdfs instead, which has worked fairly well.
in specific regard to armsreach's post about problems with spot colors in quark, here's a little info i picked up this week when we had a problem with a quark 6 file that may or may not be relevent: when EPS files are saved out of quark 6 and sent to a RIP, duotone or fake duotones need to be saved out using the deviceN color setting. the default setting is CMYK, but deviceN is the one that recognizes spot and multi-color info. doublecheck with your printer to see if this has anything to do with the problem you had.
Re: Who cares
I´m with you. Amen!
Originally posted by ~Shard~
Quark sucks. Sorry for not putting much more effort into the post, but there isn't much more to say, and Quark isn't worth it. Bash me if you will, but I don't think I'm alone here...
I´m with you. Amen!
I think I speak for many people both inside and outside the Graphics Design world when I say that Quark lost my support when it took them sooooo long to get into OS X in the first place. The company seems to have their priorities all wrong, and their user base is withering because of it. Not only that, but their product, in my opinion, is not the start player it once was--just an almost mediocre piece of media software. Quark had better get back on the ball before they loose their shirts...
Regardless that I would rather use Indesign than Quark, I couldn't convince my staff to switch. I'm stuck with Quark and it's major problem for me is that features break on a multi-user system. Particularly the pdf import and export options.
They run fine on the machine's administrator account but every other login, despite having admin privileges , the print, eps and pdf features won't work. They cause the app to crash, don't remember settings or just don't do anything.
Indesign has been flawless since I moved to OSX.
I just hope that 6.1 fixes these problems, and we don't have to shell out for it. I'm not happy in my new role as a 'Quark piss-farter'.
We have a heavy investment in Quark, as many would, and I just don't see how I could get a refund from them when I can't even get a straight answer.
They run fine on the machine's administrator account but every other login, despite having admin privileges , the print, eps and pdf features won't work. They cause the app to crash, don't remember settings or just don't do anything.
Indesign has been flawless since I moved to OSX.
I just hope that 6.1 fixes these problems, and we don't have to shell out for it. I'm not happy in my new role as a 'Quark piss-farter'.
We have a heavy investment in Quark, as many would, and I just don't see how I could get a refund from them when I can't even get a straight answer.
Re: It depends..
Can you save an InDesign doc as a .qxd?
We've just made the move to Quark 6, and frankly are NOT impressed... We had an evaluation copy of InDesign (1·5 I think) but didn't go down that road due to our main printers inertia. Maybe with 98% of our studio now on OSX its time to look again!
Can you save an InDesign doc as a .qxd?
We've just made the move to Quark 6, and frankly are NOT impressed... We had an evaluation copy of InDesign (1·5 I think) but didn't go down that road due to our main printers inertia. Maybe with 98% of our studio now on OSX its time to look again!
Copy of Quark 4.1 hit $4000 on antique show
I still have to do certain work in Quark 4.1, especially when clients need .qxd document templates back, but even then I do the designwork in InDesign (better on-screen rendering) first and copy the pages into Quark for finishing.
To save me the hassle, I´m thinking of buying my clients a copy of InDesign for Christmas.
I still have to do certain work in Quark 4.1, especially when clients need .qxd document templates back, but even then I do the designwork in InDesign (better on-screen rendering) first and copy the pages into Quark for finishing.
To save me the hassle, I´m thinking of buying my clients a copy of InDesign for Christmas.
Yawn
Quark was the best and there was a time I'd swear by it, now I just swear at it, er, actually I don't swear at it anymore, I officially migrated to InDesign a couple years ago. And for those who don't know, ID imports Quark files almost flawlessly, in some cases without need for a single tweak, it's so beautiful it could make you cry. I don't even load Quark on my machines anymore, no need. Bye Quark, please go away.
Quark was the best and there was a time I'd swear by it, now I just swear at it, er, actually I don't swear at it anymore, I officially migrated to InDesign a couple years ago. And for those who don't know, ID imports Quark files almost flawlessly, in some cases without need for a single tweak, it's so beautiful it could make you cry. I don't even load Quark on my machines anymore, no need. Bye Quark, please go away.
InDesign opens Quark files - so WHY would you use Quark for anything????
Quark isn't bad - I use Quark 4 here and then.... but it's just that InDesign is SO MUCH BETTER!!!
I love how InDesign CS has all the Distiller functions built in. I can output to a PDFx1a to send to a printer quicker than it takes to print something! It's awesome. No more outputting to postscript and distilling! It's almost TOO easy.
Quark isn't bad - I use Quark 4 here and then.... but it's just that InDesign is SO MUCH BETTER!!!
