I would also like to add that Quark - the Company - has had a tumultous past often echoed as you see below as with swgittlitz comments below.
It is indeed _in_the_past - as it has been since I arrived in March of 2004. I am proud to say I am part of that change and was brought to Quark to enact it - becasue I, as with all of my colleagues, simply dont tow the old Quark line. We have built the new Quark, one that is very interested in interacting with and supporting the publishing community, and developing the products you want, first and foremost.
Further, I would like to extend a hand to Scott, or any other IT, Production, or Designer caught in the comparison proxy, or just needing more information, to please contact me or your rep in your area.
So even if you switched, want to come back, or need to stay abreast of any trend, please contact Quark. Its not the same old Quark and has not been for a couple of years.
That being said, we are interested in what you have to say - good or bad. This interaction has been the primary vehicle for change at Quark - it has not been the ID competition directly. We are more concerned about our customers pains and needs, and future planning.
So all are welcome - we look forward to hearing from you and helping in any capacity appplicable.
Cvox, I really appreciate your contributing to the dialog (I think it's great when folks from Quark and Adobe give their real opinions). However, in the future, you (and other company reps) might consider using the "Neutral" or "No rating requested" rating when leaving comments... especially when the comments reflect the product, not the review.
As Service Plus Quark Customer that paid for the next two upgrades to Quark at a whopping $500 + Dollars I was only informed of the release of the latest Quark upgrade when the general public was. And even after that I still had to call Quark to get the update! Now It would have been nice if the email I received would have stated that instead of a sales pitch for their DDS system that I don't need. What the H_ll did I give them all my email and info for if they are not gonning to use it? In closing I did call and ask "Where's my Quark?" their answer we'll send out, you just had to call and ask for it. Well I asked for it and two weeks later have yet to receive it, personally I feel that I shouldn't have to call since I commited for and pre paid for the next two upgrades. And I don't want to get ads for The DDS System. Part of me is glad that I purchased Indesign last year. It seems the more things change the more they stay the same.
Submitted by shawnmack on Mon, 06/12/2006 - 13:21.
I must chime in here noting that I am a Quark Account Manager, formerly using XPress since '89, and an IT manager (in Agency and Publishing orgs) before joining Quark over two years ago...
Most of the industry had purchased verion 6.5 with in the first year of its release (2004) until recently the release of version 7 - where most of those customers took advantage of the _then promotion_ to get version 7 for free. Version 6.5 was the fastest selling release ever - I suspect with version 7 launching last week, that will be yet again eclipsed. For someone to say version 4 is still the majority - pure poppycock.
Whoever is completely mistating that most are on version 4, please read on. Only a few folks still evaluating stayed at 4 while they did their testing and ERP for the future... I see this as a good thing - testing is important, and there are some significant names still evaluating, and rightfully so - If they are comparing against version 7, I think they will see the light.
On the other side of that coin, I still have customers using version 3 - how about that for ROI? it suite their needs, and after 15 years, its still viable - you cant even say that about the three versions of ID or even the CS sutie - and that is only 6 years old (ID).
Most of those organizations actually tested the current version (v 6.5) or the beta of version 7, before coercing folks to move away from XPress. This in an effort to minimize the effects of change managment.
Most concluded that Quark was back, and stayed with XPress; and now with Quark, the company, being customer facing and extrememly helpful - like no other vendors out there getting their hands "dirty" asisting their customers, its why we have stopped the bleeding, and still retain a majority of the install base.
It was mostly Agency and Magazine verticles that took note of Adobe's "salvation in a box" as i like to call it. It did address some features you would have had to pay for - like an XT for shadows, or masks - with XPress; But it never addressed the pains of the workflow that really counted towards getting the designer home on time, and managing director the profit he wants from his production team.
Enter - version 7. Designers will love it - its easier than ID and with more features, no more XT's for the most popular design tools - and don forget the 4000 developers that still make XT's to expand your horizons...
Prodcution folks will love it more - job jackets, and collaboration features, right out of the box. No clugy brdge software that on networks, well, let's not go there in this post
Open standards - not propprietary as with Adobe. So it doesnot impeded your current enterprise environments - so IT folks love it to.
I could go on - buy you would be better served to give me call to show up on-site and get the full picture before attaching yourself to the likes of evangilists are often not up to date with current offerings.
All of the reps in the field for Quark are SME's (Subject Matter Experts) because we come from the industry not as salesfolks, but as participants quay IT, Printing, Art and Design, Color Managment freaks, worklfow and ERP managers, etc... we work for Quark because it is far and away the best suited tools to address workflow problems, and getting the best ROI with the lowest TCO.
Sorry, when you said inset in XPress IS limited, it seemed logical to think you were commenting on the subject of this review, not a version released over 10 years ago. I will now feel comfortable using InDesign 1.0 as the basis for all my comments in future, given your precedent.
Submitted by PrintHead on Thu, 06/01/2006 - 08:36.
A debate of one app over another can go on forever, becasue it is subjective.
My comments were to correct hazey slandering of me. If I mention insets to an American Media person it was comparing the Inset function between the version they are currently using to the one InDesign during a training migration – this is how you did it in Quark, this is how you do it in InDesign. I never told anybody the current version of Xpress doesn't do it. Why would I mention how 6 does it, if they are being trained for InDesign.
Hazey has a axe to grind.
I would also like to point out the the majoruty of the publishing industry still on Quark, are using Xpress 4.x
Submitted by swgittlitz on Thu, 06/01/2006 - 09:07.
multiple insets were availble over ten years ago as well - but since gittlitz knows nothing of the app, i dont suspect he would have researched the many free XT's of the day that helped out... it was common to have such XT's pre year 2k; now everyone wants it all in the core app, and yet while XPress had this inset flexibility for about 6 years now, would you still trust some one like scott migrating your entire workflow by comparing technologies over ten years old that in someways were / are STILL supperior to current ID offerings...
and further - ID is still only about 30% of the market. Rome has not fallen - its being rebuilt When the Adobe CEO stated in 1999 that Quark would be dead in two years, he obvioulsy didn't know about Quark as well...
get off the hype wagon people. verison 6.5 was cool, and version7 completely leap frogs ID - and most of the creative suite.
scott - your comparison to ID was seriously lacking - I sat at your seminar and have to fire back at folks like yourself... you simp[ly dont have the perspective holistically, and consistantly show your lack of knowledge everytime you open your mouth.
stop trying to back track, get of the pedestal, and accept you took your org down the wrong road. wait until you migrate, and your cycle time slows, output furtrations ensue, and you have to hire more people all in a effort to implements specious transparency benefits and insets that were conquered over ten years ago.
