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Quark vs Indesign

I would agree that one major point is that InDesign comes with CS3, so you're buying Photoshop and Illustrator anyway, so ID is included.

There is also excellent integration with the other Adobe apps -- drag and drop support -- and you can import native PSD files. Combine this with Adobe Bridge and you have a seamless workflow.

In terms of printers taking Quark or InDesign, both programs can export to PDF or Postscript, with all printers can take, so that's not really an issue.

For new users, ID is very similar in function to Photoshop/Illustrator, so the learning curve is relatively small in comparison.
 
jerryrock said:
I don't quite know what you mean here. Quark version 7 edits linked photos using Photoshop just as InDesign does. Both programs have vector drawing tools.
Click to expand...

I think he means that there is a basic image editing panel in Quark:

piceffectshe1.gif


Whereas InDesign lets Photoshop do most of the work as it should. As most people who use Quark will use/have Photoshop anyway it makes this feature less important. InDesign does however have the same layer effects (multiply/overlay etc) as Photoshop available to apply to its objects, which can prove very useful.


One reason I started using InDesign against the wish of my employer was the need to design full size artwork for banner displays. Quark has a ridiculous size limit on is layouts, which means you have to make things half size and print at 200% or worse. InDesign, and other Adobe products don't set stupid limits.

Same goes for undo functionality - Quark sets a limit of 30 (I think) whereas Adobe runs until your ram runs out pretty much (or so I have read and experienced)(numbers not certain, so don't have a go at me for inaccuracies please)

As for vector capability, both have it, its just that InDesign implements the advanced pen method that Illustrator uses and Quark has a far inferior (but will do the job for most things) version.
 
decksnap said:
What is the CS3 activation bs?

I haven't run into it yet... but you've got me wondering.
Click to expand...

Well, with CS2 you register and that's it. Not so with CS3. The system now somehow remembers that you have send and activated your copy 2 times (say on a laptop and a desktop) as it is allowed. If you buy a new computer and want to run it there you have to deactivate one of the 2 installs first.

So while this generally is no big deal, what if your laptop is stolen and you can't deactivate it? What if your computers hard drive crashes and you can't deactivate? What if you have to reinstall your system and you forget to deactivate, or can't do so anymore?

You have to call Adobe, wait on their hotline until anybody shows up, and hope that they are kind enough to believe your story.

And any of the above szenarios is one where every professional has a more or less big problem anyway, and time is important. In such an extremely frustrating situation I'm sure it's great fun to have to deal with Adobe tech support.

I understand that they want to prevent their products from being pirated, but please not at the cost of the paying customer.

What's next? You only can use CS4 when you are connected to the internet?

Sorry for the rant. :eek:
 
abrooks said:
Ok it has been asked a million times but I'm looking for clear concise reasons from all aspects of the industry on why one is better than the other.

I don't want any pointless insults or personal insults, so lets keep it clean people.

Round 1 *ding, ding, ding*
Click to expand...

I think the best case I've seen for InDesign over Quark was presented in The InDesigner PodCasts. The examples of where significant savings in time and frustration in your workflow can be made over doing it "the Quark way" are quite convincing. I'm sure there must be something Quark does better than InDesign, but Adobe have been adding significant improvements and features to InDesign while Quark looks like it is almost standing still. If they don't do something soon CS4 could bury Quark (if Adobe don't screw up). Which would be a shame. Competition is good (for us).

And then there is the fact that the entire CS3 Creative suite (which many probably are going to buy to get PhotoShop and Illustrator anyway) costs less then Quark and comes with InDesign.
 
For me it was purely convenience. I was starting right as Indesign became Indesign and they started the CS suite. Had it been sooner and I learned on Quark, maybe I'd still be Quark.

I have run into print shops here in Thailand that don't accept Quark files. Not all, but there are some. They love their adobe files over here for some reason.

Paul
 
I used Quark at college, university and now in work. It's simple to use and fast in creating projects. 7 is far superior to 6.5 and there are some nice new features. The interface is a bit old fashioned though and just redesigning the icons to bring them up to date would be nice (minor I know, but Q7 still looks like Q4).

