I think Quark is a goner. InDesign has an indisputable edge in that the top two graphic design applications in the world -- PSD & AI -- are its cousins.

Also I think a lot of designers who used Quark on a daily basis in the late '90s felt let down by the "upgrades" Quark put out between 4.1 and 6. I mean, there was a period of five or six years when we got nothing. Quark just took their kazillion dollars and sat on it. The only reason they put out 6 was that they needed a version that would run on OSX. As a daily user of Quark 6.0 (pity me) I can tell you it's not all that different than 4.

I can make it work. It still does what it was intended to do. But a combination of lack of innovation and ID's easy compatibility with other Adobe products make me much more likely to use ID than Quark when the choice is mine.

I would ask them which parts of the OT spec they implement that are not currently implemented in InDesign or Publisher. Particularly, if they hope to get JSTF or JALT support for Latin script fonts.

IMHO--I used to be the biggest Quark advocate on Earth. I had been using it since version 1.0. After a while, it became clear that Quark felt it had the market so locked up that it could do nothing and rake in money anyway. They felt they could screw their customers time-after-time with bad upgrade policy and dump out buggy software after years of wasted time. Frankly, I just don't trust Quark anymore. They have created a self-inflicted cancerous lesion on themselves which has festered into a total-body eruption. Their only prayer is if someone else would by XPress who actually cares and turn it into a viable product.
To answer your question, I would not touch 7 with a 10 foot job stick.
Quark is dead; long live InD.

ChrisL

I agree with John B. The soundtrack for the utter disappointment that the v5 and v6 "upgrades" brought was indeed the fat lady singing. When they released v6 for OS X, I looked, but felt that the price for upgrading from 4.1 was a complete insult.

IF they have good OT support, and IF they have a reasonable upgrade price for v4.1 users (i.e., $150), I might consider upgrading. However, InDesign and TeX have been great for me over the past two years and fewer and fewer clients are demanding Quark.

An anarchist publisher?
You think they would be open to some dissent on your part Tiffany

When I was In Phoenix recently looking for work I went in to two places where they were still using Quark. I went in to the Arizona Republic and they had me test on Quark 4 and I bombed partly because Quark isn't as intuitive to me as InD after using Adobe products for so long (and partly because i was in a car wreck on my way to the testing!)
I went in and worked for a print shop for a week or so and they were using Quark 6, which is an improvement upon 4, but still not as easy to use as InD. I don't think I personally will ever buy any version of Quark, but may have to pick it up sometime in the future... if so, i dread that day!
But to address your initial question, I do think that there is a substantial percentage of the design market that is stuck in the Quark habit and just hasn't discovered the wonderful world of InD.

I need both, and will continue to use both. I recently had a complicated 9-color monster job and found Indy would bog down. Granted, there are some odd embedded files.

Anyway, I had to redo the package in Quark 6 to get it out the door.

Clearly Adobe is the market leader, but with thousands of legacy files in Quark and workflows in place, I can't say I really care that much.

Indy does sometimes feel a bit slower to me. I do love the text handling and PDF workflow that seems much more solid when you only work with Adobe.

Hi Dan,

I assume your post is based in part on the fact that you will be meeting Quark reps I recall your mention of it in another post . . .

Having retired Quark with my print ad agency years in the mid-90s I no longer use any desktop publishing software and if I need to make a piece, it can usually be done in Illustrator . . .

I digress . . . As a foundry, I have been a technology watcher for many years waiting for an appropriate adoption rate of OT before I convert the entire library. At this point I have committed to this conversion and will begin the process in the coming year . . .

To that end however, the largest marker of OT adoption lies in Quark. It has killed me to wait for Quark to release an OT function aware application and frankly it has surprised me that Extensis never developed a plug-in that makes Quark OT function aware.

I think it may yield stronger sales for Quark if they introduce full OT function awarness. Imagine how long they've been teasing Art Directors with functionality they can't have!

:D

>I assume your post is based in part on the fact that you will be meeting Quark reps I recall your mention of it in another post . . .

