Meanwhile, I’ve learned to use InDesign server together with the Adobe CS apps to drive a Xerox iGen, a high-volume full-color POD printer. And it’s big fun ! With a bunch of special Xerox plug-ins, this machine really rocks ! And it would be too difficult to merge that kind of creativity and data in XPress, since these plug-ins benefit from the suite as a whole.

Creativity meets collaboration, integration and sheer production.

Adobe’s main product is Photoshop anyway. That’s what drives their revenues and that’s when stock prices goes up (new version released). At least it was like that for year. It’s been replaced with CS, but still…everyone knows which applications have priority.

JPEG…naw. It has it’s purpose. :)

sorry for the typo. I don’t proof read, guess I could be a 21st century journalist.

But, seriously: I think we can bury the Adobe vs Quark hatchet for a few moments and agree on one thing: just about everyone in the creative industry has NO love for Microsoft. And no wonder, their products have consistently been junk—Mac OS dumps on Windows from such a dizzying height that I get vertigo just thinking about it… and Publisher? There’s a dog of a program for you! And could somebody explain to me why MS Word takes up more RAM on startup than Photoshop?

In any case, I don’t see how they would establish a new document format without also launching imaging and publishing software at the same time. How would they force creative professionals, who are using Adobe CS and Quark, to publish their documents to an MS format? What’s more is that every impositioning system I’ve come across uses PDF to do its magic with; are printers going to spend thousands of dollars for new hardware and software, just because Billiam Gates says so? I think not.

Anyway, Microsoft has said that NONE of the projects that they have in the pipeline are intended to compete with Adobe, so put your pants back on, Peter T.

Well, Quark can interpret it however they want. I like it when company has a sense of humour. It’s a good thing.

Peter, everyone wants open source formats. It’s not just China and India. Open source is hyped so much these days. It doesn’t matter. PDF is set to become ISO certified and it’s free to implement, unless you’re Microsoft. :)) I don’t care about it. It’s just hype. PDF will not vanish over night nor will Flash. Adobe’s multi billion corporation and has funds to innovate. Even if your prediction turn out to be true (and 99.9% wont be the case), who’s to say a technology Adobe devolves won’t replace current formats? The formats that were devloped 20 or so years ago are still strong so I don’t see any reason why either PDF or Flash would be dead in 10. Things don’t change that quickly.

Besides, who says Quark won’t be around. Let’s hope it does stay. The recent push from Quark - making XTensions free, lower cost of software, free manual, education license changes…are just saying they are adapting. Slowly, but they are. I doubt they’re doing it because they want to make things right and hate charging customers for manuals and stuff…it’s because they feel the heat and Adobe hit them where it hurts the most - students. I’m glad they’re doing something about it. I hope they release greatest ever v8 which blows ID away. It will only make Adobe innovate more and force them to give more back to its customers. Competition is healthy thing. I just don’t like low shots myself. I don’t mind one going against other on forums or in comments on the sites, but I certainly dislike when there’s open attack from official source bashing the competitor. It makes one look very unprofessional. That’s just me.

Microsoft replacing PDF…maybe one day. As Windows user, I certainly wouldn’t mind having it in Windows without buying additional software. But … Adobe won’t give up easily. Microsoft gets sued all the time and taking that DTP industry uses Mac platform as a standard…switch won’t either be fast nor pleasant. Adobe’s so far ahead with Acrobat. Microsoft will have to put in years and years of development after shipping first version of their format to catch up with it. And knowing how slow DTP industry is to adapt (most are still on Quark 4 and systems that were out in mid 90s) I don’t see Adobe going away anytime soon.

Quark is here to stay…sorry it bothers you so much. InDesign was last one to the party…but he who laughs last, laughs best.

Also, Adobe’s Postscript patent is expired so that’s not an issue and Microsoft has a PDF killer in the works, rumor has it.

FYI: China and India aren’t really into Adobe’s proprietary formats and will be seeking open source and global open standards as their long-term document solutions so don’t bet on Flash and PDF even being relevant 10 years from now.

Actually, C, M, and Y are the primary colors of pigment, bucko. CMYK=process color, in which color space the vast majority of all printed items in the world are produced.

Listen: stop holding granma Quark’s hand, and come out and play with the cool kids—get wise to InDesign.

Adobe, the word is even older and Spanish but it still means Mud Brick.

Anybody who knows color knows CMYK is an artificial colorspace with no relation to reality (primary colors) and thus susceptable to “Color Management” and interpretation.

