Quark?

[ChrisPauwels]

What is the big infatuation with Quark that some companies seem to have? I have only limited experience with it but I was wondering why companies wouldn't just make the switch to Adobe Pagemaker or InDesign? Is there some big feature Quark has that I'm missing?

[rinaldidesigns]

I think Pagemaker isn't the contender against Quark, Indesign is. Quarks abilities to handle multiple page documents for years was the one and only.....now there's Indesign and a lot of Quark users are afraid to make the switch.... (but many have)

[ChrisPauwels]

I think Pagemaker isn't the contender against Quark, Indesign is. Quarks abilities to handle multiple page documents for years was the one and only.....now there's Indesign and a lot of Quark users are afraid to make the switch.... (but many have)

Thanks for the info. We used to have a very old version of Quark when I was was in High School. They used to use it to lay out the school newspaper. But they finally switched to Pagemaker before I graduated. To me it seemed like they were pretty close as far as operation and features.

[rinaldidesigns]

I think pagemaker is geared towards the business/home user great to layout brochures, simple documents........quark has many advanced features,(like style sheets, love them) something pagemaker lacks....so Adobe answered that with Indesign.....I may switch to indesign, just because I use all other adobe products, and would love drag & drop between all......

[Kalin]

Does Adobe really need to run everything? I think Adobe needs some competition from someone to keep better versions of their product coming forward. The reason Quark is preferred by most over Indesign is because It has been around longer and people have come to rely upon it and accept it as the industry standard. Besides... the little walking robot zapper in Quark that deletes objects is kinda cool.

[ChrisPauwels]

Does Adobe really need to run everything? I think Adobe needs some competition from someone to keep better versions of their product coming forward. The reason Quark is preferred by most over Indesign is because It has been around longer and people have come to rely upon it and accept it as the industry standard. Besides... the little walking robot zapper in Quark that deletes objects is kinda cool.

Well maybe I'll have to get a copy of Quark and play around with it. I just like to keep everything "Adobe" because of the drag and drop between programs. It helps me work faster.

[member_gone]

For years quark was my nr1 application for layouts and prepress. Then came opentype standard. Since i'm, from Serbia, where we have two alphabets (Serbian Latin and Cyrillic), quark was suddenly out of business. I've made a switch, it took much stress, but now i'll hardly go back to quark 7, even though it supports opentype now. Indesign is now my main application for everything that includes typesetting...

[pentool]

http://quarkvsindesign.com

[rinaldidesigns]

I have been apart of the beta for quark 7 on my intel mac, I must say, impressed

[w59cb83x]

I've never used quark. What's the major difference between them?

[Paasch]

I took both quark and pagemaker in college. Pagemaker is designed for home/small office use. Quark is geared for more professional layout businesses. At my work we use Quark 4.0, and after learning InDesign at home, I can't wait until we switch. But for a lot of companies, the switch can cost a lot of time & money. Think about it. If you've only used Quark and then get InDesign, you have to be retrained and your production efficiency has to be rebuilt.

[cdngrl333]

My first two years of college were spent learning Quark...then in my third year, Quark couldn't get their act together, and were unable to provide us with the new software our school had paid for prior to the start of the new school year. This also happened to many other colleges and universities in Canada that year. (Not sure about the US).

Apparently their customer support was atrocious...so most schools that had this problem decided to drop Quark altogether and concentrate on teaching InDesign.

Since learning on both programs, I must say that when I need to make a multi-page layout I reach for InDesign before Quark. I realize the industry has still got a thing for Quark, but I'm hoping companies will make InDesign their chosen software in time.

Jade

[bryantali]

I am a huge fan of InDesign. I used InDesign to create my last company's newsletter, and once the template was setup, other coworkers with no Adobe experience were editing the newsletter themselves in no time!

[chromeguy]

Pagemaker is designed for home/small office use. Quark is geared for more professional layout businesses.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Maybe nowadays since Pagemaker isn't really around, but back in the day, PageMaker and Quark were the only things around really for serious page layout.