I don't like to respond to a specific comment in a Vox Box thread, but hazey's comments require an answer.
This has nothing to do with manually converting Text to Box or Text to Outlines. This has to do with how the file is processed on output.
The main point, which I should have made more clearly, is that the simplistic controls for Quark's transparency flattening don't necessarily mean correct output.
Unfortunately I don't have the time or space in this little Vox Box to explain it all.
As I said earlier, you should read Adobe's guide to transparency printing.
Submitted by SandeeCohen99 on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 14:18.
Sandy, If you would like, contact your east coast rep from Quark to help give you hand. QuarkXpress does not over simplifiy transparnecy flatening - but an entire guid as Adobe has written - is not necessary. (In fact, it shows that Adobe is not intereseted in your workflow, or such complexity should have been better thoughout i.e. the Quark way)
I think Hazey is on to something when eluding to PDF creation settings - lots can go wrong here.
Do not confuse less user intervention with correct output - XPRess has always been superior with output and version7 is no different.
I stand by my statement that the output from XP 7 for flattening transparency is less suitable than the same output from ID.
There are two problems with the XP transparency flattener.
The main problem is that text under a simple vector to text transparency area is converted into a path with a complex compound clipping path applied to that path.
This compound path contains all the letters in the text in the line that had the transparency applied. This means that part of the compound path exists for no good reason.
This is exactly the sort of excess overhead that can cause problems at the RIP.
In contrast, the output from InDesign for a simple vector to text transparency does not convert the text to a compound clipping path. Instead, the clipping path comes from only that area of the original path that intersected the text.
This is a much more elegant solution and does not waste RIP resources processing compound clipping paths that do nothing.
When you look at the vector shapes created from InDesign, they are much cleaner and simpler than their QuarkXPress counterparts.
In addition, none of the text in my simple example is converted to outlines in InDesign making the problem of stitching much less likely.
However, I don't need to speak to my Quark Rep in regards to this issue.
Submitted by SandeeCohen99 on Thu, 06/01/2006 - 04:13.
Correction for Mr. Gittlitz, who wrote: "What I have said regarding Inset in Xpress, it is limited. The one value applies to all four sides. Where InDesign you can individually set Top, Bottom, Left and Right Insets."
You can set separate insets in XPress 6 and 7, I no longer have XPress 5 loaded to go back and see when it arrived, but this claimed deficiency is erroneous by at least several years. Modify -> Text -> check box for Multiple Insets...
Submitted by PrintHead on Thu, 06/01/2006 - 08:15.
I'm an ID user and found the article informative and worth my time. The discussion, though, was a waste of time. Be warned: if you read on you'll learn little more than how a predictably polarized issue turns into an immature flame war.
Who ever this hazey person is, he/she has made false comments about me.
First I wouldn't call myself a famous NY Adobe advocate. If preferring InDesign over Quark as a program and more importantly as a company - how they treat and listen to their customers, then yes I am an Adobe Advocate.
The next thing I want to make clear, I NEVER said Quark didn't do inset or runarounds. What I have said regarding Inset in Xpress, it is limited. The one value applies to all four sides. Where InDesign you can individually set Top, Bottom, Left and Right Insets. The subject of runarounds, again I never made it. I've used runarounds my entire career in Xpress, and would never make that comment.
The decision or justification made by American Media to migrate to InDesign was determined by comparing applications, the Publishing systems for them and the direction the industry is heading. The decision was made before my employment and not by personal preference. I was hired to handle the migration.
The comments made by hazey are unjustified, and made by an individual who appears unwilling to explore and accept changes.
Submitted by swgittlitz on Thu, 06/01/2006 - 07:43.
QuarkXPress introduced Text to Box with version 3 as an XT, and its has been built the core app since version 4 - over ten years ago.
Have you tried mimicking this in XPress?
Further, PDF creation may in-fact be the culprit here... over 65% of PDF's are broken before they are even sent to the printers... be sure you are creating the optimized PDF for YOUR workflow, as tis different just about everywhere…
I'm glad people are expressing their opinions here, but please don't make negative comments about individuals' personaliies. That doesn't further the discussion.
I personally have been a fan of Quark for about 15 years. It has always been a reliable solid program that worked well for me and the companies I worked for. I also must state that I use and like InDesign, too.
I'm kind of surprised that no one is really making more noise about the fact that Quark is giving away one of the crown jewels of their operation, namely the collaborative workspaces. That was one of the big reasons why the Quark Publishing System was adopted by so many newspapers and other publishers, but it was a hefty price of admittance, and couldn't be justified by small companies. But with the release of version 7, small companies can utilize that power finally.
Don't get me wrong, transparency and all of that other stuff is great, but when you have a tight deadline and people who could help get a project finished (but are locked out by the software), this is a HUGE feature.
I will admit I was not too enthused by the early reports on the new release, I mostly figured it was Indy catch-up stuff, but now I'm impressed. With any luck, I hope that color-management issues and PDF creation issues can be worked out soon, and I will look forward to having a solid addition to my creative workflow.
Submitted by geozinger on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 07:58.
While I say play nice, I agree with teh blasting of DB - sorry to add but it needs to be noted.
QPS will evlove i imagine. Haveing the ability to sahre part of files, layoouts and such, can only be complemented with a growing QPS oferring. The latest ones I ahve seen are already taking into account many of the great features intorduced with version 6.5 Of course those "great features" are made even more stellar in version 7.
I still done see the clamour towards ID though... version 7 is leaps and bounds ahead of that app now.
"Further, the man knows nothing about XPress - as do many so-called experts I talk to that advocate InDesign"
You realize, of course, that David Blatner was pretty much MISTER QuarkXPress until a few years ago when he decided InDesign's features had just outpaced Quark.
I knew Quark inside and out...I quite frankly felt like a traitor when I finally came to the conclusion that my company needed to switch to InDesign.
Quark's big mistake was not updating to OSX for such a long time. That got a lot of people to give InDesign a look. Anyhow between that and having InDesign files RIP so much cleaner when I used to work for a printing company, I started questioning my loyalty. And Quark's customer service was terrible, etc, etc.
I still had reservations last year when I had the magazine I work for switch, but now I'd never look back. InDesign's integration with the rest of the Creative Suite is fantastic and we can output pdf files SO fast (very important when you're processing files for hundreds of pages). My staff is so much more productive and they just love InDesign.
I'm glad Quark has finally started innovating again, but we're incredibly happy with InDesign now. It's too late for us.
