QuarkXPress OS X Soon

[arn]

CNet expected a Quark announcement at Seybold:

Many in the publishing industry expected Quark to announce a release date for an OS X-compatible version of its dominant QuarkXPress software at this week's Seybold trade show. A Quark representative confirmed that the company is working on such software but offered no target dates.

Quark officials told MacCentral this week that they support Apple's upcoming move to Mac OS X only and hint that it will not be a problem... "We haven't announced a specific date, but we are working very closely with Apple -- they are aware of our schedule and we are aware of theirs"


Steve Jobs was also recently questioned about when QuarkXPress will come to Mac OS X: We expect some news from Quark in the not too distant future and that will take care of that problem.

 

[robotrenegade]

Quark smork

It's a nice program but Indesign is better.

 

[djkut]

Umm...

who cares.

 

[BillGates]

A lot of people in the prepress industry care. They care a lot.

 

[scottlee]

a switch of a different kind

I cannot believe Quark is taking so long. I work in the prepress and graphic design field, so I am very familiar with Quark and what it is capable of. Don't get me wrong, it's a good program but they have got to get with the times. For the last few months I have been using OSX whenever possible at work which amounts to 85% of the time, and have made the switch to InDesign as my primary layout program. It was a bit aukward at first, but I have been very pleased with InDesigns interface and features. This is no Pagemaker -ragemaker- and OS10.2 is so rock solid.

I give InDesign a 9 out of 10

 

[Screamingbeaver]

How is it?....

Hey Scottlee-
How was the swtich it InDesign? I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I too am in the prepress/design field and I use quark 80% of the time. I've tinkered with the the InDesign demo, however, I've been affraid to use it on live jobs. What kind of workflow do you use? Are you all digital? Are you a postscript or PDF workflow? Do you output strait to plate or film? Where do you handle trapping? Just courious how well InDesign has held up.

Thanks

'Beaver

 

[scottlee]

switch

I would say if you can, do some small simple jobs to get the feel for it. I work for a commercial printer using postscript workflow and Scitex Brisque (the Brisque takes care of trapping, output to film, using Preps). I had problems with the postscript, but our version of Preps is 3.5. To correct this, I wrote a pdf out of InDesign then from Acrobat I wrote a .PS

 

[djkut]

Originally posted by BillGates
A lot of people in the prepress industry care. They care a lot.

Um...I am in the pre-press industry...I wasn't saying who cares about a "new" page layout program, I am saying who cares about quark...

I think adobe should be doing some switch commercials of their own...

Ideally, I would like to see Quark and InDesign compete, driving the products foward...however the only one that's been driving is Adobe, Quark needs to get their ass in gear and realize that they can't just sit back and watch. People no longer have to use their software.

If Quark doesn't change, the industry will.

 

[nemo]

I definitely agree that Quark needs to get with the OSX game, add some features, etc. At the same time, I kind of appreciate that my layout program doesn't need to be updated every two years. I'd rather every feature be rock solid than be cutting edge. After all, it's a layout program and I need precision and reliablity. I don't care if it make drop shadows on objects or whatever. That's what I have Photoshop and Illustrator for.

 

[Screamingbeaver]

Well Said..

Well Said, nemo.

 

[Pepzhez]

Just goes to show how staid and ignorant the publishing industry is, waiting for this crap. Quark is an app that deserves to die: lousy interface, HORRIBLE company support, you name it.

I hate Quark more than I hate Cubase (which means I really, really, REALLY hate it!). I really think Indesign IS much better, and I also think that someone could do better than Indesign, if they tried.

 

[gopher]

Apple's now offering free InDesign with the purchase of a PowerMac.

 

[Screamingbeaver]

Well...

Okay Pepzhez, you get on that. Get a couple hundred programers and software developers together and slam out an app that 95% of the prepress and print professionals are familiar with. Not to mention the designers that supply work to these commercial printers. Quark is solid. It has been for years. ' nuff said.

 

[solvs]

We were just talking about this in another forum. We wound up talking more about Tanya Donelly and Julianna Hatfield. I empathize for those who HAVE to use Quark for some reason (believe me, they're out there), or those who aren't ready to switch. I hated Quark, AND PageMaker. My ex-boss was using MSWord (HA!).

InDesign was a Godsend. I have version 1.5 and a trial of 2 (soon to have a full version, maybe free if I get my new Mac before the rebate expires http://www.apple.com/promo/designfreely/ ). I'm just lucky I don't do a lot of page-layouting and stuff like that.

I hope this isn't too little, to late for old Quarky. You snooze, you lose. Especially in this economy. You couldn't pay me to use it at this point.

Reminds me of the time I was offered a free WinXP Pro CD, with serial key and everything.

I turned it down.

 

[DavidFDM]

The issue with Quark . . .

is that there are terabytes of old designs in designers' archives that get dragged out now and again. Clients will not pay for the designer to recreate the work in InDesign. I tried importing a newsletter into ID and was less than happy with the results. This is the main reason people hang onto Quark. I am going to do all my own work in ID now but the ad agencies I work with will continue to use Quark. It is just not profitable to switch old layouts to ID.

I am anxiously awaiting QXP for X. I want to be in X exclusively. It drives me crazy to bounce back and forth.

