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Hello, came looking for Quark info...

G

golgiaparatus

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2003
10
0
Tulsa, OK
Hi all,

Im new here :D I like the forum format. Of all the popular formats this is my favorite :D

Anyway, I came looking for bug reports on the new Quark Xpress 6. There are bound to be people here that have used the official release by now. Are the rumors true? Can it not open 4.0 files? Is it crash prone?

I feel like I'm having an early to mid 90s flashback but Im having a hard time believing all the "hooplah".

Bottom line. When Quark shows up in my office, is it bad to the point that I should send it back to Quark Inc. unopened?

I was excited to finally get Quark 6 so I could completely eliminate my unstable OS9 shell but after hearing all the **** that is being shoveled at Quark I dont know if it was the right move to jump at an OSX native quark.

Maybe I should wait a year or 2 and see where the industry is gong to move? See what Im talking about when I say early 90s flashback :rolleyes:
 
how do... ;) :)

Not that I've used it, but I would suspect that Quark 6 is X times better under OSX than 4 was under OS9...

As for trying it, as long as your company paid for it, I'd give it a whirl... what have you got to lose?? except maybe your work that is :p :p :p

I wouldn't believe all the anti-Quark sentiments you read, although most of the time they're justified... :p but the fact remains is that it's still the most popular DTP package on the Mac... so you should try it first hand and see what you think....

If you're not impressed, then go here...

http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/

Cos ID is really rather good!!

G
 
I run quite a busy creative operation here. I cant justify time on learning indesign.

Alas, Im probably going to get behind Quark because, well, its better for my business, but I will happily back up anyone that wants to say that Quark is a lazy company with the absolute WORST tech support in the industry composed of smarta$$ know-it-alls that dont know quark any better than I or the next competent designer does.

I keep hearig people say that Quark is going the way of Pagemaker but I think that is a very rushed statement. As of now Indesign is to Quark as Freehand is to Illustrator (i.e. a competent, respectable, fully functioning, extremely professionaly designed alternative). But Ill leave it at that :)
 
What we need is page layout applications to adopt a some sort of standard. I wish that it did not matter which application was used rather that the files were independent just as freehand and illustrators are. for example, text documents, I can open them in MS Word, Apple Works, Text edit, ect... sure they might not always be formated correctly but at least I can do it if I select to.

I think that one of Quarks flaws would be that it can't open inDesign documents. This would have been a humble move towards understanding that they are not gods of the layout industry.

As for Quark on OS X, I would also assume that it is X times better and that you should just give it a try, if you approach it with a negative feeling then you will most likely be disappointed, but also remember that they have added a bit, from my understanding, and there will be an adjustment to the new features. Also remember that inDesign is really easy to pick up, if you ever find that you need it, all the key commands are the same as Quarks. Our college abandoned Quark and moved to inDesign last year and it was a, for some, smooth transition. The ones that had issues had issues are the same ones that are using photoshop 4 and os 9 and just an overall lack of enthusiasm to learn anything new.

Oh, and weclome to the forum :)
 
Originally posted by zim
Our college abandoned Quark and moved to inDesign last year and it was a, for some, smooth transition. The ones that had issues had issues are the same ones that are using photoshop 4 and os 9 and just an overall lack of enthusiasm to learn anything new.

Oh, and weclome to the forum :)
Click to expand...

Your college abandoned Quark? I think it would be a monumental mistake for an educational program to give up on industry standard software. I only say this because I hire (or at least interview) new designers once ever 2 years or so and the resumes that dont include Quark experience go directly into my trash can.

Moving on...

Yeah, Im not too worried about learning the new features, thats a given with any new app.

As for the rest... Ill keep you posted.

- JB
 
Just be aware that most all of the major new england colleges including mass art and risd (rhode island school of design) abandoned quark for inDesign, I predict that this should have some seriously impact on boston and rhode island studios in the near future.

We did not make the move without doing a lot of research, and we stand behind our decision. We spent a year working on the switch, we have also moved to a completely osx lab, no os9 to be seen.