There are some missing features though - I would kill for an alignment/pathfinder palette as seen in Illustrator.

Quark 8 isn't too far away though. They're hurrying up the releases now and I suspect Quark 7's job was purely to prove they were still in the game. Quark 8 needs to make some big progress though and bring the program into 2008.
 
I think the bottom line is that competition is good for the industry and designers in general, but InDesign will continue to gain market share as long as Adobe continues to make and improve their excellent software.

I don't see Quark going away anytime soon, though.
 
Align and Distribute

AlexisV,

I agree with you, Quark Xpress 7 has quite a few nice and long awaited features. Quark Xpress 7 has been a great upgrade for me. It has been stable and pretty speedy too.

You said, "There are some missing features though - I would kill for an alignment/pathfinder palette as seen in Illustrator."

Quark 7 already has an Align and Distribute options. When you select two or more items the Align and Distribute options show up in the measurements bar. Sometimes I had to hover the mouse over the top center portion of the measurement palette to force the Align options to show up. I too have wanted this feature for a long time. As far as patherfinder option, I don't see Quark adding that kind of functionality because that is more of a vector program tool (used in Illustrator, Corel Draw, or Freehand). I think it would be handy in a layout program too but I just don't see them adding it. We can only hope for it.
 
I agree...
I know companies that still use Quark, and it is very utilitarian.

InDesign is so amazing though, and much more versatile in the things you can do with it. Plus if your familiar with Photoshop or Illustrator, you should pick it up rather quickly. Especially the CS3 version...they've added some effects (that can be applied to text as well as other objects) much like you would see in Photoshop.

Good Stuff. :D
 
I have been a Quark user for about 10 years but last week I made the jump to InDesign. The reason being that Quark has always been a very buggy and primitive application in my opinion. Unfortunately Quark was the only real option for page layout back when I started studying graphics so I grew up with it.

Every update though 4, 5, 6 and 7 have always been an absolute waste of time on Quarks part because they seem to introduce even more bugs without fixing the last lot while still seemingly managing to introduce only medioicre new features and never allwing backwards compatibility. Take version 7 for example. Its main selling point is transparency. There are more but lets take this as an example.

For 4 months I have been working on a catalogue for a client using Quark 7 - the first job I've done in Quark 7 since upgrading from 6. When it finally came to PDFing the document, every single image had a 'halo' around it where the binding box should be. All the images had alpha masks to cut out the image in quark and the binding box colour was set to none but the binding box could be seen by this 'halo'. I spent days trying to figure out what was causing it and how to fix the problem. It turns out that Quark 7s biggest selling point doesnt work and creates halos of the binding boxes of any item that touches any item that makes use of the 'opacity' function. This has been confirmed by a few people on Quarks support site.

I had designed the catalogue so that there was a background image covering the entire page on each spread and then placed semi transparent boxes on top to depict different sections of the catalogue and allow greater contrast of the text over the background image. Because I used the opacity function to do this every image that sat on these boxes i.e. all 500+ of them had this problem and after much searching of Quarks support site and various other places the only thing I could do was to not use transparency any where at all in the document and this included all the drop shadows on every image I had used because this also uses Quarks transparency technology and also causes this halo effect. Apparently its something to do with the way Quark 'flattens' transparent objects when PDFing. It has to slice them up and such which causes these boxes to appear because it slices using a spoon and a flip-flop.

Because of this bug I lost a lot of money because I missed my deadline and I have this week completed my first job in InDesign after opening InDesign up for the first time ever last week. It is so easy to pick up if you know Quark already and are familiar with Photoshop or Illustrator. Its kind of a mix of both. I am cheesed off I didn't switch over sooner, I always intended too as it is clearly the way the wind is blowing. Quark has remained stagnant for a very long time and the smell its giving off has finally pushed me away.

