ARE people switching to indesign from quark?

Thats a loaded question depending on who you ask here. I still received more Quark files than InDesign, but there are a lot more InDesign than a year or two ago. I think each person has to know what is best for them. They are both good, but I use both. I have found myself using InDesign more and more though. Some here HATE Quark, I still like it, but am finding myself using it a little less all the time.

Adobe has courted the Graphic Design students and industry newbies VERY well. Adobe has killed Quark online with their internet spin doctoring and professional blogger propogandists. Also, remember that Adobe gave away FREE InDesign with every OS X mac sold for a year or so... In both these areas, Adobe has really leaped forward with Quark seeming to not answer the bell at all. Quark's marketing and management must be asleep for last 5 years..

I too still receive more Quark than InDesign but it is maybe 60% Quark 40% Adobe now? Two years ago it was about 80% Quark and 20% Adobe. So, yes Adobe has gained allot of market share. Now, Adobe using CS as a bundle has made yet another hit on Quark in that they cannot seem to answer. Adobe is gradually building an Monopoly on our industry. After seeing their end run to scam with Kinkos FedEx to put a button into Acrobat I think people can see why it's important that we have Quark as an option.

I still personally prefer QuarkXpress myself. Quark does everything that I need to do, does it well and is to me a better interface to do my work. But since i am a printer, I do very little actual composition. Most of my job is printing documents built by others. I don't get to choose what application. Although I prefer Quark Xpress I can use either application very well and don't really advocate either way.

The one thing that I notice about QuarkXpress 6 and 7 is that it never crashes with intel macs, while CS2 apps seem to crash allot on intel. Adobe says that it's the apple system and not their programming. But if it wasn't Adobe then wouldn't Quark be crashing allot too? What about all the hundred or so other apps that don't crash under intel macs? It's not that bad in my operation but I think it's comical how Adobe spins stuff.

These two apps are a toss up. Adobe has more momentum I think. If I were a new designer, I think I would start with InDesign but learn Quark Xpress too. Chances are better than 50% your next job will require you to know and use Quark Xpress. To be a real professional, you need to be good at both.
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JoePostscript -- support administrator

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Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide


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with almost nil design here i use both. if i design i do it in illy anyway - but we are packaging here - not magazines etc. I do whatever project in whatever package its supplied in - if its quack it'll stay quack unless i can reliably pdf out.

if i had to do magazines again though i'd probably do it in indesign now. I can use quack better for that kind of thing, but using indy would mean 2 things

1> i'd learn better techniques with indy (style sheets, flowing text and that kinda stuff) and improve my skillsets

2> imho my file would be about as flexible and editable as it can get (think next step on from design) reliably integrating the latest tools and techniques - and to me in pre-press that is the most important thing

Joe is right about competition, but quack seem to be plodding, so i'm just not seeing much to challenge indy. quacks marketing people - wakey wakey....

so, no i'm not changing from quack to indy - while i get quack files i'll process them as needed.

<see cleveland - i CAN go easy on quack....ish...>
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expertise: nothing

When Adobe first released InDesign I just laughed at it, thought I'd use Quark forever. I eventually gave ID a fair chance, though, and now I'm having a hard time going back to Quark for my new job.

I've done quite a bit of freelance, working with publishers, and it seems that the newer the company/department, the more likely they have InDesign. It's only the older, more established firms I've seen that use Quark still. Essentially, it ain't broke, I'm not going to fix it. Something familiar is often going to be more comfortable than learning something new.

I see the trend continuing to shift, though, and with Adobe's cutthroat and expansionistic tendencies, I think Quark is going to hold less and less marketshare. We'll have to wait and see, though.

One of the best things Adobe did is package up Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign together. Everyone uses Photoshop and Illustrator, but InDesign was behind at the time. Now, you buy creative Suite, and you have all the programs you need to design anything. Smart on their part because Quark has nothing else, and sincethey never vetured outside the realm of Page layout, they could end up losing in the end

i believe you are all absolutely right. i agree totally.
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expertise: nothing

I work as a freelance designer at home, and also in a Prepress as a full time job. ClevelandPrinter is right: at home I don't have Quark because I am not working much with other peoples' files; I am designing my own. It saves me money being able to buy CS3 and have all I need. I have only had one time where having Quark at home would have been nice.
I started in prepress a few years before designing, though, and like Diodagoat, I thought Quark was all you could ever possibly stand to use. I experimented with it and now I love it. I'm in Utah, and in our prepress here we get about 85% InDesign (maybe more) and 15% Quark. The change happened in about a year and a half, through late 2004, I'd say. Before that it was the opposite, or maybe even closer to 95% Quark. I think part of the problem may have been the disappointment that seems to have happened with Quark 6, especially after a long wait. That, and the marketing issue already discussed. Plus, everyone was already using Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator. In a way, that itself probably worked as a kind of endorsement or advertisement for InDesign when it came out. That, and it is also a matter of human psychology: a lot of people like the all-in-one-source idea. It's like WalMart.