Yes, and you can meet them too if you come to TypoTechnica. They'll be presenting XPress 7.

Believe it or not, A LOT of design firms still use Quark. I'm not sure if InDesign is the leader in the publishing category, regardless of claims. Quark is an essential and indispensable piece of software for any design firm that has been in business three-five years or longer. Quark is a reliable program that does what it does and does no more than that

Armin, you mean you don't love being able to place raw photoshop and illustrator files and update them on the fly. I guess your in love with eps and tif files. And those wonderful drop shadows and that transparency in Quark, oops they don't do that.

>Maybe we aren't the right crowd to be asked these questions. :^/

Like Tiffany and Armin are hinting at, we are an obviously pro-InD crowd, since many of us are type designers, and all of us are type lovers. And with where else other than in InDesign (or other Adobe products) can we test out all of those OpenType features?

But I suspect that the average graphic designer doesn't really even understand OpenType yet, what it is, how simple and unradical a change it presents to daily workflow, and what it shows of the future. This is something that, while marketing fonts, I think about alot. Education is still really important here.

As type designers and producers, it is important to remember who our users are, and what they can do. I like OpenType's features, and think that they should be in more typefaces. Honestly, it is less important to me which programs my customers users than whether of not they use the fonts I am promoting. Therefore, I welcome broader OpenType support.

The more typographically involved and aware people are, the more they tend to favour InDesign over Xpress, with few exceptions. So I suppose there may be large numbers of graphic designers who have only a passing interest in type as something one slaps on top of photos and illustrations -- certainly, there is enough evidence of such people --, who might not see the benefits of InDesign, or faults of Xpress, as clearly as we do. I'm often reminded of Dean Allen's characterisation of Xpress -- which he used for many years -- as 'anti-typographic'.

I've stopped using Quark for over a year, but I miss it, and am still much slower on InD.

I wouldn't say InDesign's big gimmicks, transparency and instant dropshadows, are very 'pro-typography'. (And OpenType doesn't deserve to be buried on a 3rd-level palette.) But perhaps my definition of typography is a little narrow and outdated.

As someone who likes to experiment by varying the type specs of a layout, the thing I miss most in InDesign is the ability, (which I had in Quark), to incrementally "nudge" the leading of a multi-paragraph piece of text, where each paragraph has different leading.

***

I have a lot of good clients in the newspaper business still using Quark. Often they use a mixture of Quark on Mac (with Type 1 fonts) for the front end, and a proprietary pagination program on some kind of PC operating system (with TrueType fonts) for the back end. Throw in a mixture of languages, and things can get pretty hairy. This is exactly the kind of situation that OpenType's "one font fits all" functionality is supposed to remedy, but it's one of the slowest area of the business to change!

I have used Quark since 1989, and stopped when InD came out. But InD and OpenType still have alot of ground to cover. This past summer I spoke at the Stanford Publishing Seminar and before my talk I asked for a show of hands regarding Quark v InD. 95% of the audience used Quark (these were mostly magazine publishers and editors, with a few designers scattered about). When I ased for a show of hands regarding OpenType, no one had ever heard of it. Now you may say that publishers and editors are not the target audience for OpenType and InD, but these are the people who more closely control a magazine's finances. And if their art directors are not pushing them for this stuff then it is still a way's off.
On the plus side, I know of at least two major international magazine publishing conglomorates who are slowly but surely moving to InDesign. One is interested in OpenType and the other is making the move for InDesign's XML tagging so they can reuse their content across multiple venues.

Nick, can't you just select the paragraph and change the leading? I'm almost certain it can be done.

Dan, where I work full time, we upgraded from QX 4.1 to QX 6. It's definitely worth it if you're in an OS X environment. It's also just a better program. But, for my freelance, I'm 100% InD CS. I didn't even install QX 4.1 (which I have at home) on my laptop, and I haven't had a reason to yet. I will not upgrade Quark unless I find that I can't interact with vendors/clients without it. Otherwise, there's little to no compelling reason for me.

