A comparison of features and usage run by the tech web portal The IT Enquirer has Quark’s flagship QuarkXPress 7 beating out InDesign CS3, according to a release posted on SourceWire.
According to the release, a number of tests were run concentrating on the time taken to do similar tasks, and qualitative conclusions were drawn with respect to creativity, efficiency, and productivity. The results?
In relation to speed the report found that QuarkXPress performed better in 79% of the tests compared to 21% for InDesign. It was also determined that QuarkXPress 7 has better support for design departments where more than one person needs to control and manage the layout process by offering support for Job Jackets, Composition Zones and sharing colour management elements. InDesign CS3 was seen to have better support for fast table formatting and long-document features.
The release does give InDesign CS3 credit for interface and obvious access to creative tools, but notes that access to some creative tools involve invoking other programs, thus affecting productivity at least by the time it takes to activate those applications.
Readers are invited to judge for themselves: the report is available for free from this link (free registration to IT Enquirer is required).
The IT Enquirer’s main site is http://ww.it-enquirer.com.
I can’t see QXP THAT much superior as article suggests. Reviewer simply revolves around two features ID does not have – Job Jackets and Composition Zones. Not having spent much time with QXP 7, I can’t be judge myself, but JJ are far from perfect implemented and do not appear as groundbreaking as as they are marketed. This is from Quark’s own user group and I can see benefit of composition zones in multi user environment. However, I can speculate a small percentage of users actually work this way. ID does the “same” the same as QXP Job Jacket feature, only it is done at the end, while JJ are implemented as you work (before). Multi-user editing is irrelevant for most users anyway. Either way I don’t see CS3 sucking as much as this article says. The rest…it’s known that unlike QuarkXPress, ID does not try to do it all. Some find going back to Illustrator/PS to make changes to graphics as step backward, I don’t. I can do/touch up things much better/faster in the rest of CS applications than QXP allows.
Would love to get my hands on report. I registered hours ago, but still have to get email.
You make some very good points here.
To be honest, I was thrilled to track that report down. It seems to swim against what I see as the conventional wisdom–that QuarkXPress is very much improved but is still in the catch-up position with respect to InDesign.
I’ve noticed other opinions that hold that Quark’s improvement, while noticable and notable, won’t be used by all Quark-based designers, especially those who work solo. I myself tried the Job Jackets and found them unintuitive to use, and composition zones are good but, again, good in the group way. Solo designers wouldn’t use them much.
In the interests of disclosure, I haven’t seen the report yet either; I’m still waiting for my registration to get approved.
Sorry on mistakes in my first reply. I was interrupted a couple of times while writing it that I did not pay attention to obvious mistakes.
I haven’t seen the report yet. It’s been almost a day and still no email. I doubt registration will even be approved. If possible/allowed, could anyone share the report if he/she has it?
I certainly don’t think Quark is in any way bad. Version 7 is a big step forward for Quark users. I am just surprised that ID would be that far behind it in usability. ID’s UI itself feels more intuitive and way more consistent than Quark’s in my experience. I just hope Quark works more on their UI in the future.
While some features in all Adobe applications are harder to use/complicated than they should be (Illustrator experience), I find UI/shortcut unification throughout their applications to be major productivity booster.
I can relate that longtime Quark user would do some things faster than in ID, which is normal. If you don’t use some application often then you’ll do things faster in the one you do, even if it’s more complex.
Until I see the report, I can only see that he bases his efficiency facts on two features which do not exist in ID. Job Jackets are *for me* hard to use and very unintuitive. Composition zones does have benefit and can improve productivity when used in multi user environments. For a single users it has no benefit at all *that I know of*. Those are known advantages, but I don’t see how those alone can have ID eat dust when it comes to productivity.
We’ll see I guess. Thanks for the article. It’s been fun to read. I love head to head comparisons. It won’t have affect what I use, but I like knowing strengths/weaknesses of both software.
Well, at least this blog suggests that Quark is friendlier to printers and on-demand print shops ;-)
http://printceoblog.com/2007/06/adobe-fedex-kinko-deal/
Thanks for the link. Interesting reading. Whole world is not USA, so…
It is probably a move into wrong direction. However, this hardly will have no impact what I use and how I use it. We don’t have Kinko’s/FedEx here so they can put whatever they want in Acrobat.
Just like pricing of their software in Europe and elsewhere, you simply have to take a strong stand against it and hope they listen.
I don’t think you get the full scope of JJ, shared resources internal and extrenal, stylesheet and color definitions with layout creation capabilities along with evaluation. CS3 has nothing close, they only really cover the output capabilities, 20% of JJ if that.