Submitted by DesignGeek on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 10:46.
It's always interesting to note how angry people seem to get when someone points out that the emperor has no clothes. It reminds me of Oscar Wilde's great quote, "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you."
Hazey's angry response is fascinating to me. Of course I know QuarkXPress pretty well, having used it since version 1 in 1987. But in case anyone is confused by his rant, I just want to clarify that I am certainly not in Adobe's payroll and the only reason I speak up on these topics is that I feel it's important for the truth to come out. I just forget to make it funny sometimes.
Ultimately, this article is not a QX vs. ID comparison, nor should these posts be about that. My point is that QX7 is a good upgrade but not a great one, and that Quark needs to do more work to bring QX up to par again.
I have tested QX7 (both PC and Mac) and I find the performance issue to be significantly greater than Jay points out. Sometimes QX7 works as fast as QX6, and other times it's almost glacial. I have also found other bugs, such as PSD files not importing properly, etc. I hope that Quark fixes these issues for 7.1.
People should also look at other reviews, of course, including Galen's at http://www.macworld.com/2006/05/reviews/qxp7/index.php
In a perfect world, republicans would not hire pseudo-scientists to tell us that global warming is a farce and not important, and Adobe would not pay Blatner goobs of cash to spin FUD against QuarkXPress and herald InDesgin as champion...
As a 20-year veteran of technology in publishing, I can honestly say I have never heard a louder utterance of specious heckling then what spews from the gums of Blatner...
You see, I have talked to DB before, sat in various training rooms and media rooms at tradeshows and listened to him sound off; and here in my first response after many months of listening to this jackal - have come to the conclusion he is not truly interested in objectively comparing the tools we use – he is only interested in getting paid. And as such, a disgrace as a representative to the journalistic community.
Why do I say this? Look at the battles he chooses, as one of many examples; like when noting the (not so impeding) performance issue with the PowerPC build of version 7 - he obviously never even put it on his own machine to test because if he did, he would note what Jay has – it's a relative issue, and not such a nuisance in light of everything else gained by XPress 7. Oh and don't forget the UB, do out in a few weeks, is much faster, supporting both legacy and Intel based Macs – light years ahead of Adobe's patch works approach to application development – yeah, Adobe makes some good apps, but even Apple is disappointed that Adobe has not modernized their applications as Quark has done.
Further, the man knows nothing about XPress – as do many so-called experts I talk to that advocate InDesign. (I actually had NYC's "famous" Adobe advocate scott gittlitz try to tell me that XPress does not support insets and runarounds (bonehead – it has supported this since 2.5 and 3 in the late eighties, early nineties); moreover, this is one of the chief reasons he gave to justify migrating American Media to ID – would you trust these weenies with your workflow?)
I ponder now that XPress is about 18 months ahead of InDesign with regards to modern code base, XCode compiling and the Universal Binary availability, and full open industry standards implementations, I wonder what other ridiculous crank will be forced upon us by the InDesign community.
Folks, ID is a free application for a reason – because it costs so much to implement!! The advantages are non-existent. There are none. Even with some youngsters only knowing ID, teach them XPress and you will get more out of them – as always XPress is geared to make you more money, faster – not the "Salvation in a box" that Adobe, Blatner, and anybody else on the "payroll" will have you believe.
Oh and don't forget – save, save, save! You will need to! Adobe recently released a postscript/PDF print server $$$ to "help" you flatten all those whacked transparencies you wasted hours in creating - stacking stroke opacity on top of fill on top of text – or whatever order you took three hours to decide. Of course, you'll need the server because that 12-position dial doesn't help you get the output you want.
Talk about a performance issue! Don't believe the Adobe hype people – QuarkXPress is still king.
Give David and Jay a break. They make their living by teaching software. It is no surprise that either of them have interest in promoting their knowledge and their publications here. While Jay properly notes both pros and cons of QuarkXPress 7, no one can possibly examine software fully in a single article.
The only eternal truth in software development is that new/improved features are always better and no single application is going to do all things for all people. A visit to the support forums of your favorite page layout software will reveal the issues missed in these reviews.
The new features of QuarkXPress 7 are certainly welcome but one would have to be a fool to buy any software simply based on a single review. Try the demo when it is available and see if it works in your own environment.
Submitted by jamesoblak on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 02:15.
(The Vox box has a length limit, so this reply is broken into two parts. This is part 2.)
You said: "but its performance problems, underlying structural issues, and (for many important features, such as composition zones) incomprehensible UI tells me that Quark shipped v7 too early."
Well, one could say the same about InDesign. It wasn't until the hardware caught up with the software that InDesign was even remotely useful in a real-world setting. As for UI complexity, every major new feature that Adobe has introduced, from transparency to Version Cue, Acrobat Distiller, the entire InDesign interface (I could go on), has *required* that the user spend a *lot* of time to learn how to use it and also what will hurt you if you use it.
It did take me some time to remember where to go to access the various controls for Composition Zones and Job Jackets. But these are the two Big, New Concepts that Quark is introducing. Once I "grokked" that each has about three control areas (one for each kind of task), it all made sense. And I actually admired Quark for boiling down that degree of control to the logical places that it did. Ditto with Transparency and Drop Shadows.
In the end, it doesn't much matter what you or I say about QuarkXPress. It's the millions of business owners who will decide whether the upgrade is worth their investment in time and money. My prediction is that the page layout world will be bilingual (ID & QX) for a very long time to come.
Submitted by Jay J Nelson on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 02:26.
(The Vox box has a length limit, so this reply is broken into two parts. This is part 1.)
Thanks, David, for taking the time to weigh in with your thoughts. I feel the need to clarify a few of your complaints.
You said: "If it takes twice as long to import text and create PDF files in QX7 than in 6.5 or in InDesign, how on earth can that mean QX7 is a winning solution for people who "pump out pages"?
Perhaps I should have mentioned that the time difference between ID and QX7 was a few seconds for text import and about 20 seconds for PDF export. Considering the time saved in other ways in QuarkXPress, losing a few seconds on a one-time text import seems practically irrelevent. And while one is likely to export a PDF several times, again, a minute lost is nothing compared to the time saved by using QuarkXPress to layout the pages.
Also, these times are on a PowerPC Mac. On an Intel Mac, QX7 is actually faster than ID when running natively on a PowerPC Mac.
I agree that I left out many "can't do's" in QX7. But providing a laundry list of features QX doesn't have that ID has is contrary to the point of the upgrade (and the review). In my view, Quark isn't competing with InDesign. They're competing with previous versions of QuarkXPress. I tried to list the most glaring oversights in the "Cons" section.
