In the latest issue of QuarkParticles, Quark’s online newsletter, is an editorial noting that an unidentified InDesign how-to book promoted by CreativePro.com, publishers of InDesign Magazine, was clearly created in QuarkXPress.
In the pre-trim sample chapter PDF, made directly from the final version sent to press, the cropmarks, registration marks, and page information is visible. In the page information is the name of the electronic file containing the excerpted chapter: “ch05.qxd.”
Though QuarkParticles doesn’t identify the book or the author noted as “an expert in both software programs,” nor does the publication provide the location of the sample chapter hosted on CreativePro.com, the truth isn’t difficult for an astute observer to discover.
The book is, of course, Galen Gruman’s Adobe InDesign CS Bible.
Gruman also wrote the last three editions of the QuarkXPress Bible (for Quark 4, 5, & 6), as well QuarkXPress For Dummies for the same versions.
Gruman could not be reached for comment at the time of this writing, [A statement from Gruman to QuarkVSInDesign appears in the comments to this post. –Ed.] but how he came to use Quark for laying out an InDesign reference book is not difficult to intuit. He has been writing and updating the QuarkXPress Bible much longer than he has been writing InDesign’s. Since the Bible series from Wiley all have the same format and style guide, Gruman clearly used his existing Quark templates rather than porting them over to InDesign. Still, it looks bad for InDesign, and it gives Quark incredible ammunition.
Considered one of the most comprehensive references for InDesign CS, the fact that Gruman’s Adobe InDesign CS Bible was built in Quark, however it came to be, is terribly embarrassing for Wiley Publishing, Inc., for Galen Gruman, and, most of all, for Adobe. Not only does Adobe make InDesign, but its Technical and Expert Support departments officially endorse the Adobe InDesign CS Bible, recommending it to Adobe customers.
If you care to see for yourself, CreativePro.com has made available the above pictured Chapter 5 from Adobe InDesign CS Bible as a downloadable PDF. Despite the apparent hypocrisy of its creation, the Adobe InDesign CS Bible is an excellent reference resource for InDesign CS.
Maybe it looks bad for InDesign for this one. I predict it will blow over.
The e‑newsletter “Quark Particles” is a strange little beastie. Tone makes a very big impression on me, and the tone of the newsletter is mild irreverence of a studied sort…so obviously studied that it’s a little embarrasing to read. This makes it a little hard for me to take seriously.
And the fact that Quark maybe thinks that I will take this as some sort of vote of no-confidence in InDesign…well, I find that a little bit insulting.
Actually, it was taken quite seriously by certain interested parties.
I’ll withhold further comment until I receive an official statement (or enough time has passed to safely say that no official comment will be forthcoming).
When this story first broke, I contacted the author of Adobe InDesign CS Bible, Galen Gruman, for a comment.
His statement includes a perfectly logical explanation:
Galen Gruman: “The publisher, John Wiley & Sons, has a standard publishing platform, QuarkXPress 4, so it produces all its books on it. I as the author have nothing to do with their platform decisions and it is misleading to insinuate by citing that book’s chapter that it means anything about the relative strengths of either program.”
Wiley’s still using Quark 4?
If you ask me, that’s the real news.
Nah. It isn’t that surprising.
Look at it this way: Quark 5 is considered by most to be an irrelevant maintenance release. Very, very few serious organizations spent the dough for Quark 5. It simply didn’t provide enough innovation or new utility to justify the investment.
Quark 6 is OS X only and it only saves back to version 5 , which, in a book publishing workflow, requires everyone from the editors to the proofers to the imposers to the RIP stations to be upgraded to Quark 6–or at least 5. Since 5 isn’t typically worth the investment, and 6 requires every station to be upgraded to a new OS–which also means buying new computers (for many) and upgrading all other mission-critical software in the workflow–many companies are electing to remain on Quark 4.1 until their budgets allow them to upgrade the entire workflow, hardware and software.
Besides: Look at Wiley’s books. I’m not knocking them by any means, but they don’t need the features of Quark 6. For what Wiley produces, Quark 4.1 does the job.
Quark 4.1 is still very stable and still very much a part of the publishing industries; most newspapers still run XPress and QPS 4.1, by the way.
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This is just more along the lines of Apple versus Windows, Mac versus PC, Word versus WordPerfect, dogs versus cats, roll the toilet paper from the top versus roll the toilet paper from the bottom, etc., etc., etc., (loosely quoting Yul Brynner in “The King and I”)… But it is a pretty big “Oops!”!!
It’s just the business and it.s called outsoursing, how I know!