Overall speed of the application is faster and design engine is far better, just take the transparency capabilities, CS3 is still far behind Quark. It’s time to face it, InDesign is in most areas falling back. layout spaces, shared content, Job Jackets, Transparency to name but a few. I say Quark has picked up the torch and ran the only thing keeping Adobe in the game are it’s marketing mega machine and it’s other apps.
To a certain point I do understand what Job Jackets is trying to do, but realization is rather awkward and not as fluent as it could be. There is a benefit to it and to composition zones in multi-user environment, but I don’t see any benefit in a single-user environment. Certainly not to extent where this would be huge disadvantage as far as efficiency is concerned.
I guess I can draw (completely wrong?) comparison between JJ and let’s say a Word template. I know I’m comparing apples and oranges here. For sake of simplifying what I mean I’ll draw a comparison. I know JJ can do far more.
JJ define what you can/should during your design process (page size, colours, and other attributes), it can be shared as it is an XML file. Great concept. You follow predefined rules, it will point out any errors you make in your design process and allow you to correct them. InDesign does not allow this.
This seems like making a Word template as I do for students for writing research papers. We already know how they look like and the layout is, or at least it should be, the same for all students. I simply do all the work regarding layout by creating a template. Define running heads, front pages, bibliography, titles…only leaving them option to use type of table of content they like, while the rest (spacing, font, size…) is already preformatted by me. They just type in their research/data in predefined sections thus retaining formatting. Job Jackets act similar.
So, comparing Job Jackets and measuring the speed of use between software which has this feature with the one that does not could be flawed.
Now, I’m not saying this is not allowed or this should not be used as Quark’s advantage (which we established already is), but rather how it’s done.
Of course, letting a student format their own paper will make them less productive than already using preformatted template. It’s faster, and they don’t have to wonder how to do it. Same with Job Jackets. If there is someone who will do all JJ for me as end user and have me only use it when needed, will, of course, make my life easier.
However, this review does not state whether or not the process of creating Job Jackets is calculated into this fierce comparison. Using JJ can boost productivity taking they’re easy to create/use, but it doesn’t have to be the case either. If it’s complex, it can be quite the opposite.
What and how did exactly he measure these advantages? Let me go back to Word again. If I have a blank document and need to apply 24pt bold Times New Roman formatting to my title which will be Heading1, for example. I can do it faster (once) by simply selecting that text and applying those attributes directly rather than going to styles and creating that specific style and applying it. From that standpoint, I would be more productive than a person who goes and creates a style for every specific formatting they’re going to use. However, if I needed to change style of all my Heading1 titles, then I’d be in huge disadvantage to those who created styles. To them it’ll be 10 second action, while it would take me.…
I know that my comparison is somewhat abstract and it should not be taken literally. I’m trying to understand how exactly these results are measured.
If ID lacks JJ feature and majority of comparisons are related to it, then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude without tests that it will perform better. But, if the reviewer compared head to head features which can both do, only in ID he used “longer step” and then he reproduced the same with Job Jackets in QXP, did he include the time of creating those Job Jackets or he simply used predefined ones and applied them? This would clearly put ID in inferior position.
I mean, how do you compare exact composition zones benefit/saving in single-user environment? Or the same in multi user environment if one lacks the feature? I guess you could simply measure time of ID users exchanging files via medium X and the time needed them for incorporating them. Then again, if you place InDesign in InDesign file and you work on shared computer, other user could change placed ID document. It would reflect changes in document you’re working on. Do note that I don’t know if this is possible. I know you can place ID files in CS3, and if you can possibly share files on your computer and have 2nd user work on that file directly it would reflect changes. So, in a way, it would “simulate composition zonesâ€. Btw. I know that inserting ID documents has limitations. I’m wondering if something like this is even possible?
Also, usage of relative values can also be misleading. Marketing wise, saying you’re 2 seconds more productive than in competing product is not the same as using relative figure of 18%. It sounds sooo good such money saver. 18% per hour…per year…woo hoo. Just imagine the savings we can achieve. Errr… we all know you can do most of the things differently, sometimes do the same thing in 5–6 different ways One could take short, others can take longer or be the same. How can you be sure this reviewer did not use his hypothetical better knowledge of QXP to ID’s disadvantage. Even if you loose 2 seconds so many times an hour by repeating same command in ID, there is a way you can probably cut down the time you’re doing something by either finding another way, using shortcuts or assigning the same to that frequently used option.
As for your comment. I beg to differ. While I do agree application itself is faster and more responsive while opening and doing things, I have seen quite a lag when working with graphics loaded documents with latest version. I was told in older version it went smooth. I cannot confirm any of it, except the lag. But, overall, yes application (QXP) is more responsive *on my system*.
