With cre­ative and pub­lish­ing tool mak­ers pro­mot­ing their prod­ucts, hyp­ing them more than ever, and some­times tak­ing pot­shots at the com­pe­ti­tion, it can be dif­fi­cult to see the for­est through the reams. Is InDesign or QuarkXPress bet­ter suit­ed to your needs? Are you doing too much in Photoshop when using Illustrator could increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty? Is your organization–and PDF–truly ready to go paper­less? Can your pub­li­ca­tion use InCopy out of its box, or must you look into a broad­er solu­tion like WoodWing?

These are just a few ques­tions fac­ing cre­ative, adver­tis­ing, and pub­lish­ing work­flows, both in agen­cies and in cor­po­rate pro­duc­tion depart­ments today. They aren’t eas­i­ly answered.

Once a font of use­ful infor­ma­tion, search engine queries on cre­ative prod­ucts and process­es deliv­er at least as much mis­in­for­ma­tion and con­fu­sion as reli­able data and clar­i­ty. Websites like Quark VS InDesign​.com help fil­ter some of the mud from the water, but even that inde­pen­dent resource can­not answer the ques­tion of which tool is bet­ter for your spe­cif­ic needs. Downloading eval­u­a­tion soft­ware is a good first step, but how effec­tive­ly can one tru­ly test out brand new soft­ware in 14-30 days? First one must learn to use the soft­ware, often from gen­er­al inter­est books that only touch on the basics, and then try to use it in sim­u­lat­ed work sce­nar­ios. What oth­er changes will need to be made to accom­mo­date the new tool? How well does it work with oth­er mission-critical tools? Will it work with your cur­rent assets like fonts, imagery, and oth­er media, or will you need to upgrade or con­vert them, too? If media must be con­vert­ed, what tools are need­ed to effect the con­ver­sion and how much clean-up work will be required? Can the new tool work with lega­cy doc­u­ments, or must they be recre­at­ed by hand?

Our objec­tive work­flow con­sul­tants can help you cut through the hype and clut­ter to present a clear view of the true impact of a migra­tion on your workflow.