It is nearly impossible to consider the features of QuarkXPress 6.0 and not notice the massive pile of baggage crowding at the front door. The OS X question for Mac users fills a large suitcase, the InDesign vs. XPress smackdown takes up a huge trunk, and the very issue of Quark itself seems to be weighing heavily on every bag.

Here's a brand that refuses to follow the rules and continually frustrates the industry it helped create. The legends are large and the mysteries many. Yet every few years we collectively send our offerings to Denver and go back to conducting business with a solid software product that can rightfully be called the "official global workhorse."

That lucky position is under assault, and the next chapter of this 16-year-old story may written on the success of Quark 6.0. Whether we pony up our cash or finally say "phooey" to Quark and cede global domination to Adobe, is the key choice at stake. Based on working with the product for several weeks now, I'd say it's premature to count Quark out. This is not a stunning upgrade, and if you're looking for lots of bells and whistles, you'll be disappointed. But that may very well be the key to Quark's success -- XPress 6.0 is as comfy as a pair of old shoes that just got a fresh shine and some new laces (see Figure 1).

I'd rather leave the bulk of Quark baggage at the door, but there are a few key issues to consider outside of direct product features. Software is a relationship as much as it is a list of features, and the dialog between buyer and seller does count.

Licensing Agreements
First and perhaps most significant, is a change in how Quark enforces the licensing agreement we confirm when we install their software. Quark has always licensed use for a "single computer," and if you've ever tried to run your version of XPress on more than one networked machine, you've gotten a warning dialog box and the program won't open on the second machine.

But this didn't prevent most of us from installing XPress on both our work and home computers, or on our laptop for use when we are away. The "moral" license clearly gives us the right to use software wherever we want and on whatever machine we want, assuming we don't violate the spirit of the agreement. We understand the difference between "fair use" and "theft."

In this version Quark has instituted a product activation system that now restricts that second "moral" license and confines single-seat buyers to only one unique machine, which is registered with Quark over the Internet or by phone (see Figure 2). There is a process whereby you can change the activation to a new or different computer, but you can't swap back and forth between machines at will. No laptop use if XPress is activated for your desktop machine. No way to run XPress on both your work and home machines, even if you never run them concurrently. For those who travel or take their work home, this is a massive and unacceptable restriction.

Adobe also specifically licenses its products for single use, but its agreement allows for laptop or home machine use, as long as they aren't used simultaneously. A Quark spokesperson told me the company was "exploring" the question of laptop/desktop use, but if you purchase the product today, be clear that you will not be able to run your software on more than one machine until, or if, Quark revises its practice. I would counsel anyone who is considering this upgrade to complain to Quark about this policy and perhaps we can get it changed.

Quark does have a Licensing Administrator Software product, which gives larger customers a lot of flexibility in using multiple copies of XPress, but it's overkill for single-license sites. There must be a way to please everybody, and still give Quark the aggressive protection it so desperately craves. I feel the same queasiness about these intrusive methods of control as I do when asked to check my bag before being allowed to shop at Tower Records -- the presumption of guilt is unsettling.

Quark continues, by the way, to restrict use of its products geographically (the Americas version will only run on English-language operating systems). Quark has irked international users for years by selling a much more expensive multiple-language version of XPress called Passport. Adobe InDesign supports multiple languages in the same standard package and for thousands of dollars less than Passport.

The InDesign Issue
In running through the new features of XPress 6.0, I've tried not to make too many comparisons to InDesign, but some are unavoidable. Professional graphic designers or publishers should surely download a demo copy of InDesign and try it out before upgrading to XPress 6.0. Quark says it will have demo copies of XPress 6.0 available soon, so you don't have to make this decision without hands-on testing. InDesign is the superior product -- it integrates much better with other Adobe applications, and on a feature-for-feature basis it easily beats XPress. Adobe's inside advantage with PDF is even clearer now that we've seen the PDF morsels Quark is serving up.

But software is like a musical instrument, and each program has a unique feel when you get your hands on the keyboard and start working. XPress is the Fender guitar of page-layout -- we could replace it with something fancier, but the music we make on it comes out just fine. We love XPress because it continually gets out of the way and lets us do our work, and we've looked the other way for years when confronted with any of the negatives. Both programs are capable of turning out award-winning pages, but the industry's heavy investment in XPress means the majority of users will make this upgrade, at least on some of their copies.

It's sad, really, that Quark, the company, isn't more beloved by their customers. We'd all prefer competition, and despite an almost love-fest for Adobe, no one wants single-brand domination of the industry. With a perky makeover (or perhaps major reconstruction) Quark could be a company we'd all get behind.

The OSX Migration
XPress 6.0 is being upgraded for both Mac and Windows (now running on XP), so this release isn't entirely about OS X, but that's the topic shining in the spotlight. Mac owners' choices are simple:

1. They can upgrade to OS X and XPress 6.0 (which only runs on OS X).
2. They can upgrade to OS X and switch to InDesign.
3. They can work in a mixed InDesign/XPress environment.
4. They can scrap the Mac and get a Windows machine.