After using InDesign for a week I would say avoid Quark at all costs! :)
 
Glad to hear you're loving it like the rest of us! :D

I have to say my favorite thing is being able to use a gradient feather (even to a placed image).
 
Nicolecat said:
Glad to hear you're loving it like the rest of us! :D

I have to say my favorite thing is being able to use a gradient feather (even to a placed image).
Click to expand...

I haven't got that far yet but I'm sure it won't be too difficult to figure it out. My main reason for not switching was because I thought it would be hard to learn but it is an absolute breeze. I had to call a mate though to ask how to turn off the guide box thingies. In Quark F7 gets rid of the guides and the object boxes but in InDesign they are two different things. :)
 
The biggest problem with Quarks handling of transparency is that it has to flatten the transparency when a PDF is created. InDesign on the other hand can keep the transparency native. This allows the printer to fine tune the PDF for correct output and avoid your halo issues that you were having with Quark
 
Transparency

macstudent,

You said, "The biggest problem with Quarks handling of transparency is that it has to flatten the transparency when a PDF is created. InDesign on the other hand can keep the transparency native. This allows the printer to fine tune the PDF for correct output and avoid your halo issues that you were having with Quark"

I am surprised that you would think that this is a problem. Quark Xpress flattens the transparency on PDF files because that is what many RIPs and workflows require. I have seen tons of problems created because InDesign doesn't flatten the transparency on PDF's. Everything that gets printed has to go through some kind of RIP or workflow in order for the printer to make film, plates, or to be sent to a digital press. Quark's approach is that many printers aren't the most technologically advanced companies and so they want to make their PDF's in such a way that they will work with many different RIP's and workflows.

InDesign has lots of nice features and lots of designers love it. Many of InDesigns features are aimed at designers with little regard to prepress. Quark Xpress is more prepress friendly when compared to InDesign. That might be why Quark XPress flattens the transparency.
 
I got a question for everyone, how do you migrate Quark Files to InDesign?

Phew someone posted this, so I wont have to make a post.
 
Transparency

macstudent,

I understand what you mean about maintaining the transparency in your files as long as possible and I agree with you to a point. It is important to keep the transparency in your layout file (your Quark Xpress file or your Indesign file or even your Illustrator and Photoshop files) that way you can apply changes with relative ease. The whole idea of sending PDF's to a printer is that the PDF's are complete. There shouldn't be any need to change things on PDF's except on some rare occasion. If changes do need to be made, it is usually preferable to make the changes in the original file instead of the PDF. Plus as I mentioned before, printers charge a crazy amount to "adjust" your files.

The link you posted was interesting but you have to take what Adobe says with a grain of salt. Adobe is out to make a profit and so they will make statements that support their software solutions. Just because Adobe says something, doesn't mean that it is always correct in the real world. In an ideal world, every printer would be using the most up to date software and the most recent RIP's and workflows. In reality, many printers are using old RIP's or workflows that can't handle PDF's that contain transparency. In my experience, Adobe only deals in the "ideal Adobe world".

I like Adobe and while I think many of their products are great, they are not infallible. While many people here will tell you how bad Quark Xpress is, Quark XPress is a great product. Without Quark XPress, you wouldn't be using InDesign. You would be using PageMaker. I'm just a little sad that the government allowed Adobe to buy Macromedia. No matter how much I like Adobe's products, I think that the lack of competition will make for a lack of innovation in the their future products.
 
MechaSpanky said:
macstudent,I'm just a little sad that the government allowed Adobe to buy Macromedia. No matter how much I like Adobe's products, I think that the lack of competition will make for a lack of innovation in the their future products.
Click to expand...

Adobe holds no monopoly and they will make a good, but very quirky, program much better. The last thing we need is for the government to start telling successful companies how to do their business.
 
Competition

IgnatiusTheKing,

You said,"Adobe holds no monopoly and they will make a good, but very quirky, program much better. The last thing we need is for the government to start telling successful companies how to do their business."

That is an interesting perspective. So you think the government shouldn't have anything to do with companies as long as they are successful? Maybe they shouldn't have to follow the laws either as long as they are successful. Yes, Adobe doesn't have a pure monopoly but in many areas they are the only game in town.

