I’m making the choice NOW for my little publishing company whether to buy ID or Quark. The designers would love to have ID. If we choose ID, what indepth questions should I ask my printers to get them to think about the issues upfront B4 we are about to go to press?

Any comments would be v much appreciated.

Yelyah

First, you need to realize that printers are resistant to change. They’ve had to use Quark for a very long time. For the, Quark works, so the prevailing mentality is: If it works, why fix it? When designers get more creative power and freedom, it makes printers’ jobs harder. It forces them to upgrade hardware and software they’re trying to hold onto as long as possible.

You’ll likely hear complaints from your printers. Don’t heed them. Make the decision that works for you, your designers, and your future. Quark is dying—more through the efforts of Quark’s management than Adobe’s InDesign. Think about your investment in terms of training and overhead for the next five years. Your printers will adapt to the decisions you make, rather than you adapting your business to their don’t-change attitude.

Being by asking about their RIPs: What level of PostScript is supported? Both IND and QRK can use PostScript 1-3, but the work is much harder for your designers if the RIP doesn’t do PS 3.

Ask if the RIP(s) handle true Adobe PostScript, or if they’re optimized for Quark PostScript. Quark outputs “dirty” PostScript, and RIPs optimized to work with it have trouble with the real thing.

Ask what file formats the RIP can handle. Avoid EPS. If the printers are worth their salt, their RIPs handle PDFs. If so, then they needn’t have InDesign on hand; your people can send InDesign-exported PDFs to the printer for output.

Still, you should get your printers to purchase a copy of InDesign so they can work with your IND files and packages when needed.

If you choose InDesign, teach your designers to work with the concerns of the printers. Teach the designers to use the Separations and Overprint previews in InDesign CS. Have them proof before sending to press. This will save your printers many headaches, and make them more willing to work with you and InDesign.

Cheers from NZ.

Indesign is just a far better, much more modern product. Quark is not much better since 3.3 for 10 years ago.

Too little, too late. Sure true.

Indesign rules!

I have switched to InDesign but every now and then a client insists on Quark—and I’m almost to the pont of refusing to use Quark even for them. Quark has a pathetic app that now won’t even open a doc I spend hours on today. They have NO customer support worth trying and their prices and updates are a joke.

To the companies and printers who are “stuck” with Quark… get unstuck—NOW. Bite the bullet, fork over some extra $ to Adobe and you will be much better off—it’ll save you money in the long run by not having to pay Quark’s extortion level prices, lost hours and morale from creative staff members suffering with crashes and bugs, etc. But more importantly, ID WORKS!

Thanks for a spot to rant, Pariah… let me know when you round up a posse to go pummel the already half-dead corpse of Quark.

Lertie:

My pleasure! Hmm. If we’re going to round a up a posse, we ought to do it soon. If we wait too long, we’ll have to travel all the way to India.

There is the QuarkXPress Mailing List, a decade-old e-mail list of (mostly) professional Quark users. Many technical questions get answered there.