Design engine…I wouldn’t know. Knowing how old Quark code is, I’d say otherwise, but I honestly have no idea. How exactly is that the case? Due to fact you can do some minor adjustment in Quark for which you have to launch 3rd application in ID, or because layout can be done “better� How can you conclude one engine is better than the other?
I fail to see what is wrong with ID’s transparency feature? It can be applied to the fill, stroke, and text of any single object. The only thing it lags behind is table transparency. Personally, I don’t see it as disadvantage that can be labeled as “far behindâ€. The only time I’d find this useful (transparent tables) is when I use image as a background or when there is nothing on the page but image and tabular data. In other cases, I personally would not use it. Not to say feature is not welcome, but I just don’t have need for it. Certainly not a deal breaker . You are right about other features, but as they target rather “niche marketâ€, I would disagree with “far behind†statement.
You make some very compelling statements, but JJ for single users you miss a key point of shared / synchronized content this is massive for users, it’s like a dynamic library for multiple projects and across layouts. if images or text change in the resource it can update 100’s of projects, no need to remember to switch out images or update legal text or phone numbers, manage the single JJ.
Transparency, is color based in Quark no object, massive difference this shows how far ahead they are. if you can apply a colour you can apply transparency, i.e a different % for each letter in a word in a single text box, try that in ID.
The ability to change a single JJ format and have 100’s of documents change is something you can not calculate the saving of, i.e half way through a production of a major catalogue production they what to change the font and colours, this is 200 documents need changing how long would it take in ID to change the style sheets of 200 files? maybe 30 seconds to update the JobJacket that all 200 are using in Quark.
Single user using multi layout spaces must be a great production benefit, the ability to have all design formats in a single file and have text and images synchronized across layout spaces, shared layouts within or outside a project.
And a statement of How Old Quark code is, it’s newer than ID code, the migration of code to OS X and UB forced Quark to rewrite code and update it. the fact that they support XT development in .net and objective C shows how far they are, native platform development.
As a user that has to support both and develop for both you see the advantages and short coming of both, and anyone that put’s ID ahead of Quark is really not in touch with both applications, the only way ID is ahead is based on Adobe marketing and misinformed users. I was pro ID for several years but they are falling back.
Registration on IT-Enquirer is now immediate, and once registered, you are taken to the home page where the text contains a download link.
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Thanks Erik,
but the pdf is password protected?? no password given??
Erik, great site. love it
I’m going to have to go back and try again. When I originally tried registering there I never did get the confirmation email.
Don’t register to that clearly biased website…
It’s also available here (by kind permission)
The comparison and results are based on a flawed knowledge of InDesign, as immediately proved by the discussion of the first task on page 6.
It states that the master text box on the 1st and next pages must be unlocked and linked manually, thus hindering a quick and proper automated generation of a long textual document.
This is not true.
By pressing the shift key while ‘dropping’ text into the box (a well-known shortcut, available since PageMaker version 1) the text will generate new pages and flow into these boxes.
I decided not to take the effort of reading any further,
but to email the author about this serious hiatus in his brain. Het should make himself more acquainted with the product, before publishing this kind of nonsense.
In regards to the comment about how JJ can be used to update styles in 100 documents in a few seconds in Quark.
Yes, you can do that with Quark, but it can be done just as easily with InDesign. Simply create a book and synchronize your styles, swatches and masterpages. Try that with with Quark.
BOOKS!! Xpress has books that can synchronize objects, But those concepts are so flawed, as they are strictly based on book layouts, and using them in any other way is a hack to get what you need done. JJ has the ability to synchronize arcoss books, across magazines a single job jacket can hold all client design elements and styles and use these across media and projects keeps all the clients work in sync.
Lets see InDesign support multiple layouts, synchronize content across pages/layouts and projects, create documents/layouts on the fly with sytylesheets/colours and shared content ready to use.
Peter odviously can’t come to terms with the fact InDesign doesn’t rule the world or even revolutionize DTP. Just the thought of Quark out doing ID just makes him crazy.…
I’ve had my share of revolutions. I used PageMaker until XPress 3 was around. I didn’t switch to using and endorsing InDesign until Quark finally unveiled XPress 7. I have very good contact with Quark and still give Tim Gill credits for having developed a great app, back in the eighties. But they lost me. I choose for progress in large leaps, no small doses.
I do like synchronized text and I can’t stand it when InDesign puts text in the top of a vertically centered box, just because I switch to rounded corners. Oh yes, there are various benefits to XPress, and I do know them. Still, I choose for the hundreds of advantages that InDesign already offers, and dont want to be kept waiting again by a company and their ‘publishing poodles’, who think Quark still needs to rule and revolutionize the DTP world.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a good competition. Everyone is free to choose sides, and I don’t have anything against shameless promotion, not even biased one. But untrue statements must be neglected and discarded.