I don't have a problem with Adobe buying Macromedia I just think it is strange how the government can deny some mergers and allow others. When Macromedia was a separate company it forced Adobe to compete. Competition is at the heart of capitalism and I think competition is what makes companies better. I just feel that there is a lack of companies producing professional level graphics software and I think that the lack of competition is not good for the consumers.
 
Quark vs Indesign

I am the pre-press production manager in a large printing firm. I can only make comments on how we have been impacted, and cannot or will not comment on other situations. The company that I work for receives files from many sources (we have a minimum of 1,000 clients we service)... most of which is now supplied as PDF (perhaps about 85% PDF - 15% Native). Of the 15% open native files supplied to our firm, about 2-3% of that is QuarkXPress. Furthermore, when I examine the document properties of all the PDF's we receive, I find that 9 times out of 10, the PDF was created from Indesign. In my twenty years working in the print/publishing industry, I have witnessed a dramatic turn around in the publishing/design marketshare. Quark was the only game in town, especially when Pagemaker still existed, but when Adobe bought Pagemaker, and started rebuilding it... the writing was on the wall.
 
chaosbunny said:
Well, with CS2 you register and that's it. Not so with CS3. The system now somehow remembers that you have send and activated your copy 2 times (say on a laptop and a desktop) as it is allowed. If you buy a new computer and want to run it there you have to deactivate one of the 2 installs first.

So while this generally is no big deal, what if your laptop is stolen and you can't deactivate it? What if your computers hard drive crashes and you can't deactivate? What if you have to reinstall your system and you forget to deactivate, or can't do so anymore?

You have to call Adobe, wait on their hotline until anybody shows up, and hope that they are kind enough to believe your story.

And any of the above szenarios is one where every professional has a more or less big problem anyway, and time is important. In such an extremely frustrating situation I'm sure it's great fun to have to deal with Adobe tech support.

I understand that they want to prevent their products from being pirated, but please not at the cost of the paying customer.

What's next? You only can use CS4 when you are connected to the internet?

Sorry for the rant. :eek:
Click to expand...

I know this is an older thread that just got resurrected, but I wanted to mention that I have CS3 and this activation business does not seem to be the case. I believe it may be because we bought multiple licences/upgrades?

I was worried when I clean installed to a new drive about going back and deactivating the old versions, but following the online instructions, the deactivation option simply does not exist in my version. So, I just installed it on the new one without any problems.
 
decksnap said:
I know this is an older thread that just got resurrected, but I wanted to mention that I have CS3 and this activation business does not seem to be the case. I believe it may be because we bought multiple licences/upgrades?

I was worried when I clean installed to a new drive about going back and deactivating the old versions, but following the online instructions, the deactivation option simply does not exist in my version. So, I just installed it on the new one without any problems.
Click to expand...

Good for you! :)

I had problems like I described last year 2 times though, and each times it was almost 2 hours on the phone. Maybe they changed something in the CS3 activation since CS4 is now out for a couple of months, or I was simply unlucky.
 
MechaSpanky said:
That is an interesting perspective. So you think the government shouldn't have anything to do with companies as long as they are successful? Maybe they shouldn't have to follow the laws either as long as they are successful. Yes, Adobe doesn't have a pure monopoly but in many areas they are the only game in town.

I don't have a problem with Adobe buying Macromedia I just think it is strange how the government can deny some mergers and allow others. When Macromedia was a separate company it forced Adobe to compete. Competition is at the heart of capitalism and I think competition is what makes companies better. I just feel that there is a lack of companies producing professional level graphics software and I think that the lack of competition is not good for the consumers.
Click to expand...

Thanks to the resurrection of this thread, I just noticed this reply. And no, that's not what I meant.

I meant what I said, that the government has no business sticking its nose in the business of a company that is not a monopoly. I said government intervention is the last thing WE NEED because governments make successful businesses unsuccessful.
 
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