Two more reviewers weigh in with postive marks on Quark's improvements
Two recent XPress 7 reviews have caught our eye here at QVI; one pubished in Quark’s back yard and one from across the pond. Both give XPress 7 high marks and credit for working to close the InDesign-XPress gap.
Glad Tidings from Two Continents
In his review of QuarkXPress 7, Michael Apuan (reviewing for the News-Sentinel but published by the Rocky Mountain News, holds forth on the improvements in XPress 7, giving it credit where he feels it’s due.
Recieving positive marks were improvments to the palettes (particularly the refitted Measurments Palette), improved type rendering, compostion zones and improved pricing. He does mention that improvment could still be had in the 30-undo limit, the magnification and reduction limits. His verdict: the improvements have been worth the 3‑year wait. His review can be read here.
QuarkXPress 7 was also reviewed by Tom Arah for the UK’s PCPro.com site. His review speaks highly of the palettes as well, along with mention of the increased PSD Import functionality, improved PDF exportation (with newly available PDF‑X capabilities), improved transparency and drop-shadow generation, Job Jackets and JDF, amongst other things. As the reviewer says, “Throw in a major reduction in the standalone price and a good-value upgrade, and it’s clear Quark has not only heard all the criticisms but acted on them. QuarkXPress certainly isn’t going down without a fight. It isn’t enough to cause a return mass migration, but it’s an essential upgrade.” This review can be read here (may require free registration).
A Bit of Wisdom
This closes in on the conventional wisdom we’re seeing. QuarkXPress 7 is turning out to be a strong upgrade which will keep it in the Quark vs. InDesign game–evening it up and surpassing it in a place or two. It’s unlikely to lure back any Quark refugess to InDesign, but it’s an important upgrade for Quark users. Whether it keeps Quark in the game depends on the market’s response–and what Adobe has waiting in the wings in the form of CS3.
Are you surprised?
The product is good, Adobe is disappointing by not having a universal application out…
Feels like a Deja Vu,
only the other way round (when OS X came out).
Peter
Well, I’m not surprised, only in as much as QuarkXPress 7 is a very much improved XPress.
In my own personal opinion, exclusive of any other writing I’ve done here, XPress, though improved, has lost its vaunted position as DTP king and has to share the throne with InDesign. Locally I have no problem finding service bureaux that accept InD, and the want ads are heavy with requests for InD sikills and not so much on Quark.
In as much as Adobe has no Universal Beta yet, I really think that that’s a strategic decision on Adobe’s part. My guess is that Adobe sees more sense in coming out with a Universal version of CS3 than retooling CS2, which is destined to be superseded by CS3 in less than a year now. I have no way of reading the mind of Adobe, such as it is, but if I were in charge of Adobe that might be what I would do.
You know, they could give me a free puppy with every copy of Quark and I qould never, ever go back. They have harmed their reputation beyond repair and I cannot forgive.
As I see it and have read things (and as a generalization here), it appears many of the ID zealots were never much of the QXP world to begin with. They were mostly bitter PM (Adobe) users who were forced to use QXP at some point in time due to PM’s demise. The Adobe/ID rescue ship finally arrived and they gladly jumped on and the world is better off as a result. I wonder of the ID numbers today had Adobe still kept PM on the shelves and upgraded? Farewell Jeff (such drama)!
Morgan,
Adobe bought Aldus because they wanted K2 – the program which eventually became InDesign. Aldus started developing K2 when they realized PageMaker would never stand the test of time. The K2 code was started completely from scratch and always meant to replace PageMaker. InDesign and PageMaker were never meant to coexist side-by-side, so I’m confused as to the point you’re trying to make.
Drama, eh? Drama was what happened with every third Quark document when one had to jump through hoops to keep them from corrupting. Ever taught a quark class? Imagine the productivity drop when each class some student would end up losing a file because of bad programming.
I gladly jumped on board after V2 of ID because I could accomplish things as I planned to and didn’t spend time fixing things without undo and layers to assist. Yes, all those features have emerged in some form, but I have already worked out another solution with the competitor.