You said: "And the idea that QX7's type controls are somehow on par with InDesign is completely misinformed."
Did I say that? I did mention that QX7's OpenType support is great, and that its Glyphs palette is better than the way other applications give you access to complex OpenType fonts, but I also said that the text-wrapping engine needs an upgrade. I don't think I compared it with InDesign, which does indeed have excellent, if convoluted, type control.
You said: "But the idea that any InDesign user would find QX attractive is neigh-on ludicrous."
I don't think so. I've heard of several big publishers who are regretting their conversion to InDesign, having now used their new system for a number of issues but are now discovering that they are wasting more time than before. Whether they switch back or not is a big question, since it would require that an executive be brave or crazy enough to admit that they made a very expensive mistake. I don't doubt -- at all -- that many companies are very happy with their choice of InDesign. I just know that some of them are reconsidering their decision now that they've seen how QX7 could vastly improve their workflow.
(see below for part two of my reply)
Submitted by Jay J Nelson on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 02:26.
The most rewarding and interesting thing I'd like to comment on is how Quark did not respond to InDesign by trying to copy features, but instead brought major new workflow innovations to the table with things like Composition Zones.
Innovation by strong competitors in the page layout space is great news for all users as well as those of us who make our living in the third party publishing ecosystem. If Quark had just tried to play catch-up, we would have all lost.
I agree (and am happy to see) that we are looking at two major players in the page layout space for many, many years to come. While InDesign continues to attract a lot of users, I think even died in the wool InDesign loyalists might admit that the upgrade from CS1 to CS2 was not nearly as groundbreaking as this QuarkXpress 7 release.
As for me, I love em both!
Sterling Ledet & Associates, Inc.
Certified Adobe and Quark training
http://www.ledet.com
As I said in my creativepro.com article last week, I am not completely turned off from QuarkXPress 7. And there is much in Jay's review that I agree with.
However, there is something that the Quark people are saying about their transparency applied to text that is incorrect.
Quark Inc. has been saying that the Transparency Flattener slider is confusing. While I agree it can be confusing (hence my career as a trainer), the setting to control transparency by rasterization only (as found in XP 7), is not the answer.
Here are the results of some of my tests that show a real problem with XP text under an opacity setting.
If text is below a solid vector shape that has an opacity setting applied, it is hoped that the output to PDF will still be text.
In InDesign, this is indeed the case. This ensures that the text does not output with "stitching." Stitching is the term applied when certain "atomic regions" of vector objects get thicker than others. (For more information on this topic see: http://partners.adobe.com/public/asn/en/print_resource_center/AICS_PrintGuide6.pdf
In InDesign the conversion of text with transparency maintains the text as text if the proper settings have been set in the Transparency Flattener.
In XP 7, however, the conversion of text with opacity above it will convert the text into a raster image with a clipping path outlining the text.
This does, as Jay said, maintain the crisp PostScript edges. But it does NOT ensure the proper output of the text.
This is the situation that will cause the text to output thicker in the area under the opacity.
This situation can cause a word that was supposed to be only a different color to suddenly appear bolder or thicker than the text around it.
Quark Inc. has not addressed this problem in their transparency output controls.
Adobe Systems Inc. has provided a robust Transparency Flattener that does.
Part of the solution for this thickening of text is to know and understand how to set the "Convert all text to Outlines" controls in InDesign.
Quark has not added such a feature.
Submitted by SandeeCohen99 on Wed, 05/31/2006 - 02:02.
For the first time since the release of 4.0, I feel that Quark has finally released a set of features that are targeted towards thier real market - the professional publishing market. I agree with the enthusiasm about the picture effects, transparency and composition zones. As for the speed issues. I tested early versions on 10.3 on a 500 Mhz iMac and it was slower than molasses in winter. However, after intalling it my 750 Mhz iBook and 10.4, the speed for almost everything was highly acceptable.
I am somewhat disappointed in the Ouput Styles implementation. I seems like a 0.9 version. I like the idea of composition zones but I am yet to fully comprehend the actual usage. However, as an XTension developer, I found the enhancements exciting and worthy of quick upgrade.
Overall, I think Jay covered the good points with good accuracy. He also demonstarted how these new features can improve your printed page.
One would expect Mr. Blatner, the editor of "InDesign Magazine," to take a little swipe at Quark 7. It's like when you've been hanging out with the Monkees (who are indeed stars) and are part of the Monkees posse and the Beatles walk in the room and don't know who you are...ya gotta represent! That's right folks, Quark 7 is the Beatles of layout and InDesign is the hollywood knockoff, the Monkees. So take the last slow train to Clarksville if you want but when the free update to Universal Binary comes out in July or so...not to mention whatever enhancements are going to get mixed in, this Quark scramjet is taking off for a Revolution.
We can all afford to wait a few more seconds for better, trouble-free flattening while we compound thousands of hours of saved time with collaborative workflow (easy as iChat) and synchronized layouts dancing in tandem to the beat of a Job Jacket. We can also cut back on the cross-screen mileage (mouselage) by getting 11 InDesign palettes into 1 Quark Measurement palette. Light at the end of the carpal tunnel!
Works great. Looks great. Prints great. Is great!
ps. no doubt the Monkees next album will go platinum, but it just may be up against the next Beatles "Pantone Album" or "Ain't No Shabby Road"...stay tuned.
Jay is certainly good at touting QuarkXPress 7's good points -- and there are many good points to QX7 -- but he downplays the bad points to such an extreme that his conclusion seems skewed to me. If it takes twice as long to import text and create PDF files in QX7 than in 6.5 or in InDesign, how on earth can that mean QX7 is a winning solution for people who "pump out pages"?
Jay also leaves out a huge number of problem areas. For example, you STILL cannot Undo a huge number of things, including moving guides, deleting pages, making changes to master pages, and so on. And the idea that QX7's type controls are somehow on par with InDesign is completely misinformed.
I agree with Jay that most QX users who are committed to staying with QX will probably want to upgrade to QX7 this year. But the idea that any InDesign user would find QX attractive is neigh-on ludicrous. QuarkXPress 7 demos great, is clearly a major step forward, has a few very good features, but its performance problems, underlying structural issues, and (for many important features, such as composition zones) incomprehensible UI tells me that Quark shipped v7 too early.
--David Blatner, author, "Real World QuarkXPress 6," "Real World InDesign CS2," and others
Quark Facts
I would also like to add that Quark - the Company - has had a tumultous past often echoed as you see below as with swgittlitz comments below.