It is not viable to remain in OS 9 running an earlier version of XPress. At least not for long. Apple has essentially abandoned OS 9, and if you're running XPress in Classic, you're already highly frustrated. And now by making the files that come out of 6.0 incompatible with version 4.0 or below, Quark has almost certainly sealed your fate. (You can save a file out of 6.0 to 5.0 then open it in 5.0 and save it in 4.0, but who's going to do that?) So anyone who exchanges or edits XPress files (and who doesn't?) will eventually have a compatibility problem. The switch to OS X is inevitable -- it's only a question of when.

XPress 6.0 does not take full advantage of OS X (no Quartz rendering technology), and the application looks much the same as it did before, although it now has the fancy Aqua interface. But that may be an advantage for Quark users, who are Mac fans, but not necessarily fanatics. Quark admits they came late to the OS X bandwagon, and the rush to catch up shows a bit in this release. Some interface elements, like the measurements palette, are substantially bigger than in previous editions, taking up more valuable screen space.

We can only speculate what Quark 6.0 would be like if it was still Tim Gill's baby (Quark co-founder who sold the company several years ago). Hundreds of talented programmers in India cannot substitute for the passion and pride of authorship that an original programmer brings. And after 16 years of code-building, XPress is notorious for its programming complexity.

Apple is certainly hoping that the switch to OS X and XPress 6.0 will coincide with increased investment in hardware, particularly the new line of G5 machines. The minimum requirements for 6.0 on the Mac have grown significantly: G3 or faster processor, 128MB of RAM and 230MB of hard drive space. So older machines that can run OS X v10.2 may do okay, but if you're marginal in running OS X, you probably won't be happy with the performance.

And since XPress has its most trouble when squeezing memory, you'll be better served by at least 512 MB of RAM. When the sagging economy perks up and budgets for hardware upgrades appear again, then we'll all be nicely surprised by the performance boost we get. I didn't experience any problems in running 6.0 on my early 500mhz G4, though it seemed just a little "pokey." However, I did not do any sort of speed benchmarks, but I felt no handicap.

In Windows you'll need 128MB of RAM, 190MB of hard drive space, and Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

Upgrade Pricing
Here's where I have less issue with Quark. The upgrade price for 6.0, depending on which version you own, is $199-$499 (most of us will pay $299 to upgrade from 4.0). The list price for the full product pushes the envelope for this market by topping the $1,000 mark, although you can get it from the Apple store and others for $899 (which is still more than InDesign's list price of $699). XPress, by the way, first came out in 1987, the same year as Adobe Illustrator, which is now in version 10. Upgrade value is hard to pin down -- I'd rather have fewer upgrades and pay more for them than have lots of upgrades and the inevitable disruptions caused by them. Quark 4.0 has worked well for many years and I can't imagine anyone who uses it in a professional setting that hasn't gotten their money's worth.

Plus, I've thought since the beginning of the desktop revolution that page-composition software was under valued. People will pay $499 for an iPod, then balk at $299 to upgrade a tool that performs miracles every time it prints a page. But the free market dictates price and value, so by comparison to its main competition, XPress is overpriced.

And for those prices I would like to get a real manual, not just the PDF files.

Customer Service
Whether deserved or not, Quark has a reputation for being a little stingy on customer service. Part of the problem is that Quark puts so few resources into marketing and PR that no matter what they do, their brand image is misunderstood. I've been out to Denver plenty of times to hear the "we really do love our customers" pitch, and I usually come back feeling like the bad reputation is a bit unfair -- there are some nice people at Quark who seem to be listening to customers and doing the right thing. But Quark won't win any Brownie points this time around for the support that comes with 6.0.

For the price of 6.0 you get one tech support phone call or one e-mail exchange, period. After that, you can pay per incident ($15), buy an extended service package ($95 for 90 days or $229 for 12 months if you prepay -- more if you buy on credit) or purchase an e-mail support plan ($129 per year). At Adobe you get unlimited tech support for 30 days on a major software upgrade, and 90 days on a new software purchase.

In fairness, I haven't needed to call Quark support during the last two upgrades, so I can't really feel cheated. And one measure of customer service is surely the quality of the product and our ability to use it without needing support. But for a major upgrade one call seems skimpy. With the new features of 6.0, the oddball registration scheme, and the operating systems changes, I'll bet more customers than normal will have issues. And when it turns out there are bugs that trigger phone calls, Quark owes it to its customers to extend warranty service appropriately.

I can't advise you that tech support policies, upgrade pricing, or even licensing restrictions are a good reason not to buy QuarkXPress 6.0. In the end those things fade into the background and you're left with just the product, day after day. Yet you always have a choice of who you do business with, and for some people that weighs as heavily as anything else. Quark is a little like a mischievous cousin -- every time you see them they swear things are different now, but you secretly know they'll never change.