I love how InDesign CS has all the Distiller functions built in. I can output to a PDFx1a to send to a printer quicker than it takes to print something! It's awesome. No more outputting to postscript and distilling! It's almost TOO easy.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
I love how any Quark topic brings out the InDesign zealots, even though their input is irrelevant to the questions usually asked. ID2 is a fine program, but it doesn't have the market saturation that its fans believe. People that are relatively new to the design field or still in school are the most likely to embrace it because it's easier all around when you're just starting out. You don't have years of invested experience and legacy files or printing contacts that you know what to expect from.
I use ID2 whenever I can (which isn't often enough), but Quark 6.1 can only be considered a good thing and I'm amazed they're getting an update out so quickly (for them).
I use ID2 whenever I can (which isn't often enough), but Quark 6.1 can only be considered a good thing and I'm amazed they're getting an update out so quickly (for them).
From an InDesign Zealot
13 years of experience has taught me one thing. Money talks! A $400 dollar piece of software is not going to stand in the way of any printer if you buy enough printing. They really do want your business.
I do not need market saturation. I just need In Design and a couple of Printers. If I cared about market saturation I would use a PC.
13 years of experience has taught me one thing. Money talks! A $400 dollar piece of software is not going to stand in the way of any printer if you buy enough printing. They really do want your business.
I do not need market saturation. I just need In Design and a couple of Printers. If I cared about market saturation I would use a PC.
If 2 was CS
Slightly off topic, but...what is the difference between ID 2 and ID CS? Or is the whole 'CS' scheme just some marketing ploy with very little being to the actual products. I recently read about product version schemes, and it seems that companies are moving away from the semi-logical method of major.minor.patch release scheme and going towards other names (Windows 2000/XP, InDesign CS, Mac OS X Panther).
Despite not being a XPress or InDesign zealot (or even user), I do think that an update is a good thing. At least better than just letting the program sit around and do nothing until the next major upgrade.
Slightly off topic, but...what is the difference between ID 2 and ID CS? Or is the whole 'CS' scheme just some marketing ploy with very little being to the actual products. I recently read about product version schemes, and it seems that companies are moving away from the semi-logical method of major.minor.patch release scheme and going towards other names (Windows 2000/XP, InDesign CS, Mac OS X Panther).
Despite not being a XPress or InDesign zealot (or even user), I do think that an update is a good thing. At least better than just letting the program sit around and do nothing until the next major upgrade.
Re: If 2 was CS
InDesign CS can also be referred to as InDesign 3. It's a big upgrade. As for what the specific list of features is, I'm not certain, but the one I use most is the story editor.
What Adobe sells as the Creative Studio can be thought of as a bundle including InDesign 3, Photoshop 8, and Illustrator 11. All three are significant upgrades over the previous versions.
InDesign CS can also be referred to as InDesign 3. It's a big upgrade. As for what the specific list of features is, I'm not certain, but the one I use most is the story editor.
What Adobe sells as the Creative Studio can be thought of as a bundle including InDesign 3, Photoshop 8, and Illustrator 11. All three are significant upgrades over the previous versions.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Re: Re: If 2 was CS
Is it significantly faster?
I've found both InDesign2 and Illustrator10 to be painfully slow in terms of redraws, renaming layers, etc..
Is it significantly faster?
I've found both InDesign2 and Illustrator10 to be painfully slow in terms of redraws, renaming layers, etc..
Re: OLD f*rt here
Are you sure about this date? I'm not in publishing, but I used PageMaker (back before Aldus got bought up by Adobe and had to sell off Freehand) and I recollect Quark taking the world by storm in '89-90, not '93. By '93, I'd say XPress was nearly unassailable and was already starting to build a reputation of being a bunch of jerks through a rather long serious of strange copy protection and onerous upgrade pricing.
I question whether PageMaker was ever really "king". There was always LaTeX and FrameMaker (made by Frame before they got bought up by Adobe) for books, there was Letrastudio/ReadySetGo, there were a number of others whose name escapes me.
But Xpress was great because it had those XTensions. An idea from Photoshop by way of SuperPaint. It created a "platform" even though the cost was onerous (XPress has always been about 3x more expensive than PageMaker).
BTW, I agree with the "years of arrogance" quote. Quark is so arrogant they think they can just hire a bunch of programmers in India(*) to magically create a Mac OS X version of it, while at the same time their CEO is going around advising people to switch to Windows. From the sort of messages I see from their programmers on the forums, no wonder it took so long to come out and was a pile of crap.
(*) No offense meant to programmers in India--just these ones in particular. Perhaps that's not even fair. I don't know the situation and I think even the best programmers would have trouble when there is no institutional memory left of the product's development and they are working on an unfamiliar platform.
Are you sure about this date? I'm not in publishing, but I used PageMaker (back before Aldus got bought up by Adobe and had to sell off Freehand) and I recollect Quark taking the world by storm in '89-90, not '93. By '93, I'd say XPress was nearly unassailable and was already starting to build a reputation of being a bunch of jerks through a rather long serious of strange copy protection and onerous upgrade pricing.
