Comments on: Quark: Adobe's Best Friend

by: NK

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:32:39 +0000

Hey all! I’ve worked for about 10 years designing for print (mostly stationery, mailers, etc), and when I got involved in publishing, I cut my teeth on Indesign 1.5: what a pleasure! Each successive version brings more fluidity and elegance to the workflow. A while back, I was forced to use Pagemaker for a customer’s layout… “Michael H” says “they’ve all got shortcuts”, but for those of us humanoids born with only 2 hands, “Shift+Alt+F7″… - give me a flippin break! At another time, when our bureau merged with another office, I tried learning Quark 5 (more like, Quark zealots tried to force it, Anaconda-style, down my throat). What a crock! Painfully complicated and meticulous ways of performing simple tasks… blergh. Quark is kind of like a benign mole - it’s less painful and less of a hassle just to leave it alone… this is why companies don’t do themselves a BIG favour and upgrade (YES, UPGRADE) to InDesign. Which brings me to a related rant: Macromedia Freehand (and Fireworks, for that matter) should also “jump on the grenade just to DIEEEEEE!” (thanks Pravin for this gem)

by: Jon

Fri, 19 May 2006 22:30:54 +0000

Yes, it’s easy to beat on Quark for some of the comments of previous management, but Quark now helps to keep Adobe honest. Talk about monopolies, without Quark, what creative area wouldn’t Adobe own? InDesign users, whatever you think of Quark or QuarkXPress, if it goes Adobe can do whatever they like…. Now that is scary!

by: The Donegal Express » And pretty soon, I’ll make assistant manager, and that’s when the big bucks start rolling in. –Maurice

Wed, 17 May 2006 18:30:07 +0000

[…] Quark. They haven’t gone out of business because God has a sense of humor. […]

by: Keith

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:32:10 +0000

Ok, let look at it like this. Productivity. That is what will make or break a company. Now, Adobe is giving CS as a suite which IT people are thankful of (One serial number, cheaper costs easier upgrade paths) which offsets the costs of Modular software thinking. Here are the facts.
(1) Indesign is cheaper overall for publishing houses to purchase versus buying PS, ILL, ACR, then QUARK serperatlely or buying CS2. (2)Faster to install 1 Suite then individual packages and easier for IT staff to support and maintain due to 1 serial number 1 set of discs 1 box.
(3) Easier workflow with CS2 than trying to USE Qack (yesI speeled it like that, like a lame duck, like their ugly GUI). Such as shortcuts, interface (GUI), Version Cue and Bridge. You get the picture.
(4) By workers using PS, ILL, ACR, they get use to 1 user interface, figuring out Qacks lame excuse for a GUI takes away from productivity. Face it. Look at the print Dialog box if this is hard to grasp. If you are paying 40 designers to browse through a clunky interface, in 1 year’s time you would have offset the cost of switching over in wasted labor and uneeded mouse clicks.
(5) One company, One customer support, easier compatibility.
(6) Qack is very slow in the bug fix realm and slower than a snail’s pace at developing upgrades. Face it they sit around sucking what they can off the “Goold Old Days”. So staying with the times and the newest tech and trends is something Qack is NOT known for doing.
(7) Adobe bought Macromedia. So now you have Printdesign/Webdesign workflows. What is Qack gonna do? Come out with an Xtension that cost too damn much and doesn’t do enough? Or tell you that Web design is just a trend and is on the way out?
(8) Eight Track players were the most advanced at one time and it took a while for consumers and vendors to switch. Now find me an eight track player.
Qack is the 8 track. Adobe is the CD.
(9) Qark stable? Yeah uh huh and a postscript error is something Qack users never see. Adobe invented postscript. I think they know how it works just a little bit better than what Qack assumes it is supposed to be.
(10) The GUI. Oh how Qack inspires the masses in design just by looking at the most ugly and stupid GUI I have ever seen on any program. Also that GUI hasn’t had a major overhall since conception. Its about as ugly as a wheelbarrow full of frog crap coated in asbestos and lye. Drop the 8track, burn the leisure suit, and remember, Microsoft has even upgraded their GUI more often than Qack. I see freeeware with more elegant GUI’s than this. YOu want me to pay this much foir something this ugly? YUCK. It’s in efficent, clunky, confusing, and downright butt ass ugly. It depresses people which cuts down on their productivity which doesn’t make the company they work for money.
You really want to know the truth….Look at the best designs, the latest and the greatest and you will see Adobe’s name all over it. Qack on the other hand can’t even get a decent website design. It’s even ugly but more up to date than the poor excuse for a GUI they have on their product.