QX 7 will have to output PDFs* as well and InD and have full OT features just so I'll consider maybe updgrading if I have to. QX 7 will have to blow InDesign away for me to go back. Adobe showed a real desire to listen and improve. Quark did not, and now wants us to believe they've changed. I believe it when I see it.

As for a question I'd ask the reps: How do you plan to compete with a company that is responsible for the bulk of the technologies necessary for digital print design? How will you make your offering more relevant to the direction we're going in both technologically and in terms of typographic sophistication, and why would I spend $1000 with Quark when I can spend the same amount with Adobe and get so much more?

*This is a big thing with my clients, many of whom I communicate with over email.

> Armin, you mean you don't love being able to place raw photoshop and illustrator files and update them on the fly. I guess your in love with eps and tif files.

The thing with photoshop files is that they are not optimal for printing, any image I create in Photoshop has to be saved as TIFs, so "raw photoshop" files do nothing for me. And let's not forget one of the grandest miracles of PS7: layered TIF files. Bam!

As far as Illustrator files, I find them hard to work with once they are in InDesign. This is probably just personal work habits, but I still prefer having separate EPS files that I work with in Illustrator alone.

> And those wonderful drop shadows and that transparency in Quark, oops they don't do that.

Transparency in InDesign is problematic for going to press. Colors are quite inaccurate and PMS colors do not translate at all (I think) when using transparency. If these technical issues are resolved in a sure-fire way then they would be quite enticing. And don't even get me started on the use of drop shadows

Armin, your statement regarding native Photoshop files not being optimal for printing just isn't true.

The magazine publisher I work for produces thousands of pages per month using PSD files as our main image format. Likewise, we use transparency and (gasp!) drop shadows on some of those pages with no problems.*

Setting up a reliable PSD/InD/PDF workflow is, as you put it, a matter of, um, doing it.

*We do occasionally have problems with spot colors and transparency. But since 99% of our work is 4C, this isn't a big issue.

To keep this post slightly on topic: Our company will buy a copy or two of QXP7 so that we can handle problem files supplied by advertisers in that format. But I don't see us returning to the Quark fold anytime soon.

Nick: Can you explain more specifically the effect you want and why you can't achieve it with InDesign? I'm sure the collective brainpower here can find a solution.

I've also had no trouble using PSDs as a graphics format going to press from InDesign. I've used this for duotones.

My problem:

Say I have one paragraph of 12 on 11, above a paragraph of 7 on 8, and I decide the whole shebang is too tightly leaded. In Quark, I just select both paragraphs and tap away at the "nudge" leading arrow till I've opened the entire text block up enough.

But, as far as I'm aware, that's not possible with InDesign -- you have to have a single leading value in your selection, in order to be able to nudge it.

Nick, assuming you're using some variation of InDesign's keyboard shortcuts (i.e., you didn't select the "Shortcuts for QXP 4" set in Edit/Keyboard Shortcuts), hit Option and the down/up arrow to increase/decrease your leading by the amount specified in Preferences/Units & Increments. (Yes, down = greater leading, up = lesser leading.) Works with paragraphs with different leading values.

Quark, for recent upgraders to 6, recently gave away a bundle of OT Linotype fonts, which seemed to me that OT facility is going to be included in an upgrade (or to frustrate Quark users into migrating to InDesign). It has also released an upgrade/plugin for importing layered PSD files with the ability to adjust the file in Quark and a PDF creation plugin. I have not had an opportunity to use these yet, I feel more comfortable using Quark as the assembly package for type and AI/Photoshop files.
Maybe someone has woken up to the threat and decided to make an InDesign-killer.

Thanks Marc!
How did you find that out? It's not in the manual.

Nick: Not sure where I picked that up. But when working with text, the Option/Arrow key combo is very useful:

Option Shift Up/Down = Baseline shift

Option Left/Right = Tightens or loosens tracking or kerning, depending on whether a range of text is selected or the cursor is between characters

I work at a large commercial printing company in the US, today we get about 85% Quark Xpress files, maybe 10% Adobe InDesign CS. Of the Quark Xpress files, almost all are Quark Xpress 6. So, I can tell you without question that Quark Xpress is still the industry leading page layout applicatio without question. I use both, whatever the customer wants.