Since when did ID make large leaps forward??? FrameMaker was the leap, ID has been a crawl. If you talk leaps look at Quark Server, Job Jackets, Synchronized Text, Synchronized pictures, Synchronized Boxes, Layout Spaces, Shared layouts, Colour Based transparency, Interactive layouts, superior image support. You over look one major fact, Quark is still revolutionizing the industry, like it or not. Adobe copies and follows. After going to countless ID seminars reading reports online and seeing the amount of miss information spread about Quark 6 and 7 by Adobe and so called industry experts and trained professionals it’s funny to see what happens when ONE minor item is over looked.
CS3 is nothing new just a few small features added to 2, and a price tag that cleared my account. It’s always good to see sheep following the Adobe markets machine. It increases professional consultant fees. I suppose that’s why we are able to create Quark files on our IPhones and send them to printers. Thanks.
Let me know when QuarkXPress fixes basic things, such as style sheets and master pages.
Let me know when ID fixes basic things, like making up fonts that don’t exist within a file.
Hopefully this problem is fixed in CS3. I have encountered the problem you mean in CS2. It happens on copy and paste where InDesign/InCopy assigns the font style from a different font family. While this is a pain, I see it only a few times a month on hundreds of pages and it is easy to fix by doing a Find Font, click on More Info so you can see the printer font (which is correct) and making your fix.
This is a pain and I fault Adobe for not fixing this in CS2. However, I found QuarkXPress’s approach to paragrapha and character styles resulted in designers often resulting to use styles. When we switched to ID I found that our designers use styles almost all of the time, partly because they work better and are much easier to use. I did not see any improvements in this area in QXP 7.
So when you say Fix stylesheets and master pages what do you mean? Do they work, yes, do they meet there designated design requirement, Yes, are you able to apply, change and modify with either single key stroke mouse click or combination of both, Yes. and do all these functions work, Yes.
So what’s the problem? Your Designers don’t use them.… oooh I see the problem!! not sure Quark could fix that
As expected, a snotty response from UNIV, who seems to believe that anyone who perfers ID over QXP for any reason is an idiot.
Style sheets: QuarkXPress has a poor Stylesheet design that discourages designers from usering them. To go into more detail:
1) Style sheets do not inheret from each other.
2) No easy way to CHANGE a style sheet definition based on a manually formatted text
3) No way to preview a style sheet change before comitting to it
4) In 6.5 no way to undo a style sheet redefinition
5) When brining in text from another document with the same style sheet name into a layout, the text does not adopt to the layout’s style sheet definition. It will take the definition but then apply the old style sheet definitions as a manual override. This was a major problem with QPS.
The items above made style sheets in QXP much less usefull and harder to modify than in ID. In QXP, if a designer modified a style sheet, when brining in an article in QPS the article did not adopt to the new definitions, requiring manual overrides. And redefining style sheets in QXP involved manually changing a paragraph to see how it looks, and then having to do those changes again in the style sheet definition.
Master Pages:
My biggest complaint in QXP is the lack of basing master pages on other master pages. This means if we change the folio I need to manually make that change on every single master page for the layout. In ID we use inheritance so we only need to change that folio on a single master page and it flows to all of the other master pages. Having spent many many hours of my life working on templates, this is a major time saver.
And I would like to add a note: I have greatly enjoyed working with people from Quark before moving to ID. I found them very candid and willing to listen and really wanted to help us. Some agreed with some of my criticisms of QXP and thought that they should have been addressed before some of the web features were added. It was clear at times that they didn’t agree with some of the decisions made higher up, but they were committed to improving Quark and QXP in many ways. I worked with QXP 7 betas and with QXP 7 before we made the decision to move to ID. Since we were a QPS shop the timing seemed poor (we would have to wait for QPS 4 to be released before we could use QXP 7 on the editorial side) and I figured that would be at least a year.
Despite UNIV’s claims of using QPS 4, I still see only QPS Classic 3 listed on Quark’s web site (I guess UNIV is using a beta of 4), so this would mean we would have continued using QPS 3 and QXP 6.5 on our publication, something our designers found unacceptable.
Our designers (and editors) have been very happy with the switch.
I hope this detail is useful to other readers of this site.
This is an incredibly flawed study. Those “productivity” gains would only be true if the evaluators were using InDesign like it was Quark.
In the article, they mention how quickly you can do draw a text box as being “faster” in Quark. In InDesign, you have to just click the letter “T” and drag. Exactly how much quicker can you get? Until we can control our computers with our minds, you won’t get quicker than that!