Layout is layout, it does not matter what application it was done with. Because students graduate with the concepts and abilities to preform "design" they should be able to migrate to what ever application the studio uses as a means of production. This process also helped us weed out the faculty who were just merely getting by knowing some quark and not really having anything to do with the design process, their favorite line is... designers should not learn technology, technology is for technologist not designers, sadly these "designers" lump learning software into technology.

Quark left the schools with no option, their prices were too high for us to stay legal and Adobe was making offers to help us out.

Personally, my new motto is to not buy into standards but into what gets the job done right, that is not a dig at Quark. We see that all over, Adobe leaving Premier due to FCP, video artist did not have an issue with that because FCP is superior but yet premier was seen as a standard by some. Things change and I think that inDesign is the best thing to happen for all, including Quark.
 
*sigh* I shall restrain myself from flaming Quark, but as a long time user (of Quark) and now recent (past 2 years) and devoted convert to InDesign, I say send that steenking box back and switch to InDesign...

<peerpressure> Come on, brother! Everybody's doin' it! /<peerpressure>
 
: jumps into the trench :

I used Quark all through school (AIB by the way, which is in Boston) and I always liked it; I was using it back at version 3.31. Version 4 had cool stuff like type on curvy lines (forgot what that's called.)

Since it wasn't brought to OS X (and the English version of 4 wouldn't run on a Japanese machine ..grrrr) I used InDesign too.

Now that it's out, I just may go back. Mind you, I've only used QE 6 for a few minutes, but all the tools and everything are all where they used to be and it brings back memories...
 
It's always good to know as many software packages as you can, that way you can can mix and match to achieve the best possible end result, but it also helps in situations such as freelancing or working client side where they might not necessarily use the same software as you're used to. Flexibility is key in these kind of circumstances.

I think what Adobe set out to achieve with InDesign is for Quark users to make the transisition to InDesign with the minimal of effort and pain, by designing InDesign with many similarities to Quark, both in layout and functionality, but to take the usability to the next level, something where Adobe excel.

Ultimately if you can work Quark and Photoshop/Illustrator, you can use InDesign, they all share inherent operational characteristics.

But give Quark 6 a chance all the same, you might get on fine with it.
 
Originally posted by iGAV
It's always good to know as many software packages as you can
Click to expand...

Very true.

Originally posted by zim
Their favorite line is... designers should not learn technology, technology is for technologist not designers, sadly these "designers" lump learning software into technology.

Quark left the schools with no option, their prices were too high for us to stay legal and Adobe was making offers to help us out.

Personally, my new motto is to not buy into standards but into what gets the job done right.
Click to expand...

Also true :) I think that when designers abandon design and creativity for technical know how it just makes them a production "artist". Its a sad thing because creativity is the most rewarding part of what we do IMHO. But you have to look at it from a business standpoint too. You cant just call it growth and leave it at that. Bottom line is that what we do is about making a living, even moreso from our employers/clients point of view.

For instance: Lets say a student gets a job at a nice little studio in 2004 and he doesnt know Quark but he knows Indesign inside and out. The C.D. isnt going to give him brand new jobs to start from scratch. What happens when the C.D. gives him a 300 page catalog to make extensive changes, or maybe a publication, or a series of newsletters, and the files are in Quark? Unless I.D. can open and translate (with perfection) the entire document including all the little things like placement typography, and the bigger things like style sheets, etc. then the poor kid is going to be killing himself redesigning the whole thing, more or less, from the ground up. What does the C.D. tell the client when the job is not done on time, or is full of errors/glitches? How much money will the studio have lost in the whole process?

Anyway, Im all for growth, but you have to be able to see where Im coming from when I say that I dont think its wise for schools to be making this choice YET. If I were in the chair to make these decisions for an educational program I would have split the difference and would be teaching both formats like many schools did with Freehand and Illustrator. Making a complete swich... I think thats a big mistake for your students IMHO.

Moving to OSX though... Good call. I just wish all the vendors shared our view on this. They are scared stiff of OSX and for good reason.

- JB
 
golgiaparatus, I completely agree with you. I wish that the schools could have afforded Quark and inDesign but they couldn't. Ultimately in a perfect world, I would want schools to have Quark, inDesign and PageMaker simply because, the more the student knows, the better it is for them and their potential employer.