I question whether PageMaker was ever really "king". There was always LaTeX and FrameMaker (made by Frame before they got bought up by Adobe) for books, there was Letrastudio/ReadySetGo, there were a number of others whose name escapes me.
But Xpress was great because it had those XTensions. An idea from Photoshop by way of SuperPaint. It created a "platform" even though the cost was onerous (XPress has always been about 3x more expensive than PageMaker).
BTW, I agree with the "years of arrogance" quote. Quark is so arrogant they think they can just hire a bunch of programmers in India(*) to magically create a Mac OS X version of it, while at the same time their CEO is going around advising people to switch to Windows. From the sort of messages I see from their programmers on the forums, no wonder it took so long to come out and was a pile of crap.
(*) No offense meant to programmers in India--just these ones in particular. Perhaps that's not even fair. I don't know the situation and I think even the best programmers would have trouble when there is no institutional memory left of the product's development and they are working on an unfamiliar platform.
Re: Re: OLD f*rt here
Hmm, might have been 92 at our end of the globe, the shop i was working in was using FrameMaker for books and Pagebreaker for mailers etc. And we loved Quark because you could put things IN boxes rather than draw boxes over the top (duh).
But from Quark 3.1 on its been downhill all the way.
I suspect Quark will now play the "protect your legacy data" card rather than try to outcompete Adobe, they know they have dropped the ball, so its damage control time.
They already charge the earth so they will have no qualms about producing lots of paid upgrades with high prices and minimal new features for the next 3 years to try and lock in (and ream out) the print & prepress shops who have the main vested interest in Quark files and the money to keep buying it.
That way they can also keep ahead of inDesign by making each new file format incompatible, forcing 'trapped' Quark users to upgrade and making inDesign's uptake that much slower. (Win! Win!)
Meanwhile their overall marketshare will slip massively but their profits vs r&d will soar. They will be able to contract and maintain profitably on the strength of the bl**dy "network effect"!
Then one day in 2007 they will suddenly disappear/be aquired by CorelDraw (same thing).
I do not believe they will come back from this current state of affairs. But maybe I have to let go of the hate!
Hmm, might have been 92 at our end of the globe, the shop i was working in was using FrameMaker for books and Pagebreaker for mailers etc. And we loved Quark because you could put things IN boxes rather than draw boxes over the top (duh).
But from Quark 3.1 on its been downhill all the way.
I suspect Quark will now play the "protect your legacy data" card rather than try to outcompete Adobe, they know they have dropped the ball, so its damage control time.
They already charge the earth so they will have no qualms about producing lots of paid upgrades with high prices and minimal new features for the next 3 years to try and lock in (and ream out) the print & prepress shops who have the main vested interest in Quark files and the money to keep buying it.
That way they can also keep ahead of inDesign by making each new file format incompatible, forcing 'trapped' Quark users to upgrade and making inDesign's uptake that much slower. (Win! Win!)
Meanwhile their overall marketshare will slip massively but their profits vs r&d will soar. They will be able to contract and maintain profitably on the strength of the bl**dy "network effect"!
Then one day in 2007 they will suddenly disappear/be aquired by CorelDraw (same thing).
I do not believe they will come back from this current state of affairs. But maybe I have to let go of the hate!
I think XPress arrived in 1989, not long after Color QuickDraw and Adobe Illustrator.
It's sad that Quark came out with something so good way back then and didn't fund real, ongoing development of it.
There were so many others. I saw where Ready Set Go! was recently updated. Maybe Corel would be interested in bringing Ventura Publisher back to Mac. I wish Calamus SL had made the jump from the Atari ST line.
Does anyone else wonder that, if everyone jumps to InDesign, Adobe will slow innovation without competition?
It's sad that Quark came out with something so good way back then and didn't fund real, ongoing development of it.
There were so many others. I saw where Ready Set Go! was recently updated. Maybe Corel would be interested in bringing Ventura Publisher back to Mac. I wish Calamus SL had made the jump from the Atari ST line.
Does anyone else wonder that, if everyone jumps to InDesign, Adobe will slow innovation without competition?
Quark 5 vs Quark 6
I still use Quark. I am trying desparately to switch to Indesign with newer documents that I construct. Indesign is a nicer piece of software that feel a little more open to creativity. Quark definitely feels dated, but what rremains are the 100's of documents I have created in Quark. I simply need to have Quark to be able to properly edit or change these documents.
What i have noticed though is that Quark 5 runs faster in classic mode than Quark 6 does in OS X native mode. Anyone experience this as well?
We purchased Quark 6 when it was first introduced. Above and beyond spending 4 days trying to get the software registered to work (quarks server would refuse connections), we have not touched the product.