I used Pagemaker for years, designing magazine ads and even putting together full fledged documents such as newspapers, magazines and books.

I had to learn Quark when I switched jobs a number of years ago and it was pretty easy to pick up and actually, I use Quark pretty extensively now - with some inDesign mixed in.

But I think Quark and Pagemaker were both professional programs in their day. I don't even think Pagemaker is around any more is it?

[adambender]

Im my opinion I like InDesign better. I have used both Quark and InDesign. I used Quark first, but I found InDesign was easier to use since I am also familiar with other Adobe programs and the interface is similar.

I find it integrates Iluustrator and Photoshop well, especially with Adobe Bridge. Either one will get the job done, but I find InDesign helps to smooth the process. I find it also handles creating PDF's like a breeze. I've had issues with Quark creating PDF's in the past.

That's just my two cents on the topic.

Adam

[mchen]

I also like Indesign better and do agree with adambender. Quark is terrible creating PDF's (most of the time something is missing like a picture or a page). I don't know if this happens to everyone but it sure happens to me a lot!

The only thing I would miss about Quark is that you could double click on an image to update it and/or open the original file to edit.

Right now where I'm working, we are still using Quark 4. The company have been talking about switching to InDesign but nothing has happened yet. But I would say that eventually most companies (magazines) will switch to InDesign. I went to many job interviews and although some of them still used Quark, they required a person with InDesign experience.

Well, this is only my opinion but who knows, maybe Quark will stick for another five+ years! lol

[rinaldidesigns]

Hello As far as Quark and PDF's go, Quark 7 is incredible at handling/producing, I actually was shocked because I know what it used to do(mash the file up when saving to PDF),......the problems have been fixed. I've been using quark since v2, and have to say, v7 is FANTASTIC! I think quark will be around for awhile, its a solid program and its recent version shows why it is a leader. Plus, it is native/universal for all those on intel based macs

[takethetrain]

Hello As far as Quark and PDF's go, Quark 7 is incredible at handling/producing, I actually was shocked because I know what it used to do(mash the file up when saving to PDF),......the problems have been fixed. I've been using quark since v2, and have to say, v7 is FANTASTIC! I think quark will be around for awhile, its a solid program and its recent version shows why it is a leader. Plus, it is native/universal for all those on intel based macs

i agree.. i played with v7 a bit and found it has gained enough features to compete well with indesign. like others, i tend to lean towards indesign because i am more familiar with adobe interfaces, but i am glad quark is still hanging in there. without quark to compete against, adobe developers might get lazy!

[adambender]

Hey mchen,

You can actually edit the original image in a similar way with InDesign. If you choose the direct select tool (white arrow) and right clikc the image there is an option to edit original image. It opens the appropriate program and updates the image automatically.

Just in case that was a feature that would stop you from switching sooner. I find it very very useful and nicely integrated with the Adobe programs.

I also like Indesign better and do agree with adambender. Quark is terrible creating PDF's (most of the time something is missing like a picture or a page). I don't know if this happens to everyone but it sure happens to me a lot!

The only thing I would miss about Quark is that you could double click on an image to update it and/or open the original file to edit.

Right now where I'm working, we are still using Quark 4. The company have been talking about switching to InDesign but nothing has happened yet. But I would say that eventually most companies (magazines) will switch to InDesign. I went to many job interviews and although some of them still used Quark, they required a person with InDesign experience.

Well, this is only my opinion but who knows, maybe Quark will stick for another five+ years! lol

[mchen]

Hi all,
thanks adambender for the tip! I really didn't know you could do that in InDesign.
there is still so much to learn about the program

I use Quark 6 at home and it still has problems with PDF's. Whenever I need to do a PDF and it doesn't work (which is most of the time!), I just get more frustrated with it. But I'm glad to know that Quark 7 has fixed this problem.

Mina.