Using InDesign with old Quark habits is very common because very few people take the time to really learn something – and it’s extremely unproductive.
Everybody could go on all day how Quark is quicker in some areas, ID in others. Ultimately, someone who really knows there tool will always beat somebody who doesn’t. With two experts at the helm, the race would be very close, with ID getting the nod the longer the document got, but not by much.
I prefer InDesign, but I don’t use it like Quark. I find it more productive because it seems to “think” more like I do, and the feature set is definitely stronger for the work I typically get. But I wouldn’t claim that it’s the only choice. Competition is good for a reason.
Rene
There’s a slew of stuff that Quark simply doesn’t touch and of which users think it’s an absolute benefit to their workflow. When we need to start a debate on what’s exactly a “revolutioairy” feature or just a minor improvement to a feature (or the app as a whole), then I think we digress.
Okay, talking about master pages, here’s a bone for XPress aficionado’s to chew on:
Many magazine designers like ID Layers because they run ‘through’ the master page as well, making it possible to have a master page that has items on top of page items (not just below). Page numbers, logo’s in corners and other ornamental elements can be positioned on an upper layer to let it be imposed on top of let’s say a full page picture or shade that’s on a lower layer and must run under these elements.
And for seconds: why do they need to build another (unbased) master page in XPress, when they just need a different number of column guides on a page ?
Whoops, a major mistake on my last post. I wrote:
“1) Style sheets do not inheret from each other.”
This is wrong. They do. What I meant to write was that with a 3rd party plug-in it is possible to redesign stylesheets by example, but the drawback was that inheretance would not work if you used this plug-in.
And I forgot to add
6) When directing a paragraph style to override manual settings, character styles sheets get removed from the paragraph.
But UNIV missed my major point. In QuarkXPress our designers avoided using style sheets because of the limitations and difficulties in suing them (they did use them, but not as much as they should have). The superior style sheets of ID (both in power and in ease of use) has resulted in our designers using them extensively.
I also think some of the IT-Enquirer tests are flawed. For an outline of where I think the report goes wrong, I’ve listed the items quote-by-quote at my blog site (too long to put here). However, I congratulate Erik on publishing the report and his willingness to make it widely available for free. I don’t agree that there is a deliberate bias; rather, it may be that the report was written dispassionately by someone who knows a great deal more about QuarkXPress than InDesign.
I don’t know why, but this test thing makes me laugh. It’s almost like the lab tests they do for digital cameras. It may all seem relevant, but once you get into the semi-pro DSLR’s (and up) they’re pretty much differences that neither your eyes nor printed image will notice. Yes, Canon may have better sensors and Nikon may have better processors, and they both have about equal quality in lenses. In the end it comes down to your own skills.
Peter interesting point on Layers on Master Pages, this was available for many years (v3) with 3rd party XT’s for Quark and only just added to Quark natively in the last release, To pauls Comments on inheritance of master page elements this is also possible with Shared Content.
Stylesheets + Key Commands = result
I have found most peoples issues with Quark are due to the lack of knowledge of the application, people never got to learn the new features and enhanced features when they comeout. the fact that people find text to box a cool new feature just amazes me, join,union difference on multi boxes features that have been there from v4, space align, supper step repeat..
But on a lighter note Does ID have aliens that are able to shoot boxes? Does ID have RPG wheedling aliens blowing up boxes?
When ID have the ability to have aliens blowup Quark logos on my ID page is the day I throw my Quark Box out the window
UNIV, I think you’re mistaken on a number of points regarding InDesign.
Not arguing with your preference for XPress, but your enthusiasm for it is making you say some silly things…like InDesign hasn’t innovated, and that Quark’s transparency technology is is superior. Both statements are false, I think. That said, I wouldn’t argue with your preference for Quark’s color-based implementation (it doesn’t really thrill me, but to each his own), but the actual technology is another matter.
There are many things to argue with in your posts, but not your enthusiasm for many of XPress 7’s features. It’s definitely the best verson of XPress there’s ever been, but I still prefer ID for a whole host of reasons.
A few points: to say that ID hasn’t innovated is absurd. If anything you ought to at least thank Adobe for making Quark act like they care again.
Firsts for ID:
Transparency in a layout app. Quark has played catch up. And although XPress has a couple nice shadow features that ID does not, I’ll take ID’s object based implementation and core technology any day. In addition to all the new effects in CS3 that are not in XPress, ID has always enabled the application of blend modes to native and imported objects that Quark does not.
And yes, being able to apply an opacity effect to a type selection is cool, but I never need to do that…if I ever do, I’ll convert some text outlines and do it that way. What I’ve actually needed to do, however, is apply separate stroke and fill colors to type, as well as gradients, and ID lets me do that with live type. In XPress you’d have to convert to outlines. So each app needs its workarounds depending what you need to do.