You have to love when software vendors punish the legitimate users with nagging registration setups ... Grrr..
How annoying. We have also had to move the software to another machine.. Meaning it took another 3 days to de-register the software from that one machine.
I still use Quark. I am trying desparately to switch to Indesign with newer documents that I construct. Indesign is a nicer piece of software that feel a little more open to creativity. Quark definitely feels dated, but what rremains are the 100's of documents I have created in Quark. I simply need to have Quark to be able to properly edit or change these documents.
What i have noticed though is that Quark 5 runs faster in classic mode than Quark 6 does in OS X native mode. Anyone experience this as well?
We purchased Quark 6 when it was first introduced. Above and beyond spending 4 days trying to get the software registered to work (quarks server would refuse connections), we have not touched the product.
You have to love when software vendors punish the legitimate users with nagging registration setups ... Grrr..
How annoying. We have also had to move the software to another machine.. Meaning it took another 3 days to de-register the software from that one machine.
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Re: Quark 5 vs Quark 6
Yep. But that's not a Quark exclusivity. The same can be said for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.
I get the feeling that OSX is a better juggler than a sprinter...
Yep. But that's not a Quark exclusivity. The same can be said for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.
I get the feeling that OSX is a better juggler than a sprinter...
Re: Re: Quark 5 vs Quark 6
Mac OS X can be both with well-written applications, which has nothing to do with what most of the graphics industry is giving us. If they were all following Carbon events and using .Nib files, it's likely they would improve by more than double without any other code enhancements.
Right now, it seems that they're all too worried about keeping really old code going without change to maximise their profits.
Mac OS X can be both with well-written applications, which has nothing to do with what most of the graphics industry is giving us. If they were all following Carbon events and using .Nib files, it's likely they would improve by more than double without any other code enhancements.
Right now, it seems that they're all too worried about keeping really old code going without change to maximise their profits.
I am a small publisher in Italy. We run a lifestyle magazine and before that we did layout for others.
We still run on OS9. That's because we still don't have time to upgrade all computers. We will do it at our next comp purchase wich will be as soon as 2nd gen G5's come out.
We used to work on quark xpress. We loved it's simplicity. One day we installed indesign on one computer, just to try.
Today, we all use indesign. We print 30.000 copies every month and are 148/180 pages offset color printing. our printer gets pdf's from us and with indesign it's just faster and easier. Also, i'ts user friendly with photoshop and illustrator.
There's just no competition. the only thing we find MUCH better in xpress if speed during use. fast rendering. As for the rest, even if a completely new xpress 7 comes out, with adobes features, we will hang with indesign. it's here, and it's just good.
I'm sorry but for me Xpress is dead. Sad but true.
Simon
We still run on OS9. That's because we still don't have time to upgrade all computers. We will do it at our next comp purchase wich will be as soon as 2nd gen G5's come out.
We used to work on quark xpress. We loved it's simplicity. One day we installed indesign on one computer, just to try.
Today, we all use indesign. We print 30.000 copies every month and are 148/180 pages offset color printing. our printer gets pdf's from us and with indesign it's just faster and easier. Also, i'ts user friendly with photoshop and illustrator.
There's just no competition. the only thing we find MUCH better in xpress if speed during use. fast rendering. As for the rest, even if a completely new xpress 7 comes out, with adobes features, we will hang with indesign. it's here, and it's just good.
I'm sorry but for me Xpress is dead. Sad but true.
Simon
Re: Re: Re: Quark 5 vs Quark 6
I fully agree, and its not just Adobe, all the Macromedia MX series are slugs compared to their older versions (I haven't tried the very latest versions).
I had assumed this was because they are carbon apps rather than cocoa. Or is it Jaguars menus etc (I haven't got Panther yet)
Anyone able to confirm this?
I fully agree, and its not just Adobe, all the Macromedia MX series are slugs compared to their older versions (I haven't tried the very latest versions).
I had assumed this was because they are carbon apps rather than cocoa. Or is it Jaguars menus etc (I haven't got Panther yet)
Anyone able to confirm this?
Quark vs. InDesign, doesn't really matter.
I've worked with a wide variety of printers in Los Angeles. Most use Quark, some use InDesign, but when submitting final documents, all require a simple PDF file. It doesn't really matter how you make it so long as it's set up according to the printer's request.
I've been using Quark for 8 years, I'm used to it. Some community colleges refuse to teach it because it's so expensive. The choice is really up to the consumer.
I've worked with a wide variety of printers in Los Angeles. Most use Quark, some use InDesign, but when submitting final documents, all require a simple PDF file. It doesn't really matter how you make it so long as it's set up according to the printer's request.
I've been using Quark for 8 years, I'm used to it. Some community colleges refuse to teach it because it's so expensive. The choice is really up to the consumer.