LOL Those that still use QACK listen closely. Ever heard of the Dinosaur? Who gets hired now a days for using Compugraphic Typesetters? Better learn IND because Qack is in it’s death throes. That ship is sinking and everyone knows it. The question is how long before it slides completely under the surface?
Oh and to the guy who is too busy to open the box and Learn IND.
If I was your boss you would have already been Fired.
You would have sounded better if you clamied your dog ate the box.
Keep up with the times or you get left behind and in this corporate day and age of streamlinging and trimming the fat you bettter have something to offer the workforce besides excuses.
LOL

by: Samuel John Klein

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:13:23 +0000

Pattii has a good point here. Moreover she gives a certain form and shape to something additional that Quark has to work against now: InDesign’s momentum.

This momentum, as I see it, has two important parts.

The first is the buzz, the talk that’s powering that momentum. There are a lot of frustrated long-time Quark users who have made the cost/benefit analysis and, as evidenced by the number of big publishing names (notable amongst them the BBC and Playboy magazine) the thought of converting workflows over to the competition is nowhere near as unthinkable as it once was (nobody went from Quark to PageMaker after Adobe bought it and improved it).

The second is that, for those who have switched, they now have a monetary interest in making it work. I’m certainly no businessman (at least not yet), but it seems common sense that, even at the CS’s lower price and good value for the dollar, converting a publishing house over to it from Quark is, in three words, ex-pense-ive. Not only will the prudent executive keep the shift in place for at least long enough to justify the expense. Not just that, but it behooves whatever management who lead the drive for the change and made the decision to make it work. It seems save to presume that in some cases, someone’s job may be hanging on it.

Pariah has said that the next round of releases, Xpress 7 and CS2, could decide it either way. I, in the main, agree. But I wouldn’t expect those who’ve switched over to go running back to Quark, at least not right away; they went thought a lot in time and effort to switch to a new workflow, and the onus will be to make that pay off.

And, when a poster talks of former XPress partisans who are now enthusiastic CS users, makes statements with good points about CS’s usablility and smooth integration, and says, straight out, that when Quark dies she will “be there with my shovel full of dirt for the grave”, then it seems to me that even if Quark has a quantum leap and reinvents the wheel, it will *still* have its work cut out for it.

It’s tough to beat mindshare like that. Quark may have friendlied-up its policies and is rediscovering innovation, but CS has stolen momentum.

by: pattii

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 17:47:07 +0000

Well, Michael H., if you wait for Quark “to pull it’s head out…” and I’ll finish that with “…of it’s own ass.” you’ll be dead before it happens. Our publications department of about 40 people switched to InDesign. Half did it with the intro of InDs 2.0 the rest bit the bullet with the Creative Suite.

Though complaints here to switch From QK to ID, were numerous (some angry and upset) when I announced it was going to happen, I could see into the future well enough not to change my mind). However, switchers did not say InDesign was difficult to use and NOT ONE has said they wish they had Quark back. (The only help I provided, was purchasing DVD’s from “Total Training” for the extra timid. Which some opted not to watch— they just fudged around in InDesign and learned it.)

They have thanked me for forcing them switch. Interestingly, some of the most greateful now, were the most stubborn Quark supporters before.

In addition, using the entire Creative Suite has simplified their job demands. The similarities and seamlessness of the appllications from concept to completion, (be it press, PDF, or web), is a faster, smoother process.

As the “Nike” shoes once said “Just do it!”

Quark was horrible to work with, esp. from an IT point of view, and unsupportive of clients. When Quark dies, and it will, I’ll be there with my shovel full of dirt for the grave. You can bet on it.

by: Michael H.

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:46:03 +0000

I began on Quark “back in the day” (v2 on a Mac) , then used Pagemaker on a PC for a few years, then back to Mac for Quark for 4 years, then PC Quark for 2 years, now my new company (Mac Quark) is switching to InDesign CS.
They all have shortcuts, they all do somethings better than others, but they all prettty much do all things. I still love Quark , if I had to pick, but really they’re all tools. If you’re passionate about design, don’t EVER put all your eggs in one basket. InDesign’s kickin butt, now, but Quark could pull it’s head out, do an IPO, and fire the head, eventually climbing back on top. Or something new could come along. Then there’s Publisher (just kidding).

Viva Le Design!

by: Blind Energy