It’s flattener is far more sophisticated than that of XPress, marketing hype notwithstanding. It also enables you to preview the effects of your flattening settings as well as your separations. XPress does neither.
Even more importantly, however, in the context of transparency workflows, ID enables the native export of non-flattened, device independent PDF. This is huge, especially in light of the Adobe PDF RIP technology that has hit the market. An unflattened PDF with live transparency is both device independent and editable, two big workflow and quality advantages. It also enables you to import all versions of unflattened PDF, and does no violence to those files in the process, unlike XPress.
The technological basis for this is that ID, like Acrobat and Illustrator, I believe, uses a display PDF imaging model that’s much more robust than PostScript and/or what the Mac and Windows OS currently offer. It’s pretty clear to me that Quark is using the OS technology to doe what it’s doing.
Say what you want about Quark’s code base (it’s not a re-architected app…the old code base is being updated in a piece-meal way I’ll bet), it has nothing like what Adobe is using for their own internal display and output engines.
Other firsts:
paragraph composition
optical margin alignment
frame grids
Unicode/OpenType support
native PSD, AI, and PDF import
bleed and slug as actual document properties
Interactive PDF authoring
Preview mode
Editable keyboard shortcuts
unlimited undoes
overprint preview
Quickapply
nested styles
nested frames
I could go on, but there’s no need. XPress 7 is a good product, but to say that ID hasn’t innovated or is playing catch-up to XPress isn’t really a credible claim, IMHO.
JJ’s in XPress, as well as composition zones, are, IMHO, implemented in unwieldy and awkward ways. The former is a bastardization of the JDF standard that puts the burden inappropriately on a designer, IMHO, and it’s not something I would choose to use. I prefer sending an unflattened PDF to Acrobat if I’m going to use a JDF workflow.
I also prefer ID’s placeable INDD files to composition zones, simply because the former is much simpler to use and arguably more powerful. It doesn’t impose a workflow on me, and some of ID’s other features make it more reliable for my work.
The IT Enquirer piece is a pretty poor piece of work given the number of factual errors. It betrays both ignorance and bias that’s unfortunate in what’s supposed to be an even-handed and fair analysis.
Oh, and InDesign DOES have an alien, but it’s in the print dialog. You can hang onto your box.
Stunning report if you think about it really.
InDesign is NOT a professional prepress progam. Quark is best if you want to meet a deadline.
Why would anyone choose to be less productive in the long run?
Indeed UNIV, the recently bundled extension does better Master/Layer stuff – finally. Excuse me for not waiting 5 years or forking out money before, while ID was offering this since version 1…
Maybe it’s good to ask you how nifty features like Adobe multi-line composer, viewing the H&J violations (Composition) and font-conflicts (preventing, reporting and showing them correctly, while I’m gracefully allowed to use simple shortcuts for Bold and Italic) are handled in XPress – we might learn from it…
BTW: Mr. Vlietinck publicly commented on reactions to his flawed report, and he’s STILL wrong on several points (like the master page text box with auto flow).
This has been an entertaining thread to read. I have to give Quark props for even getting this far back into the battle after the years of drubbing. It does feel to me like Adobe’s a bit more of a follower at this point…trying to milk past successes and boost shareholder value while Quark seems much more hooked up to the pulse of the iPhone generation. To me Layout Spaces, Composition Zones, Job Jackets, Synchronized Content, Color-based transparency, non-destructive image editing and more, not to mention intense numbers of powerful XTensions…makes ID look long in the tooth…yesteryear’s news just became today’s old hat and the ID drones are the new PageMaker users (we used to be amused by).
I beg to differ. If QuarkXPress was 79% more productive, don’t you believe the companies who moved to it wouldn’t have figured it out themselves? I doubt they just wake up one day and say, we’ll switch to ID. Some tests and cost analysis must be made. It’s wrong to assume they just migrated because ID license is cheaper. License cost is a fixed cost. They would gain little in savings by buying ID while having QXP not 7 or 9% but 79% more productive. You pay license once (per version) and you do thousands of projects by the time you “have to” purchase new version. Having 79% more productive application will save you ton of money and will cover 100 fold the cost of paying premium for using QXP. I doubt anyone normal would dismiss that fact. The problem for Quark is not taking over ID, but rather force customers to upgrade to 7. Most companies still use v4 and that’s problem for Quark. No new revenue streams. And those who choose to upgrade, they probably upgrade/switch to ID rather than QXP7. I doubt they just do it for marketing reasons. Some analysis must be done before taking that step.