It is indeed _in_the_past - as it has been since I arrived in March of 2004. I am proud to say I am part of that change and was brought to Quark to enact it - becasue I, as with all of my colleagues, simply dont tow the old Quark line. We have built the new Quark, one that is very interested in interacting with and supporting the publishing community, and developing the products you want, first and foremost.
Further, I would like to extend a hand to Scott, or any other IT, Production, or Designer caught in the comparison proxy, or just needing more information, to please contact me or your rep in your area.
So even if you switched, want to come back, or need to stay abreast of any trend, please contact Quark. Its not the same old Quark and has not been for a couple of years.
That being said, we are interested in what you have to say - good or bad. This interaction has been the primary vehicle for change at Quark - it has not been the ID competition directly. We are more concerned about our customers pains and needs, and future planning.
So all are welcome - we look forward to hearing from you and helping in any capacity appplicable.
www.quark.com
Quark reps skewing voxbox
Cvox, I really appreciate your contributing to the dialog (I think it's great when folks from Quark and Adobe give their real opinions). However, in the future, you (and other company reps) might consider using the "Neutral" or "No rating requested" rating when leaving comments... especially when the comments reflect the product, not the review.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
As Service Plus Quark Customer that paid for the next two upgrades to Quark at a whopping $500 + Dollars I was only informed of the release of the latest Quark upgrade when the general public was. And even after that I still had to call Quark to get the update! Now It would have been nice if the email I received would have stated that instead of a sales pitch for their DDS system that I don't need. What the H_ll did I give them all my email and info for if they are not gonning to use it? In closing I did call and ask "Where's my Quark?" their answer we'll send out, you just had to call and ask for it. Well I asked for it and two weeks later have yet to receive it, personally I feel that I shouldn't have to call since I commited for and pre paid for the next two upgrades. And I don't want to get ads for The DDS System. Part of me is glad that I purchased Indesign last year. It seems the more things change the more they stay the same.
Quark XPress facts - call your rep
I must chime in here noting that I am a Quark Account Manager, formerly using XPress since '89, and an IT manager (in Agency and Publishing orgs) before joining Quark over two years ago...
Most of the industry had purchased verion 6.5 with in the first year of its release (2004) until recently the release of version 7 - where most of those customers took advantage of the _then promotion_ to get version 7 for free. Version 6.5 was the fastest selling release ever - I suspect with version 7 launching last week, that will be yet again eclipsed. For someone to say version 4 is still the majority - pure poppycock.
Whoever is completely mistating that most are on version 4, please read on. Only a few folks still evaluating stayed at 4 while they did their testing and ERP for the future... I see this as a good thing - testing is important, and there are some significant names still evaluating, and rightfully so - If they are comparing against version 7, I think they will see the light.
On the other side of that coin, I still have customers using version 3 - how about that for ROI? it suite their needs, and after 15 years, its still viable - you cant even say that about the three versions of ID or even the CS sutie - and that is only 6 years old (ID).
Most of those organizations actually tested the current version (v 6.5) or the beta of version 7, before coercing folks to move away from XPress. This in an effort to minimize the effects of change managment.
Most concluded that Quark was back, and stayed with XPress; and now with Quark, the company, being customer facing and extrememly helpful - like no other vendors out there getting their hands "dirty" asisting their customers, its why we have stopped the bleeding, and still retain a majority of the install base.
It was mostly Agency and Magazine verticles that took note of Adobe's "salvation in a box" as i like to call it. It did address some features you would have had to pay for - like an XT for shadows, or masks - with XPress; But it never addressed the pains of the workflow that really counted towards getting the designer home on time, and managing director the profit he wants from his production team.
Enter - version 7. Designers will love it - its easier than ID and with more features, no more XT's for the most popular design tools - and don forget the 4000 developers that still make XT's to expand your horizons...
Prodcution folks will love it more - job jackets, and collaboration features, right out of the box. No clugy brdge software that on networks, well, let's not go there in this post
Open standards - not propprietary as with Adobe. So it doesnot impeded your current enterprise environments - so IT folks love it to.
I could go on - buy you would be better served to give me call to show up on-site and get the full picture before attaching yourself to the likes of evangilists are often not up to date with current offerings.
All of the reps in the field for Quark are SME's (Subject Matter Experts) because we come from the industry not as salesfolks, but as participants quay IT, Printing, Art and Design, Color Managment freaks, worklfow and ERP managers, etc... we work for Quark because it is far and away the best suited tools to address workflow problems, and getting the best ROI with the lowest TCO.
www.quark.com
look for your rep online!
XPress supports multiple inset values..
American Media is using Xpress 4, not 6 so my comments were correct. Becassue they where directed to the version used in-house.
If they can be set indiviually in v4. I don't know how.
XPress 4?
Sorry, when you said inset in XPress IS limited, it seemed logical to think you were commenting on the subject of this review, not a version released over 10 years ago. I will now feel comfortable using InDesign 1.0 as the basis for all my comments in future, given your precedent.
XPress 4?
A debate of one app over another can go on forever, becasue it is subjective.
My comments were to correct hazey slandering of me. If I mention insets to an American Media person it was comparing the Inset function between the version they are currently using to the one InDesign during a training migration – this is how you did it in Quark, this is how you do it in InDesign. I never told anybody the current version of Xpress doesn't do it. Why would I mention how 6 does it, if they are being trained for InDesign.
Hazey has a axe to grind.
I would also like to point out the the majoruty of the publishing industry still on Quark, are using Xpress 4.x
more on insets
multiple insets were availble over ten years ago as well - but since gittlitz knows nothing of the app, i dont suspect he would have researched the many free XT's of the day that helped out... it was common to have such XT's pre year 2k; now everyone wants it all in the core app, and yet while XPress had this inset flexibility for about 6 years now, would you still trust some one like scott migrating your entire workflow by comparing technologies over ten years old that in someways were / are STILL supperior to current ID offerings...
and further - ID is still only about 30% of the market. Rome has not fallen - its being rebuilt When the Adobe CEO stated in 1999 that Quark would be dead in two years, he obvioulsy didn't know about Quark as well...
get off the hype wagon people. verison 6.5 was cool, and version7 completely leap frogs ID - and most of the creative suite.
scott - your comparison to ID was seriously lacking - I sat at your seminar and have to fire back at folks like yourself... you simp[ly dont have the perspective holistically, and consistantly show your lack of knowledge everytime you open your mouth.
stop trying to back track, get of the pedestal, and accept you took your org down the wrong road. wait until you migrate, and your cycle time slows, output furtrations ensue, and you have to hire more people all in a effort to implements specious transparency benefits and insets that were conquered over ten years ago.