No big loss for Adobe. No program can run natively on the new Intel Macs until Leopard comes out anyways. This is why you don’t see much performance gain on the new macs, despite what Apple claims. This is a much different scenario compared to the late entrance to the OSX by Quark.
That’s absolute rubbish. 10.4 is completely intel native, and always has been. Adobe is the only major software company left to release it’s intel mac strategy. it will hurt them, but it will probably hurt apple more, as people defect to PC’s to run adobe stuff full speed.
I don’t think it’s that cut and dried. A number of people are unhappy that Adobe’s not going to come up with a retooled CS2, but I think that’s pretty canny, actually, because what I think they’re doing is putting all their time and effort into making sure that CS3 is rock-solid for MacIntel.
They could, I suppose, reengineer CS2 (or 2.3) for MacIntel, but since you’ve got a product that’s already fairly tight as it is, why mess with what’s already working.
I suppose I’d rush over to MacIntel too if’n I had the budget for it…
Ah my apologies Tom. You’re right, Tiger does run native on Intel Macs. Please ignore my rubbish. Samuel, I’m also waiting for CS3 before getting a new Mac. I was thinking of switching when it first came out, then I decided to wait. Mainly because of Adobe, but now I’m glad since the core 2 duo wasn’t available then. I better start saving ‑_-
The idea of upgrading to CS 2.3 is tempting…
Probably best to wait for the MacIntels, indeed.
Trying out Quark XPress 7.1 after using InDesign for the past two years. Reminds me of that scene at the end of GWTW where Scarlett O’Hara says that she will never go hungry again:
“As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never use InDesign again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never use InDesign again.”
Jeff and Company…
I’ve been teaching a QuarkXPress class every year since 1993. I keep hearing about Quark files going belly up (every third one, or something like that). It’s never happen in my classroom. What gives?
There are a lot of reasons any file from any application can crash or cause a crash. I’ve been using XPress on my personal machine for years now (my personal version is 6.5 and I only had to solve one serious crash problem, that involved reinstalling an XTension.
I, for one, have heard of no “every third document” crash or anything resembling it. It’s probably a local problem, and impossible to say what without more details. You might want to pose the question in the Quark forums if you can’t find the answer here.
I’m a professional with a commercial printing company. My bonafides: I am “old” (i.e., typesetting w/proprietary systems such as linofilm, compugraphic, quadex, etc.… actual use of DOS 3.0, the smell of wax and carbon tet … learned PM and Quark simultaneously). I have to deal with whatever files “my” customers send on both peecees & macs; design is small % of my job now.
My personal preference is Mac OS X 10.4.8 and Quark 7.1.
My “bud’ is chief designer for a local college (Mac Lab was dropped due to poor IT support … ID promoted heavily). ALL pub work, however, is done on a Mac and in Quark … yes, he’s a dinosaur, too … in the Real World.
i myself have never used any version of Quark or ID. What would you guys recommend to a newb? Ease of learning probably being my deciding factor?
That’s kind of a tough question to answer without at least one fact: have you had any experience in any layout program at all? Any DTP experience? Even as basic as MS Publisher?
Okay, I’ve been “using” InDesign for a couple of weeks now. Heard it was so much better than Quark. But I used Quark from the beta version in the 80s through 2001 – then didn’t do layout at all for a few years. Before I go back (oh, how I want to!) I need to hear from a Quark veteran. Does 7.1 look enough like 4 that I would feel at home? Or has it changed so much that learning InDesign would be as easy, or nearly as easy, as going home…?
I now do most of my work in InDesign but I use QuarkXPress 7.1 on occasion (we used QuarkXPress 3–6.5 up to a year ago). A few observations that might help you:
1) QuarkXPress 7 builds on QXP 6.5’s interface. I think there are a number of improvements that makes QXP 7.1 easier to use than earlier versions.
2) If you try to use InDesign as you used QuarkXPress, you will be unhappy. I strongly recommend that QXP users trying out ID should buy at least a book intended for switchers (there are 2 good books out there and it is worthwhile to buy both; they do not take a long time to read). Getting some training is also a good idea because ID approaches many issues differently than ID.