This review besides being clearly an notoriously biased has some rather false points. He admits he doesn’t know and hasn’t tested some things, and he bases his measurements on some guy’s OPINION because he TRUSTS him. How exactly do you quantify opinion? Not to mention the fact he compared Beta version to something that was on the market for two years and received constant upgrades. Even those famous XTensions that were made free was only to fill the gap of basic features that missed in QXP. I can’t believe you had to pay for XTension to do some basic stuff.
It’s also interesting how “all-in-one” approach is so much preached and how ID and CS is contently bashed. Quark makes one damn product and everything else is just plain extension for QXP. How is it that QXP can make SWF files but ID can’t. Disregarding that you have to purchase another program to have that functionality. Why is it QuarkXPress is reviewed with everything available from Quark while ID is reviewed barebones disregarding what other applications from CS can do. Quark has to implement all those features in QuarkXPress itself because it has no other products. What, it will offer Photoshop alternative that only does 2–3 things? Of course not! It will integrate those 2–3 things because they have to, not because they think it’s better approach. Adobe can’t make Illustrator/Photoshop/ID hybrid because not every designer under the sun uses ID. Those applications have different user base and not every photographer cares about ID…not to mention web developers.
It’s just silly to compare QXP+QID with ID. Compare both applications out of the box and that’s it. No extensions no stuff. It’s false to load one application with extensions (even if they’re free, they are NOT shipped with product) and other offering from Quark and compare barebones ID. Quark can’t touch anything in Adobe’s CS with it’s offerings so naturally it calls it bloated and all-in-one approach QXP offers (which has to) is better. I don’t want to edit my photographs in ID nor do I want to make illustrations in ID or web pages or flash content. Better product for those things exist which are more efficient. The only thing Adobe needs to work on is making switch from one application more seamless so you can edit native files across applications and do some basic things in non-native application. Just because I can’t do some vector things in ID and I can in QXP doesn’t mean it’s deal breaker. QXP or ID will never provide felxibilty or power of Illustrator..so why even brag about it. I am more interested in progress they make towards in formatting/importing/exporting.
While collaboration features of QXP is at the moment better, it will not save you much time if it’s too complex to use or inconvenient. In the end, how many of you guys collaborate on daily basis and actually use those features? Not that it’s bad thing to have, on contrary, but bragging about something that is used rarely is just silly. Sure it’s a plus, but I wouldn’t mind people bitching about ID missing something crucial or real time saver that ALL can benefit from and not something I have no use for as do 90% of users. It certainly couldn’t save me 79% time when working on a project.
Oops..I think you are slightly confused. InDesign is literally a “bag of plug-ins”. Look in the InDesign plug-ins folder some time and what do you see? Only every single function of InDesign. So when Quark offers XPertTools Pro for free (because the own it), you can’t say that’s outside the core offering just because it’s distributed a little differently. It is the core offering.
You need to realize also the 79% is not in all areas of comparison but in some significant ones. Also, when companies switched to InDesign, Quark didn’t even have an OSX offering. And Quark continued to lose market share just like the Beatles lost market share to the Monkees. But the Beatles of Desktop publishing are back with a new album and it’s pretty darn impressive.
Collaboration IS the way of the FUTURE, whether you are there or not and Quark is already working on much more advanced collaborative technology for version 8. It’s like parallel processors vs. linear. If two people can work on a 60 page monograph at the same time it gets done 2 times faster (=100% boost over ID)…if three people then its 200% boost in efficiency. Pure logic…don’t get angry at Quark for inventing a better way to have real TEAMWORK.
I think the transparency in Quark is so much sweeter too. Try selecting one letter in ID, give it its own color and opacity while not effecting the other type in the box. How about putting a runaround or a skew on the drow shadow?
Both pieces of software provide methods to create JDF (job definition format) tagged files. Adobe, helping develop this standard, is in the forefront of JDF support. JDF is the future. For those of you who don’t know what JDF is, you should look into it.
InDesign Server CS3 (even CS2) offers group collaboration and group design possibilities (through third party software) beyond anything Quark will EVER be able to create. Ever heard of SoftCare’s K4 publishing system?
You’ve got to be kidding…JDF was developed in Europe..by CIP4
“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…
I’m not angry at anything. :)) The more both can come up with will only benefit us all. You are confusing what I’m saying. All Adobe application consist of plugins. That’s not the point. It’s that products itself act like a plugin. It’s like having to install Photoshop to do thing X in InDesign. The only reason why Quark offered that plugin for free is that it consists of very basic and crucial actions you use daily. I am not saying it shouldn’t be used. It is irrelevant that both use plugin architecutre, many applications do. You can’t really say Maya with Pixar Renderman does better and produces more realistic graphics than let’s say 3ds Max with built in mental ray. It’s the fact that you should compare how both do with same renderer instead of comparing product strengthened with feature/plugin that doesn’t come out of the box.