Designing a piece, yes, InDesign. Has anyone ever tried to do medical books in InDesign. Quark is much better at the easy stuff, at least for us. Continuous flowing text and borring and basic layout - you cant beat simplicity in Quark for these types of jobs.

We're actually in the progress of migrating from QuarkXpress 4.1.1 to Indesign CS2 and CS3.

We chose to set a mandate through our franchise network to make the switch for a number of reasons: support from Adobe vs. Quark; price to upgrade the software (5/6 apps vs. 1); future goal to migrate to a complete PDF workflow; ease of design due to the integration between the graphic apps and the page layout app (InDesign); more plug-ins built for the Adobe suite that are applicable to our line of business and more.

With my designer hat on, I agree with the others that the decision to use either is pretty much a personal preference. Also I would defintely consult with your designers before making a switch, it's important their comfortable with the change both for moral as well as productivity.

With my IT Manager hat back on, the price is right, getting good vendor support is nice, and the ability to choose a Windows PC or Mac design platform with minimal (re-)training required helps with budget planning and making recommendations to our franchisees. We can also can now pitch our vendors against one another to get a better price on the complete workstation package.

At any rate it's worth looking into, but the decision needs to be made as an organization as a whole, these applications can be the backbone of a print business and executing poorly can be costly for the whole organization.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Ask your artists what they're comfortable using
  
• If you keep a library of old documents, figure out how much time/money it will cost to convert or re-create from scratch
  
• Use the oportunity to refresh your graphics fleet of workstations
  
• If you use a digital asset management system, make sure your vendor provides good support for the application(s)
  
• Ditto for your RIP vendor
  
• Take a look at a instituting a PDF workflow, it can save you a lot of hassles by just accepting only good PDFs from your customers, and Adobe provides a lot of good tools, training and support to make it happen
  

Nice post trboyden,

The conversion and rebuilding of legacy documents is the biggest issue that is a major problem. Conversion of Quark files to Adobe InDesign (and vice versa) is only accurate on the most simple of documents. Formatting of text, layering of images, all kinds of details are regularly lost in this process. I have seen many use a few documents and test, then make judgements to go forward. Later many will find it's far more work than anticipated and the problems and errors were under-estimated.

Depending on the size of the archive and it's importance, recurring use, this can be from no big deal to an epic miscalculation. So, I think folks should take this and factor it against what they want to do.

I believe the best call is to maintain your current software to work legacy files in their original application. You already have that software, know how to use it. Safest call is when you need the legacy files, leave them in that original app. On a fractional ad or art basis, use eps to migrate fractional page parts and integrate them. On a document level, use PDF of pages to use Quark and InDesign created pages together in a job. No-one will know the difference. Begin anew, starting to build all (NEW) pages in the new application format. Many of us use both apps every day on same machines. A migration with supporting and working legacy files is very manageable.

Those eager to change without properly estimating the ACTUAL MAN HOURS will usually be surprised at how much work such a decision will cost them. It usually outweighs the cost of staying with Quark or Indesign. You can quickly eat up the benefits by a greater cost of changing in many siutuations. Heavy measuring, testing, and actual time studies would be advised.
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JoePostscript -- support administrator

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Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide


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Joe, exactly right, and tyboyden, yep, good one. I keep a OS 9.23 mac going with Quark 4 & 5 on it, as well as yes, Pagemaker 7 on it. This saves us a lot of time and hassle when small changes are needed to existing files. Changing files over is OK if there is extensive changes, and you have the time to re-create them so they are correct. We have done both re-create and make the minor changes, and it seems to have worked well keeping the older machines alive, until we need them no more. If I can make enough money to keep them running and not take up to much space, I will leave them till they do not turn on anymore.

yo!

joe!

dunno where to post this but i wanted to send a personal email to a member here (jeez that sounds sordid) and when i tried to get his/her email from the member list link - it took me to some wierd amazon place (thats amazon as in web based amazon - not as in it teleported me somewhere into a jungle - just to clarify that)

whats the crack mate? do ya not allow that kinda stuff?

tia
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expertise: nothing

I've also seen the trend of more Indesign and less quark. We've had many problems with OS X and suitcase with Quark 7. So we also keep an old OS9 computer around to use Ragemaker and older Quark files on. Our preference is Indesign if the user knew what they were doing when they packaged it up to send along.