Sandee (not Sandy) Cohen responds
I don't like to respond to a specific comment in a Vox Box thread, but hazey's comments require an answer.
This has nothing to do with manually converting Text to Box or Text to Outlines. This has to do with how the file is processed on output.
The main point, which I should have made more clearly, is that the simplistic controls for Quark's transparency flattening don't necessarily mean correct output.
Unfortunately I don't have the time or space in this little Vox Box to explain it all.
As I said earlier, you should read Adobe's guide to transparency printing.
Sandy C...
Sandy, If you would like, contact your east coast rep from Quark to help give you hand. QuarkXpress does not over simplifiy transparnecy flatening - but an entire guid as Adobe has written - is not necessary. (In fact, it shows that Adobe is not intereseted in your workflow, or such complexity should have been better thoughout i.e. the Quark way)
I think Hazey is on to something when eluding to PDF creation settings - lots can go wrong here.
Do not confuse less user intervention with correct output - XPRess has always been superior with output and version7 is no different.
So dont forget to contact your rep!!
One last time
I stand by my statement that the output from XP 7 for flattening transparency is less suitable than the same output from ID.
There are two problems with the XP transparency flattener.
The main problem is that text under a simple vector to text transparency area is converted into a path with a complex compound clipping path applied to that path.
This compound path contains all the letters in the text in the line that had the transparency applied. This means that part of the compound path exists for no good reason.
This is exactly the sort of excess overhead that can cause problems at the RIP.
In contrast, the output from InDesign for a simple vector to text transparency does not convert the text to a compound clipping path. Instead, the clipping path comes from only that area of the original path that intersected the text.
This is a much more elegant solution and does not waste RIP resources processing compound clipping paths that do nothing.
When you look at the vector shapes created from InDesign, they are much cleaner and simpler than their QuarkXPress counterparts.
In addition, none of the text in my simple example is converted to outlines in InDesign making the problem of stitching much less likely.
However, I don't need to speak to my Quark Rep in regards to this issue.
XPress supports multiple inset values...
Correction for Mr. Gittlitz, who wrote: "What I have said regarding Inset in Xpress, it is limited. The one value applies to all four sides. Where InDesign you can individually set Top, Bottom, Left and Right Insets."
You can set separate insets in XPress 6 and 7, I no longer have XPress 5 loaded to go back and see when it arrived, but this claimed deficiency is erroneous by at least several years. Modify -> Text -> check box for Multiple Insets...
Worthwhile Article; Worthless Discussion
I'm an ID user and found the article informative and worth my time. The discussion, though, was a waste of time. Be warned: if you read on you'll learn little more than how a predictably polarized issue turns into an immature flame war.
re: Sound off to Blatner
Who ever this hazey person is, he/she has made false comments about me.
First I wouldn't call myself a famous NY Adobe advocate. If preferring InDesign over Quark as a program and more importantly as a company - how they treat and listen to their customers, then yes I am an Adobe Advocate.
The next thing I want to make clear, I NEVER said Quark didn't do inset or runarounds. What I have said regarding Inset in Xpress, it is limited. The one value applies to all four sides. Where InDesign you can individually set Top, Bottom, Left and Right Insets. The subject of runarounds, again I never made it. I've used runarounds my entire career in Xpress, and would never make that comment.
The decision or justification made by American Media to migrate to InDesign was determined by comparing applications, the Publishing systems for them and the direction the industry is heading. The decision was made before my employment and not by personal preference. I was hired to handle the migration.
The comments made by hazey are unjustified, and made by an individual who appears unwilling to explore and accept changes.
For Sandy Choen below - some thoughts on your issue
QuarkXPress introduced Text to Box with version 3 as an XT, and its has been built the core app since version 4 - over ten years ago.
Have you tried mimicking this in XPress?
Further, PDF creation may in-fact be the culprit here... over 65% of PDF's are broken before they are even sent to the printers... be sure you are creating the optimized PDF for YOUR workflow, as tis different just about everywhere…
Play nice, everybody!
I'm glad people are expressing their opinions here, but please don't make negative comments about individuals' personaliies. That doesn't further the discussion.
Time will tell
I personally have been a fan of Quark for about 15 years. It has always been a reliable solid program that worked well for me and the companies I worked for. I also must state that I use and like InDesign, too.
I'm kind of surprised that no one is really making more noise about the fact that Quark is giving away one of the crown jewels of their operation, namely the collaborative workspaces. That was one of the big reasons why the Quark Publishing System was adopted by so many newspapers and other publishers, but it was a hefty price of admittance, and couldn't be justified by small companies. But with the release of version 7, small companies can utilize that power finally.
Don't get me wrong, transparency and all of that other stuff is great, but when you have a tight deadline and people who could help get a project finished (but are locked out by the software), this is a HUGE feature.
I will admit I was not too enthused by the early reports on the new release, I mostly figured it was Indy catch-up stuff, but now I'm impressed. With any luck, I hope that color-management issues and PDF creation issues can be worked out soon, and I will look forward to having a solid addition to my creative workflow.
Awesome product
While I say play nice, I agree with teh blasting of DB - sorry to add but it needs to be noted.
QPS will evlove i imagine. Haveing the ability to sahre part of files, layoouts and such, can only be complemented with a growing QPS oferring. The latest ones I ahve seen are already taking into account many of the great features intorduced with version 6.5 Of course those "great features" are made even more stellar in version 7.
I still done see the clamour towards ID though... version 7 is leaps and bounds ahead of that app now.
David Blatner doesn't know Quark.....REALLY?!?
"Further, the man knows nothing about XPress - as do many so-called experts I talk to that advocate InDesign"
You realize, of course, that David Blatner was pretty much MISTER QuarkXPress until a few years ago when he decided InDesign's features had just outpaced Quark.
I knew Quark inside and out...I quite frankly felt like a traitor when I finally came to the conclusion that my company needed to switch to InDesign.
Quark's big mistake was not updating to OSX for such a long time. That got a lot of people to give InDesign a look. Anyhow between that and having InDesign files RIP so much cleaner when I used to work for a printing company, I started questioning my loyalty. And Quark's customer service was terrible, etc, etc.
I still had reservations last year when I had the magazine I work for switch, but now I'd never look back. InDesign's integration with the rest of the Creative Suite is fantastic and we can output pdf files SO fast (very important when you're processing files for hundreds of pages). My staff is so much more productive and they just love InDesign.