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.
Quark = a fundamental building block of the Universe
Adobe = a mud building block
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.”
I forgot. You’re not correct that only gain ID had was only when Quark did not have OSX compatible version. Many companies don’t upgrade to newest and finest right away so that can’t be the only reason they switched to ID. The companies which still use older versions of QXP are most likely going to replace it with ID rather than upgrading to 7.
LOL! Bashing product based on it’s name its redicilous. I don’t like when ID users do that to Quark nor do I like it vice versa. Open source? I don’t think so. It wasn’t able to replace Windows or MS Office and I don’t see it replacing ANY of Adobe’s applications anytime soon. It’s a good thing, but let’s be reasonable.
its name and other errors. Sorry. Thinking one thing typing other.
I’m actually not bashing InDesign…it and Adobe are great things…I mean it..absolutely marvolous and welcome additions to my world…they’re just not without peers and in fact if seen from some angles they are both lacking and laughable…I enjoy poking some fun back at the Mud Brick crowd who have so gleefully pounded Quark for several years. BTW: I happen to love Adobe houses too, especially in New Mexico.
Names are important and carry weight whether you admit it or not.
Name is important, of course. But to me irrelevant when it comes to program. I just want it to do its work and I don’t care about the name. Not being native English speaker, to me Quark, as a word, sounds funny – I know it’s related to physics. When prounounced, it sounds way strange. While I don’t see anything wrong with name Adobe (named after river as I recall?) or InDesign. ID sounds rather nice. But this is solely my view. It has nothing to do with Quark or Adobe. Just want products, don’t care how they call them. As long as names are short and simple or can be shortened.
Your observations about Quark are apt. The legend has it that the founders of Quark named it such because quarks are the basic building blocks of matter, and they wanted Quark’s software to be the basis of DTP and electronic layout.
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.
Yeh? And where did physicists get the name “Quark” from? From James Joyce’s 1939 novel, Finnegan’s Wake. “Three quarks for Muster Mark!”
James Joyce= OLD LITERATURE, and Quark=OLD LITERATURE!!!
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.
Yes, proton, electron and other such names are also so old…almost 120 years old! The only difference is those words along with Quark have been chosen to represent things which have been around since the Big Bang…REALLY SO OLD…just like the air you breathe.…sorry.
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.
Uh, CMYK has no relation to reality?! Better tell my local printer to get rid of his Heidelberg press—apparently, it’s a figment of his imagination…
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.
Whatever…you must just love talking to yourself and telling everybody what they already know Mr. Nuveau PageMaker (aka InDesign) user. CMY are primary pigments but the amount of “K” that you put in is subject to lots of “interpretation” because you have to pull out the “right” amount of CM&Y at the same time. The eye is the final judge and it sees in RGB last time I checked on God’s little Rods and Cones system…so CMYK is mankind’s way of printing because in theory 100% C+M+Y = black but it just doesn’t work that way. On you monitor and in your eyes, 0% R+G+B does = black
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.
Thanks Samuel on that. I wasn’t aware a type of cheese was also called quark. :)) That’s interesting.
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.
Ja, Peter T. I spoke to China and India the other day, and they said Adobe is OK.
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.
LOL, Yup Microsoft is in same corner as Kinko’s as far as I’m concerned. Frontpage and Publisher wasn’t going to convert anyone. Although it wasn’t made for the creative pro. I do think that Quark will remain strong and so will Adobe. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next release Quark will have further improvements than Indesign. Quark as a whole is solely dependent on one product while Adobe’s focus is more on the total designer + developer. You can already see that Quark is starting to take the “Swiss Army” knife approach. I’m sure they will keep improving those features. Who knows maybe one day Quark users won’t need photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver or flash (eh, what the heck let’s throw in première, after effects and coldfusion too). But will it be wise for tomorrow’s designers to stay away from those programs? That might end up being career suicide. Now speaking of formats, Can we please let JPEG die and more on to PNG?
*move
sorry for the typo. I don’t proof read, guess I could be a 21st century journalist.
LOL! Don’t worry about typos. I personally hardly notice those. It’d be fun to see QXP on steroids. Throw in Dreamweaver in as well.
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. :)
Well, one week away from this thread, and it turned into a complete holistic kaleidoscope of all DTP facets. Okay, I also tossed the ball in a general direction a few times, but I don’t see any more useful comments on the report’s flawed (or not) basis.
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.
Sounds pretty cool… you holding your breath for Microsoft Xdocs? LOL