I had a look at IT Enquirer’s half-hearted “apology” for the errors in their report. The whole comment regarding the fact that the 2 programs produce different CMYK values when converting from spot colors is truly pathetic. Anyone with any printing experience anyway knows that the final appearance of any printed item rests on the shoulders of the press man, and not just on the digital file (these guys will—or should—always adjust the ink densities for the various colors in order to produce the best looking print). The upshot of this is that the CMYK values that the software produces are not necessarily the same as those in the finished product that rolls off the presses.

In any case, who the hell can say that Quark’s CMYK colors are “more accurate” than Adobe’s? Sounds to me like these guys are another bunch of Quark whores, turning tricks on the streets of the publishing world.

Even more amusing is what Germans call their special, home-grown cream-cheese–quark, which is properly pronounced “kuhvahrk” (or at least as close as I can get in a comment), a fact which has been long acknowledged by Quark in the glossary to its user guide.

Let it never be said that Quark doesn’t have a sense of humor about things.

Names are important and carry weight whether you admit it or not.

I wouldn’t be so confident in dissing Quark in the long run…you never know what forces in the Cosmos may be on their side. 100 years from now it’s entirely possible they’ll be saying “Adobe who?” oh yes they were replaced by open source in 2011.

What kind of name is “InDesign” and who came up with it? It seems truly ridiculous to me but I guess I’m not “In.”

When Quark implements those as out of box feature, then ok, but until it doesn’t you shouldn’t be comparing it to barebone ID if you really want to give pros and cons. Also, QID costs money and acts like plugin (that’s what I’m saying), while many ignore that you can do a lot and more in Flash which is also separate program, but unfortunately does not act like ID plugin. Yet, everyone praises “QXP’s” ability to produce Flash content and taking it against ID.

It is future and Quark is working on it. I agree, but who’s to say CS4 won’t have same features? I am certain Adobe works on these things for years now as well. They write code in an afternoon as well. I’m sure they do market research what to implement in their software. They listen what they customers NEED and do it. I’m sure if collaboration in ID is really THAT bad and customers require it, they will implement it. But for now, that too hyped feature is not as crucial.

Yes, he reviewed it. But also skewed results. It’s not that hard to test areas one application is stronger in. I do know Quark is good and has some features ID doesn’t, but ID also has its features which surpass Quark. Yet, only a couple of them are included in test (tables and PDF export).

Transparency is great, but how many times do you actually make one letter in a word transparent in your projects? It is time saver and can be applied on any object, a huge plus for QXP I agree, but if it’s not used often then productivity gain in real world won’t be nowhere that high. Who’s to say that most people can’t do those things just as easy and fast in Photoshop and Illustrator and import in ID.

It’d be better to compare program to program and their main features. Quark users laugh and put down ID for having Photoshop effects, which QXP lacks, and say when you need those you use Photoshop instead not QXP. Who’s to say that I won’t prefer to use something else instead of drop shadow and skew in QXP? If I use those features often are crucial to me, I can make a script to automate things anyway. The beauty of ID (don’t know about QXP) that you can do many things several ways. It’s up to you to do it the way you like it.

Personally, those aren’t big deal to me. I don’t make things transparent…it looks cool, but for reader it’s pain. Less fancy effects the better. That’s just me.

“The International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress Organization (CIP4) is a not-for-profit association and is registered with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission as a Standards Development Organization. CIP4 is established in Switzerland, it has no regular offices; rather is a global organization with representatives in several countries. CIP4 brings together vendors, consultants and end-users in the print communications, Graphic Arts industry, and associated sectors, covering a variety of equipment, software, peripherals, and processes. Members participate in focused working groups to define future versions of Job Definition Format (JDF), to study user requirements, and to design a JDF Software Development Kit (SDK). Currently the CIP4 Organization has 310 members.”

Alas, Adobe is but 1 member.

Quark’s JobJackets are much more than JDF files…they are active technology for enforcing and updating documents to conform to specifications…like FlightCheck on steroids.

As for InDesign server…it is somewhat of a joke in comparison to the multi-threaded, industrial strength QuarkXPress Server (has a 6 year lead on it) which can render hundreds of documents simultaneously and comparing a server tech to a desktop tech is lame also.

If you want to go there then you need to learn about QPS (Quark Publishing System) which is the defacto leader and has been since the mid nineties in editorial workflow collaboration…putting any Adobe-based offering to shame. It’s one reason the Quark DESKTOP application rocks the collaboration so much harder than ID…