Comments on: Quark Starting To Care? http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/ The Authority for News & Opinion on the War of the Desktop Publishing Giants QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:37:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.11 by: Pariah Burke http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-139 Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-139 Addendum: I thought I'd share the comments I left on Quark's survey. In addition to honestly ansering their multiple-choice questions--some were favorable--I left this in the comments section: <div class="blogquote">“Trying to squeeze every little penny out of customers--reference the $50 manual, the lack of sales incentives in Europe, the outrageous "new version" price for minor revisions with new whole numbers--is not the way to build brand loyalty.</div> <div class="blogquote">Quark used to be a good product and a decent company. Unfortunately, I think you got cocky. When you made that audacious jab at Adobe by offering to buy it, you made a real enemy in Adobe. InDesign is Adobe's revenge. After alienating its user base and killing any good will that might have carried you, may don't think Quark, Inc. will survive beyond the next three years.</div> <div class="blogquote">Top layout application for over a decade. You had a good run. Good bye.”</div> Addendum: I thought I’d share the comments I left on Quark’s survey. In addition to honestly ansering their multiple-choice questions—some were favorable—I left this in the comments section:

“Trying to squeeze every little penny out of customers—reference the $50 manual, the lack of sales incentives in Europe, the outrageous “new version” price for minor revisions with new whole numbers—is not the way to build brand loyalty.
Quark used to be a good product and a decent company. Unfortunately, I think you got cocky. When you made that audacious jab at Adobe by offering to buy it, you made a real enemy in Adobe. InDesign is Adobe’s revenge. After alienating its user base and killing any good will that might have carried you, may don’t think Quark, Inc. will survive beyond the next three years.
Top layout application for over a decade. You had a good run. Good bye.”
]]> by: Pariah Burke http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-140 Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-140 More comments on page two: <div class="blogquote">“LISTEN to your customers. This survey is a good first step, but you really should read and listen to what your users have to say. The specifics are important, because most of the market knows you don't listen to them. Fewer think you'll be around much longer.”</div> More comments on page two:

“LISTEN to your customers. This survey is a good first step, but you really should read and listen to what your users have to say. The specifics are important, because most of the market knows you don’t listen to them. Fewer think you’ll be around much longer.”
]]> by: Pariah Burke http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-141 Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-141 LOL Quark will never read the above comments. The fourth and final section of the survey is broken. The entire survey gets tossed if the submit button on the fourth page isn't pressed. The fourth page won't load because Quark misprogrammed its Cold Fusion form. Beautiful! Quark Sucks! Quark Sucks! Quark Sucks! Quark Sucks! LOL Quark will never read the above comments. The fourth and final section of the survey is broken. The entire survey gets tossed if the submit button on the fourth page isn’t pressed. The fourth page won’t load because Quark misprogrammed its Cold Fusion form.

Beautiful!

Quark Sucks! Quark Sucks! Quark Sucks! Quark Sucks!

]]> by: Tuttle http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-142 Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-142 I admin an ad agency with about 40 seats. We've only upgraded a couple to Quark 5 and one to 6 (product activation brings Quark to a whole new level of support suckitude) in favor of moving our users to Adobe's CS suite. I've been receiving tons of email and a few calls from Quark virtually BEGGING me to upgrade our old 4 installations. They'll give me a 5->6 upgrade for $99! They're always kind of stunned when I tell them that's still $99 too much. And having just this moment finished wasting an hour of my time salvaging a corrupt Quark document with Markztools and sweat; I must say I'll be damned before I encourage further use of that piece of junk on any machines I have to support. Anybody EVER have to salvage an ID file? I admin an ad agency with about 40 seats. We’ve only upgraded a couple to Quark 5 and one to 6 (product activation brings Quark to a whole new level of support suckitude) in favor of moving our users to Adobe’s CS suite. I’ve been receiving tons of email and a few calls from Quark virtually BEGGING me to upgrade our old 4 installations. They’ll give me a 5->6 upgrade for $99! They’re always kind of stunned when I tell them that’s still $99 too much.

And having just this moment finished wasting an hour of my time salvaging a corrupt Quark document with Markztools and sweat; I must say I’ll be damned before I encourage further use of that piece of junk on any machines I have to support.

Anybody EVER have to salvage an ID file?

]]> by: Pariah Burke http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-143 Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2004/quark-starting-to-care/#comment-143 Tuttle: I'm sorry to hear about your Quark woes. Thanks for sharing them, but I'm sorry you experienced them. Welcome to Quark Disappreciation Society, Brother Tuttle. All chant: "Quark Sucks!" The good news is that, with an agency the size of yours, you should command enough respect from your print (etc.) vendors that switching to InDesign won't cause you the vendor push-back many of the smaller agencies and freelancers have experienced. Salvaging an InDesign file... Actually, occassionally InD files do get corrupted if the application crashes. Not with the frequency and almost predictability of Quark, but it does happen once in a great while. However, <i>it's no big deal</i>. InD automatically creates mini-backups of the last working doc while you're working on it. All you have to do is restore the backup to return to a fully functional, up-to-date .INDD file. InD creates mini-saves while you're working on the file every one minute (but deletes them when you hit save). See this <a href="http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/1fe96.htm">Adobe Tech article</a>. The only other problem with corrupt documents of which I'm aware is possible corruption when saving across a network or to removable media (rather than the local harddrive). The issue isn't unique to InD, but it seemed for a while to get the most attention with InD (maybe because so many people were used to Quark routinely fouling its own files). If you ever need it, you'll find info on that particular issue <a href="http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/1c882.htm">here</a>. Tuttle:

I’m sorry to hear about your Quark woes. Thanks for sharing them, but I’m sorry you experienced them.

Welcome to Quark Disappreciation Society, Brother Tuttle. All chant: “Quark Sucks!”

The good news is that, with an agency the size of yours, you should command enough respect from your print (etc.) vendors that switching to InDesign won’t cause you the vendor push-back many of the smaller agencies and freelancers have experienced.

Salvaging an InDesign file… Actually, occassionally InD files do get corrupted if the application crashes. Not with the frequency and almost predictability of Quark, but it does happen once in a great while. However, it’s no big deal. InD automatically creates mini-backups of the last working doc while you’re working on it. All you have to do is restore the backup to return to a fully functional, up-to-date .INDD file. InD creates mini-saves while you’re working on the file every one minute (but deletes them when you hit save). See this Adobe Tech article.

The only other problem with corrupt documents of which I’m aware is possible corruption when saving across a network or to removable media (rather than the local harddrive). The issue isn’t unique to InD, but it seemed for a while to get the most attention with InD (maybe because so many people were used to Quark routinely fouling its own files). If you ever need it, you’ll find info on that particular issue here.

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