As to which is better? It depends on a number of issues, including what kind of work do you do. Working in the magazine business I find that ID’s approach to stylesheets and master pages is way beyond what QXP has to offer (I have seen no improvements in this area since QXP 4). OTOH I’ve read comments from people focused on other areas of graphic design to prefer some new features in QXP.
Your point is well made.
While InD and QXP are meant to do essentially the same thing, they have different ways of going about it.
Both programs require you to put content in containers, but InD calls them “frames” while QXP calls them “boxes”. While the containers behave in the main similarly, each program treats them just a little bit differently, and QXP needs you to create them before importing content while InD allows you to create them as you import.
Another example: while both allow you control of the way text flows around other boxes, InD calls it “Text Wrap” (with its own palette) while QXP calls it “Text Runaround” (and you have to access the Modify dialog box to change it)
One can say one is better than the other if one wants; on a basic end-user level, to me, it’s the same as Coke Vs. Pepsi. Any bureau can accept both output files; if you make them PDFs it doesn’t matter which application you use, on a certain level.
It’s always been my personal view that if one can, one should be as proficient in both programs as one can, if possible.
You make a very good point. Whichever program you use it is time to submit PDFs to your printer. We switched to a PDF workflow before upgrading to QuarkXPress 6 (from 4.1) and it made the transition easier. When we later switched to InDesign our printer didn’t know the difference.
But it is important to have the proper PDF tools so you can preflight PDFs so you can be sure that they meet your printer’s specs.
I have used both programs for quite some time and depending on what I am going to be creating determines which program I will use. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I am a little hesitant on upgrading to Quark 7. Seems like any change tends to screww up everything. But I am content with both programs right now.
Well, from my experiences with the public beta I’d say that having 7 on your system probably wont mess too much up. I was able to run the 7 public beta alongside 6.5 and my CS3 apps (Mac OS X 10.3.9 at the time) and didn’t have problems or conflicts.
I note that Quark is now allowing both a 6 and a 7 license to co-exist on the same machine, so they may well have fixed whatever problems that there were.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but I’d say it’s at least checking out.
I’m a professional graphic designer. I’ve been a Quark user for more years than I can remember. It always been quarky, but you learn to adapt and over time over come all obstacles. So what I want to know is do I need to switch to Adobe ID to keep up with the changing times? Note: Good designers will always be good designers. And software only as creative as its user.
Personally speaking, I think it’s important to keep a foot in the worlds of both of the major players if you can.
I know that seems a little ambivalent, and I’ll cop to not having the same experience as you, but, from my own POV, the two strongest trends I’ve seen, is that InDesign will increase in popularity, but Quark shops seem to want to stay Quark shops–for whatever reason; familiarity, upgrade, whatever. For the near term, we seem to have a world that has two big players–knowledge of both platforms should be seen as essential, in my view.
Quark seems to be seeing the logic of giving its users collaborative tools (Composition Zones) and access to open standards, as well as giving them the tools to do more than just layout (Quark Interactive Designer). On the other hand, CS users have had those features for a while now, and with the CS3 constellation, more opportunities for print designers crossing over to web and interactive have developed.
If I had to choose a horse right now, I’d look to whichever publisher seems to better understand the apparent move to mobile platforms. I think print will aways be here (it appeals to something that is basic to human nature, and you don’t have to recharge a book) but more and more content is going to be on screens of all sizes, shapes, and mobilities.
I have my view. But take a look at what’s hot and what looks like might stick around–and decide which company meets that challenge.
i’m a graphic designer and i’m using id cs1 and quark5(i know, not the newest versions but they’re both doing well for my jobs). my favorite is still quark. it’s imho more intuitive to use than id.
Well, whichever program you prefer to use or work better in, you owe it to yourself to get a look at what the current versions do.
I’d suggest that you download trial versions of each and give them a go. You won’t be committed and you’ll have an idea of what you’re missing out on which, when it comes to both QuarkXPress and InDesign, is quite a lot.