Quark makes the schools buy the Passport addition, the one with the dongle. Quark's reasoning for only allowing this version is that the dongle prevents piracy and that piracy is a problem within the Universities, this is true.

The passport version worked great up until the release of the non serial version of the mac. Quark recommended the iMate USB serial converter, to solve our problem. The Quark dongles with the iMate worked great with OS9 but did not work with OSX. Quark blamed iMate, iMate blamed Quark... it was ugly so after a year of dealing with it, we decided to look at the other options.... if was right around then that Adobe came and knocked on our doors and offered a deal.
 
Man, I dunno what to say but, bummer for the kids. The job market is already tough, them not having the opportunity to learn industry standard stuff makes it even harder.

Have you guys thought about having some kind of extra tuition for the art students. Kind of like books... I mean if each kid payed $400 at the beginning of the whatever semester it was that they had to learn Quark then maybe you could afford it? It just seems so important to give up on.

I dont know all the ins and outs of what is required for a school to purchase X amount of Quark apps though so Ill shut up about it.

As for Quark... It really seems like a horrible business move not to cut the schools a break. I mean, in 5 years if all the art schools are teaching ID because they cant afford Quark then in 15 years quark will be all but forgotten. Not that they dont deserve it.

Adobe is playing their cards right for sure. Im sure Quark will change their attitude in a desperate manner when their stock starts to fall like a rock.
 
If you know indesign then you should be able to grasp quark, they aren't completely different. I had to learn Quark on my fist day on the job and could pretty much do anything with it by the end of the day, it was that easy. I still love quark though, best app available. I know people who think it's complicated and don't like it, but to me Indesign is more of a pain in the arse than quark ever was.
 
best chance i have ever got was working in pre-press. you get to know every piece of software on every platform. professionaly designed word docs (*oh noo, you take it, i have this very important.....!*) to very nice *real* layout documents (adobe, quark, corel... whatever) from well known designers.

btw. you get a real-life benchmark every day (... but you don't want to know the results, believe me). schedules were pretty tight so speed was very important... lets leave it to that.

although the job was not very creative i learned a lot and still can use it now as a graphic designer and i know what could (and possibly will) go wrong in a print-house

have a nice day!
 
I agree with the above post. Every designer should work at a pre-press house or printer. Where I worked, I saw some of the most bizarre jobs float through our workflow. We had this one job - a simple Freehand illustration - that simply would not print. It kept locking up the RIP. Turns out, every time the designer would start over she would draw a white box over her work and begin anew. 84 "layers" later the document became to complex to image. I don't miss the pressure but I do miss the camraderie born of that pressure.

Have a great weekend all!

- David
 
Originally posted by DavidFDM
Turns out, every time the designer would start over she would draw a white box over her work and begin anew. 84 "layers" later the document became to complex to image. I don't miss the pressure but I do miss the camraderie born of that pressure.

Have a great weekend all!

- David
Click to expand...

Wow. She musta been a real dolt.... Good story, David. Thanks for sending that one up.
 
For those of us contemplating the move to Quark 6, Creative Pro has a good review which can be found here here .

I recommend this review, because it addresses the issues in the new program that are making people nervous, but it's also reassuring (the reviewer comments on the reported bugs but seems to have a stable version himself). It also references a lot of features with their Indesign equivalents.

My opinion? I unsuccessfully tried to move our office onto Indesign 1. This was a calculated risk as the price we purchased Indesign with their promo offer was a tenth of Quark's price. (You have to understand that normally Quark is approx $1000 more expensive than Indesign in Oz).

I found Indesign 1 to be a great program despite the rumblings of many, but I found our staff to be afraid of making the switch, and so didn't bother to properly learn it. In the end their arguments against Indesign were copied from people they talked to, rather than their own experience. Ironically, when they are cursing Quark in their day to day work, with the "why can't Quark do...?" they unwittingly pick a feature which Indesign can do.

Needless to say I am a happy part-time freelancer with an Indesign 2/ OS X workflow. But at my main job we are still at OS9/Quark4 – but ordering the G5, OSX, Quark 6 thing as we speak... with a few copies of Indesign for those projects that Quark 6 can't do.
 
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