 

[nickgeppetto]

QuarkXPress OS X soon

Unfortunitly I live in Colorado and since it is Denver based I have to live in a market that uses Quark. So yeah finally a OS X version, but boo in the fact that they did it. I wish they dug their own grave in January. Go InDesign.

 

[shakespeare]

InDesign is a better program. Plain and simple. There are at least twenty features I use every day that QuarkXPress doesn't have, and InDesign is better-integrated with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat. I really can't sing the praises of InDesign (2.0) loudly enough. If you're a designer for print, you must have it.

What's more, InDesign can open XPress files. You don't need to have your clients pay to 'recreate' the old files in InDesign because InDesign can open them, usually so that they need no editing. (Sometimes text boxes need to be resized somewhat; it's never serious, annoying, or time-consuming.)

XPress' features are buried deep in unintuitive menus and it is altogether a very weak program. The press firms in my (quite large) city are all switching to OS X and InDesign. It's the coming standard, and if you're in the industry, you must learn it. It is simple and extremely powerful.

 

[Hemingray]

This whole InDesign being ahead of Quark is all well and good, but I'm the systems administrator for a graphic design company, and we're still using Quark 4.11. It's an ugly, miserable program, but it does the job. I haven't upgraded to 5 and I don't plan on it ever, since 5 is hardly worth the trumped-up price. I've still got everyone running OS 9.1. I don't see me upgrading the stations to OS X for another few years at least.

I may be in the minority here, but then again, maybe not. By the time companies like mine give OS X and developers enough time to mature in the OS transition, Quark will have gotten away with stalling this long to put out an X version of their software anyway. That's the really sad thing about all of this is that Quark knows they have a large portion of the graphic design industry by the balls.

If a company has trucked along for over 12 years using Quark, and it's worked for them, why should they change? Where's the motivation? I'm being the devil's advocate here, people. I personally despise Quark and their lacksidaisical development and support. But of all the programs for Adobe to win converts over to, this is by far the hardest one.

 

[scottlee]

I was always a strong Quark supporter and believed there was no other app that could come close to its features and reliability. If you give InDesign a chance and take the time to get comfortable with it, I think most users would be pleasantly suprised how nicely it works. I feel like I am in Illlustrator sometimes when I'm using ID.

 

[Bob Dobbs]

...about 1000 plug-ins. Thats why.

Love it or hate it, quark is a MUST HAVE (unless you are just getting started, then you can go ground up with indesign). Most service people i work with need / use quark, a few are just starting to add indesign to the mix, but quark is what they expect, and it will be for at least another year or two. yes its slipping, yes indesign is getting better, but i have about 7 years woth of layouts (adds, vid boxes, posters, even a few books) that DO NOT PLAY NICE when opened in indesign.

add the 1000 plug-ins, and i gotta keep quark (hell i even sorta like it). cant wait for X even if it breaks my plugs.

 

[Choppaface]

gotta have both. doesn't matter if you really like one over the other, that's nice, but if you're a real pro you're prolly better off taking the route of compatibility and getting both, and being fluent in them.

 

[reyesmac]

A little more than fashionably late

Took long enough, lots off people will switch from quark 3 and 4 to this and if it is not perfect in its point zero release, they will let quark know. I couldnt care less really. Everyplace I see Quark nowadays its running on a beige mac. Hope the people that will have to upgrade bring lots of money to Apple and can deal with OS X only on their machines.

 

[MacFocus]

We might switch but we can't

Well, we are a prepress company in the Netherlands and we might want to switch. But the problem is that it is not us who decide what we use. Our customers do. The ad agencies and the designers do. They deliver Quark doc's to us and we have to deliver Quark doc's in say 30% of our total output (rest is PDf or film) So do we have a real choice? Don't think so because as far as I know ID can't create Quark doc's.

Quark isn't to bad in it's functions (although ID might work easier) but it's stability is the real problem.

Guess I'm stuck with Quark.

BTW. Adobe Netherlands wanted us on their list of ID capable companys, but they didin't offer me any rebate...

 

[MacFocus]

Originally posted by Hemingray
This whole InDesign being ahead of Quark is all well and good, but I'm the systems administrator for a graphic design company, and we're still using Quark 4.11. It's an ugly, miserable program, but it does the job. I haven't upgraded to 5 and I don't plan on it ever, since 5 is hardly worth the trumped-up price. I've still got everyone running OS 9.1. I don't see me upgrading the stations to OS X for another few years at least.

I may be in the minority here, but then again, maybe not. By the time companies like mine give OS X and developers enough time to mature in the OS transition, Quark will have gotten away with stalling this long to put out an X version of their software anyway. That's the really sad thing about all of this is that Quark knows they have a large portion of the graphic design industry by the balls.

If a company has trucked along for over 12 years using Quark, and it's worked for them, why should they change? Where's the motivation? I'm being the devil's advocate here, people. I personally despise Quark and their lacksidaisical development and support. But of all the programs for Adobe to win converts over to, this is by far the hardest one.

You're right (sad but true)

 

[beatle888]

Originally posted by BillGates
A lot of people in the prepress industry care. They care a lot.

im in the prepress industry and i dont care.
i want people to use indesign. QUARK SUCKS
STICKY FARTS.