Adobe InDesign CS is cool, but let's face it, it's way too bold with allowing designers to create a document that is sure to fail. I mean why would it allow a designer to feather images at a fraction of a pixel and with transparency layer them all up to the point an adobe rip won't output them. I see atleast 1 job a week that simply will not even output, rip, and trap. InDesign has gone far but is no quark killer, now that quark 6 is out, that's as far as adobe indesign will go.

Quark2pdf, is that 85% of all jobs received, or 85% of the native files your customers supply?

From your username I'm assuming you use some kind of PDF workflow. Do you actually check each PDF to see which application created it? My prediction is that more than 10% of the PDFs you receive were created by InD users.

Here's another unscientific way to judge market share: look at employment ads and count the growing number of companies that include InDesign as a job requirement. It's definitely higher than 10%, and growing.

I'm sympathetic to the printer's plight: they're at the bottom of the hill, and we all know which way the feces rolls. But to say an application shouldn't include features that can be potentially misused is silly. There were ways to create un-RIPable files long before InDesign arrived.

My two cents: As a graphic designer, I have also been using Quark since 1989. I have upgraded faithfully since that time and continue to use Quark for most of my print layout jobs. I have to tell you that I have never been satisfied with the price I have had to pay for the program, the crappy service or now the fact that I have two computers at home and am only able to install the program on one of my computers due to the licensing software limitations.

Recently, I have been using InDesign for layout and it's not half bad. I can tell you that up here where I am (Ottawa, Canada), most all of the design firms and big companies continue to use Quark. So do our main newspapers. The basic reason (they give me) is that they have hundreds and hundreds of archived documents (comprised of hundreds of pages) that are in Quark and the conversion over to ID is just too painful. That's understandable. Of course, there's also the learning curve on InDesign (which isn't that steep but still does require time, effort and money). We also have printers that are not as happy to take InDesign files - and that also deters use of the new product.

I look at our college and the young future designers who are learning both programs and they really prefer InDesign. If they are the new generation of design, then the industry is going to have to change: There's no doubt about it. There's also the fact that Quark charges $1000 for its single application whereas the entire Adobe Creative Suite costs about the same.

Regarding "features that can be potentially misued", one has to wonder why Quark included all those new tools for webdesign. I mean, does anyone ever use those tools? Now that's silly. As for me, I can't see myself getting the upgrade to Quark 7. I just don't see the benefit.

http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/tech_info/product_activation.html
Andrea,
If you are intending to only use one version at a time you can license it for both machines, for example, if one is on a laptop for external work.
Tim

I didn't even see that - Thanks Tim!!

I use InDesign for typesetting books and so far I have had no problems sending pdfs for print all over the world (read USA, Canada, UK and Israel). When Quark starts to support the typographic features that InDesign has had in the past 3 or 4 versions, then Quark would have a fighting chance, but in the meantime, when it comes to typography, Quark is now irrelevant unless the latest versions now have support for full ligatures, true small caps (as well as superiors, subscripts etc), old-style figures, symbol capitatisation, hanging punctuation, paragraph (rather than line) justification, contextual alternatives, swash capitals (need I go on?)

Maybe we aren't the right crowd to be asked these questions. :^/

I still do have one client, an anarchist publisher in Northern Cali, that requests all books in Quark 4 and are not looking into upgrading or switching and so being the obedient person that I am, I continue to keep Quark 4 on my machine. If, however, they so much as hint about switching to Quark 7, I will do my utmost to get them to switch to InDesign because that is what I do use now.

I recently spent a little over an hour on the phone with a Quark rep. They really wanted us to upgrade and were willing to upgrade even our non-upgradable versions just to get us to do it. I told them if we did any upgrading it would only be for two machines. Not even a drop in the bucket really. But they've offered us the deal twice now. I wonder how many larger (by quite a lot) companies are getting deals phoned in to them.

Pfft. Haha. They'd probably be pleasantly surprised.