Yes, because of spammers, and copycat forums, I protect all members email internal. If you need someone's email I will send it for you. I have been fighting spammers and copycats as long as I have run forums especially here on this board. As for a link to amazon, not sure about how that happens, maybe I'll test than and see what's up. I'll send an email to you and ask who's email you need. No problem with legitimate members getting together like that.
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JoePostscript -- support administrator

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Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide


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I have been lurking around this forum for quite a while and was compelled to jump in to this thread as I have 'grown up' with both apps and I find InDesign to be awesome. I'm a massive fan and would go as far as saying I avoid Quark wherever possible!!

I have both design and prepress components in my job and for our workflow - InDesign is much easier to use.

We have been converting all our Quark 4 files to InDesign as jobs come up for repeats and/or changes. We have obviously upgraded to 6.5 in the meantime but this was simply to be able to accomodate supplied artwork.

I'm in Australia and majority of my network of contacts/client have moved over to InDesign - there are still some staunch Quark fans but as I said most are on CS or CS2 at the moment.

I'm sure there will be plenty more debate on this - it's as touchy as the mac vs pc one!

Cheers,
Lisa

We all know the Mac vs PC one will not go away as long as Billy boy keeps running Windows through DOS. As like any other small business, all of the office computers from billing to job ticket programs are almost alway PC. The great part isthat when a computer doesn't work in there, they always come a runnin to me, a mac guy, to fix it. Yep, and most of the problems deal with, yes, you guessed it right, viruses. And then they wonder why I gripe about them be connected to the servers.

joe - ok mate fair points well made - i see your point - nice one.
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expertise: nothing

Hi guys,
Its my first time in INDESIGN coming from Quark . By now seems that Quark is MUCH better. First of all it moves faster than Indesign with complex files, but the main thing is the matter with fix linking processes. In my case I jump with a Pagemaker (from PC) file into Indesign (OSX). I lost all the links because the PC roots are "c:/xxxx" so OSX can manage them. Surely I'm a baby in Indesign, but """How can I change a big bunch of links with a wrong root so they can be recognized????"""" One by one it will take many days with a lot of possibly mistakes. Can anyone help me please ????
Thanks a lot .

Before I give my reply, I'd just like to note a couple of things:

1.) This really should have been started as a new topic...

2.) This is not an InDesign flaw per se, it's a common issue among all page layout applications including Quark when going from one operating system to another. The destination operating system is not going to have any idea of how to translate the file path of imported content when the path is not native or local to the destination operating system. You could even have the issue occur on two PCs on two different networks. That's one of the purposes of digtial asset management systems and OPI image swapping in general.

Now for the answer to your issue...

From InDesign Secrets.com:

When people want to update links quickly, they’re usually talking about one of two scenarios: Either they have the same image placed multiple times in a document, or they have a bunch of different images that have been modified. Here are two solutions (taken from our book Adobe InDesign CS/CS2 Breakthroughs).

Let’s say you have more than one instance of an image, and then the image gets modified. If you select one instance in the Links palette and click Update, InDesign only updates that one instance. Why? It’s a feature-not-a-bug, because you may want to inspect each of those instances to see if you really do want to update the artwork. Seems kind of lame, though; InDesign should at least give you the option with a dialog box or preference setting or something.

Meanwhile, here’s what you do: Open the Links palette menu and change the sort to “Sort by Name” so all the instances of the image appear together. Click on the first one in the palette and Shift-click on the last one so they’re all selected. Now when you choose Update Link, all the entries will be updated at once.

Or, if you have a lot of modified images to update, make sure no images are selected in the Links palette by clicking in the blank area at the bottom of the list of links. Now when you click the Update button, InDesign updates them all. (Selecting none is sort of like selecting all of them.)

Branislav Milic wrote a nice piece in InDesign Magazine about using the INX format to replace one image that is used a hundred times in a single document with a different image. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but it’s pretty powerful.
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Timothy Boyden
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MailCoups, Inc.

Expertise: Windows, Mac, Linux/UNIX Support, Adobe CS, Quark, Prinergy Connect/Insite, Programming (PHP, VB, CSH, HTML), Trendsetter News 50, Magnum/Didde Presses