I'm glad Quark has finally started innovating again, but we're incredibly happy with InDesign now. It's too late for us.
It's about XPress, not InDesign
It's always interesting to note how angry people seem to get when someone points out that the emperor has no clothes. It reminds me of Oscar Wilde's great quote, "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you."
Hazey's angry response is fascinating to me. Of course I know QuarkXPress pretty well, having used it since version 1 in 1987. But in case anyone is confused by his rant, I just want to clarify that I am certainly not in Adobe's payroll and the only reason I speak up on these topics is that I feel it's important for the truth to come out. I just forget to make it funny sometimes.
Ultimately, this article is not a QX vs. ID comparison, nor should these posts be about that. My point is that QX7 is a good upgrade but not a great one, and that Quark needs to do more work to bring QX up to par again.
I have tested QX7 (both PC and Mac) and I find the performance issue to be significantly greater than Jay points out. Sometimes QX7 works as fast as QX6, and other times it's almost glacial. I have also found other bugs, such as PSD files not importing properly, etc. I hope that Quark fixes these issues for 7.1.
People should also look at other reviews, of course, including Galen's at http://www.macworld.com/2006/05/reviews/qxp7/index.php
Sound off to Blatner
In a perfect world, republicans would not hire pseudo-scientists to tell us that global warming is a farce and not important, and Adobe would not pay Blatner goobs of cash to spin FUD against QuarkXPress and herald InDesgin as champion...
As a 20-year veteran of technology in publishing, I can honestly say I have never heard a louder utterance of specious heckling then what spews from the gums of Blatner...
You see, I have talked to DB before, sat in various training rooms and media rooms at tradeshows and listened to him sound off; and here in my first response after many months of listening to this jackal - have come to the conclusion he is not truly interested in objectively comparing the tools we use – he is only interested in getting paid. And as such, a disgrace as a representative to the journalistic community.
Why do I say this? Look at the battles he chooses, as one of many examples; like when noting the (not so impeding) performance issue with the PowerPC build of version 7 - he obviously never even put it on his own machine to test because if he did, he would note what Jay has – it's a relative issue, and not such a nuisance in light of everything else gained by XPress 7. Oh and don't forget the UB, do out in a few weeks, is much faster, supporting both legacy and Intel based Macs – light years ahead of Adobe's patch works approach to application development – yeah, Adobe makes some good apps, but even Apple is disappointed that Adobe has not modernized their applications as Quark has done.
Further, the man knows nothing about XPress – as do many so-called experts I talk to that advocate InDesign. (I actually had NYC's "famous" Adobe advocate scott gittlitz try to tell me that XPress does not support insets and runarounds (bonehead – it has supported this since 2.5 and 3 in the late eighties, early nineties); moreover, this is one of the chief reasons he gave to justify migrating American Media to ID – would you trust these weenies with your workflow?)
I ponder now that XPress is about 18 months ahead of InDesign with regards to modern code base, XCode compiling and the Universal Binary availability, and full open industry standards implementations, I wonder what other ridiculous crank will be forced upon us by the InDesign community.
Folks, ID is a free application for a reason – because it costs so much to implement!! The advantages are non-existent. There are none. Even with some youngsters only knowing ID, teach them XPress and you will get more out of them – as always XPress is geared to make you more money, faster – not the "Salvation in a box" that Adobe, Blatner, and anybody else on the "payroll" will have you believe.
Oh and don't forget – save, save, save! You will need to! Adobe recently released a postscript/PDF print server $$$ to "help" you flatten all those whacked transparencies you wasted hours in creating - stacking stroke opacity on top of fill on top of text – or whatever order you took three hours to decide. Of course, you'll need the server because that 12-position dial doesn't help you get the output you want.
Talk about a performance issue! Don't believe the Adobe hype people – QuarkXPress is still king.
Don't rely on reviews; try a demo
Give David and Jay a break. They make their living by teaching software. It is no surprise that either of them have interest in promoting their knowledge and their publications here. While Jay properly notes both pros and cons of QuarkXPress 7, no one can possibly examine software fully in a single article.
The only eternal truth in software development is that new/improved features are always better and no single application is going to do all things for all people. A visit to the support forums of your favorite page layout software will reveal the issues missed in these reviews.
The new features of QuarkXPress 7 are certainly welcome but one would have to be a fool to buy any software simply based on a single review. Try the demo when it is available and see if it works in your own environment.
Response to David Blatner, part 2
(The Vox box has a length limit, so this reply is broken into two parts. This is part 2.)
You said: "but its performance problems, underlying structural issues, and (for many important features, such as composition zones) incomprehensible UI tells me that Quark shipped v7 too early."
Well, one could say the same about InDesign. It wasn't until the hardware caught up with the software that InDesign was even remotely useful in a real-world setting. As for UI complexity, every major new feature that Adobe has introduced, from transparency to Version Cue, Acrobat Distiller, the entire InDesign interface (I could go on), has *required* that the user spend a *lot* of time to learn how to use it and also what will hurt you if you use it.
It did take me some time to remember where to go to access the various controls for Composition Zones and Job Jackets. But these are the two Big, New Concepts that Quark is introducing. Once I "grokked" that each has about three control areas (one for each kind of task), it all made sense. And I actually admired Quark for boiling down that degree of control to the logical places that it did. Ditto with Transparency and Drop Shadows.
In the end, it doesn't much matter what you or I say about QuarkXPress. It's the millions of business owners who will decide whether the upgrade is worth their investment in time and money. My prediction is that the page layout world will be bilingual (ID & QX) for a very long time to come.
Response to David Blatner, part 1
(The Vox box has a length limit, so this reply is broken into two parts. This is part 1.)
Thanks, David, for taking the time to weigh in with your thoughts. I feel the need to clarify a few of your complaints.
You said: "If it takes twice as long to import text and create PDF files in QX7 than in 6.5 or in InDesign, how on earth can that mean QX7 is a winning solution for people who "pump out pages"?
Perhaps I should have mentioned that the time difference between ID and QX7 was a few seconds for text import and about 20 seconds for PDF export. Considering the time saved in other ways in QuarkXPress, losing a few seconds on a one-time text import seems practically irrelevent. And while one is likely to export a PDF several times, again, a minute lost is nothing compared to the time saved by using QuarkXPress to layout the pages.
Also, these times are on a PowerPC Mac. On an Intel Mac, QX7 is actually faster than ID when running natively on a PowerPC Mac.
I agree that I left out many "can't do's" in QX7. But providing a laundry list of features QX doesn't have that ID has is contrary to the point of the upgrade (and the review). In my view, Quark isn't competing with InDesign. They're competing with previous versions of QuarkXPress. I tried to list the most glaring oversights in the "Cons" section.
You said: "And the idea that QX7's type controls are somehow on par with InDesign is completely misinformed."
Did I say that? I did mention that QX7's OpenType support is great, and that its Glyphs palette is better than the way other applications give you access to complex OpenType fonts, but I also said that the text-wrapping engine needs an upgrade. I don't think I compared it with InDesign, which does indeed have excellent, if convoluted, type control.
You said: "But the idea that any InDesign user would find QX attractive is neigh-on ludicrous."
I don't think so. I've heard of several big publishers who are regretting their conversion to InDesign, having now used their new system for a number of issues but are now discovering that they are wasting more time than before. Whether they switch back or not is a big question, since it would require that an executive be brave or crazy enough to admit that they made a very expensive mistake. I don't doubt -- at all -- that many companies are very happy with their choice of InDesign. I just know that some of them are reconsidering their decision now that they've seen how QX7 could vastly improve their workflow.
(see below for part two of my reply)
Page layout innovation!
The most rewarding and interesting thing I'd like to comment on is how Quark did not respond to InDesign by trying to copy features, but instead brought major new workflow innovations to the table with things like Composition Zones.
Innovation by strong competitors in the page layout space is great news for all users as well as those of us who make our living in the third party publishing ecosystem. If Quark had just tried to play catch-up, we would have all lost.
I agree (and am happy to see) that we are looking at two major players in the page layout space for many, many years to come. While InDesign continues to attract a lot of users, I think even died in the wool InDesign loyalists might admit that the upgrade from CS1 to CS2 was not nearly as groundbreaking as this QuarkXpress 7 release.
As for me, I love em both!
Sterling Ledet & Associates, Inc.
Certified Adobe and Quark training
http://www.ledet.com
Problem with Text Under Opacity
As I said in my creativepro.com article last week, I am not completely turned off from QuarkXPress 7. And there is much in Jay's review that I agree with.
However, there is something that the Quark people are saying about their transparency applied to text that is incorrect.
Quark Inc. has been saying that the Transparency Flattener slider is confusing. While I agree it can be confusing (hence my career as a trainer), the setting to control transparency by rasterization only (as found in XP 7), is not the answer.
Here are the results of some of my tests that show a real problem with XP text under an opacity setting.
If text is below a solid vector shape that has an opacity setting applied, it is hoped that the output to PDF will still be text.
In InDesign, this is indeed the case. This ensures that the text does not output with "stitching." Stitching is the term applied when certain "atomic regions" of vector objects get thicker than others. (For more information on this topic see: http://partners.adobe.com/public/asn/en/print_resource_center/AICS_PrintGuide6.pdf
In InDesign the conversion of text with transparency maintains the text as text if the proper settings have been set in the Transparency Flattener.
In XP 7, however, the conversion of text with opacity above it will convert the text into a raster image with a clipping path outlining the text.
This does, as Jay said, maintain the crisp PostScript edges. But it does NOT ensure the proper output of the text.
This is the situation that will cause the text to output thicker in the area under the opacity.
This situation can cause a word that was supposed to be only a different color to suddenly appear bolder or thicker than the text around it.
Quark Inc. has not addressed this problem in their transparency output controls.
Adobe Systems Inc. has provided a robust Transparency Flattener that does.
Part of the solution for this thickening of text is to know and understand how to set the "Convert all text to Outlines" controls in InDesign.
Quark has not added such a feature.
Exciting at last
For the first time since the release of 4.0, I feel that Quark has finally released a set of features that are targeted towards thier real market - the professional publishing market. I agree with the enthusiasm about the picture effects, transparency and composition zones. As for the speed issues. I tested early versions on 10.3 on a 500 Mhz iMac and it was slower than molasses in winter. However, after intalling it my 750 Mhz iBook and 10.4, the speed for almost everything was highly acceptable.
I am somewhat disappointed in the Ouput Styles implementation. I seems like a 0.9 version. I like the idea of composition zones but I am yet to fully comprehend the actual usage. However, as an XTension developer, I found the enhancements exciting and worthy of quick upgrade.
Overall, I think Jay covered the good points with good accuracy. He also demonstarted how these new features can improve your printed page.
Bravo, Quark...you HAVE arrived...nicely done, Jay
One would expect Mr. Blatner, the editor of "InDesign Magazine," to take a little swipe at Quark 7. It's like when you've been hanging out with the Monkees (who are indeed stars) and are part of the Monkees posse and the Beatles walk in the room and don't know who you are...ya gotta represent! That's right folks, Quark 7 is the Beatles of layout and InDesign is the hollywood knockoff, the Monkees. So take the last slow train to Clarksville if you want but when the free update to Universal Binary comes out in July or so...not to mention whatever enhancements are going to get mixed in, this Quark scramjet is taking off for a Revolution.
We can all afford to wait a few more seconds for better, trouble-free flattening while we compound thousands of hours of saved time with collaborative workflow (easy as iChat) and synchronized layouts dancing in tandem to the beat of a Job Jacket. We can also cut back on the cross-screen mileage (mouselage) by getting 11 InDesign palettes into 1 Quark Measurement palette. Light at the end of the carpal tunnel!
Works great. Looks great. Prints great. Is great!
ps. no doubt the Monkees next album will go platinum, but it just may be up against the next Beatles "Pantone Album" or "Ain't No Shabby Road"...stay tuned.
XPress 7.0 is not ready for prime time
Jay is certainly good at touting QuarkXPress 7's good points -- and there are many good points to QX7 -- but he downplays the bad points to such an extreme that his conclusion seems skewed to me. If it takes twice as long to import text and create PDF files in QX7 than in 6.5 or in InDesign, how on earth can that mean QX7 is a winning solution for people who "pump out pages"?
Jay also leaves out a huge number of problem areas. For example, you STILL cannot Undo a huge number of things, including moving guides, deleting pages, making changes to master pages, and so on. And the idea that QX7's type controls are somehow on par with InDesign is completely misinformed.
I agree with Jay that most QX users who are committed to staying with QX will probably want to upgrade to QX7 this year. But the idea that any InDesign user would find QX attractive is neigh-on ludicrous. QuarkXPress 7 demos great, is clearly a major step forward, has a few very good features, but its performance problems, underlying structural issues, and (for many important features, such as composition zones) incomprehensible UI tells me that Quark shipped v7 too early.
--David Blatner, author, "Real World QuarkXPress 6," "Real World InDesign CS2," and others