XPress 5
General consensus around the industry is that not that many people upgraded to QuarkXPress 5.0. Many of the features in 6.0, then, will be new to buyers, even though they appeared first in 5.0. These include editable layers, a table editor, XML import and export capabilities, context sensitive menus (control click or right-button click on any item and a pop-up menu appears with the options for that item), and basic Web publishing tools (along with lots of other little stuff). QuarkXPress 5.0 was, in many ways, a more substantial upgrade than 6.0. So if you're jumping from 4.0 to 6.0, you are getting quite a few new features.

But let's look at 6-specific features.

Layout Spaces
The most interesting new thing about XPress 6.0 is a simple idea that mimics the way many of us organize our work currently. It's called layout spaces, and all it really means is that individual documents (which are now called "layout spaces"), are held together in a "project" which is a like a giant über folder. So, let's say you are preparing a business card, brochure, Web site and catalog for Acme Industries. Whether they share common elements or not, you can open a project called Acme Industries and start individual "layout spaces" for each of those documents just as you created individual Quark files in the past. When you open the Acme Industries project file, you get all the documents (layouts) represented in tabs across the bottom of the XPress window (see Figure 3). This makes moving between items extremely easy, so if you make a change on one item, you can quickly update the other documents as well, though you have to do most changes manually on each document.

The most intriguing benefit of this new project orientation is that you can now link text within a project across multiple documents. So when Acme Industries changes the description of one of its products, you can update it across multiple layouts. I'll talk more about text synchronization in a minute.

A project can contain as many as 25 document layout spaces, and each document can contain up to 2,000 pages. But since you cannot build indexes or table of contents across layouts, this feature has limited use in building individual book chapters.

Since output or printing is done on a layout-by-layout basis, each document in a project file can have different output specs depending on where it's being printed, or in the case of a Web layout space, where it is being posted. You cannot print Web layouts directly from XPress, however, they are exported as HTML and printed from the browser, which has distinct limitations.

The implementation of these multiple layouts within one document is extremely basic, and you can't help but wish there was more you could do with them. You cannot view layouts in multiple windows or in side-by-side thumbnails -- only by clicking on the tab can you bring that document window to the front. So copying and pasting things from one layout to another is through the clipboard instead of by dragging items, and you can't display one page as a reference while working on another page. Sadly too, you cannot check spelling or use the Find/Change feature across entire projects -- only within individual layouts. And not being able to share document preferences across layouts creates extra work.

While I think this new project idea is probably a good one, it would have been better to have the option of saving out individual files -- every file is a project, even if it contains only one document. And if you screw up or experience a file corruption for any reason, all of the documents in the project will be lost.

Synchronizing Text
This will likely be the most appreciated new feature in XPress, and while not a complex database-driven content management system, it brings to every user the ability to link common text elements across multiple documents (and multiple media) in a simple and easy manner. By clever linking, a savvy user will be able to considerably streamline the production process and save hours of time in building repetitive documents and making revisions.

Synchronized text actually exists in a layout-independent space called the Synchronized Text palette, sort of like a well-organized clipboard of text boxes (see Figure 4). You type the text in any of the places it will appear, then click to name it and add the content of that text box to the palette. You can only copy the entire content of a text box, so I suspect people will be making more boxes with less copy in them. Drag the file name from the menu to any textbox on any document and the same text will flow to the new text box specifications. Text changes (not formatting ones) made in any of the linked boxes make the change globally in all links.

I was able to figure out how to synchronize and de-synchronize text without having to look in the manual -- the icons are pretty intuitive, if only because of the big S in the middle. This is a classic XPress implementation -- you build a list and drag from it, much like the Color palette or the Style Sheet palette. Again, if Quark had allowed side-by-side viewing, then there may have been a way to implement synchronized text by visually connecting text boxes from one layout to another, bypassing the palette. If you have multiple synchronized text boxes on a single page, keeping track of what's synchronized to what has no visual representation.

You can store any block of text you want in the synchronized text palette, even if it isn't used in any of the individual documents (though you have to author it at some point in a normal XPress text box). So this new feature can become a good place to store text that is cut from a document when you know very well it may come back. Or if you have several versions of common text, you can name each one and store them in the synchronized text palette where they appear as a list. By storing only text, not formatting, this feature is very handy. Too bad there isn't a way to view the contents of each item in the list without pouring the text into an actual layout -- a pop-up, interactive word-processing window would have made this feature even better.

You can unlink text globally in the project or on an individual document level, and text that is linked has special markers on the text box to indicate it is linked. You can also see a list of where all instances of linked text are used, but you cannot click to them through that palette. This makes checking the global effects of any change a manual job -- you'll have to navigate to each instance of use. Text cannot be synchronized between different project files, only between layouts within a single project. You cannot synchronize pictures or text blocks that have anchored objects, an oversight.

Multiple Undo
Quark is late to the picnic on this one, but it finally got there. You can now undo up to 30 actions by several methods including undo and re-do buttons that appear at the bottom of the project window. In addition to the multiple undo capabilities, Quark has added new actions that can be undone, like, Get Picture, Crop to Box, and certain layers features. But not all items can be undone (like adding guides and some master page changes, and the Get Text command), so this isn't a foolproof feature. But after putting up with a puny one-level undo for so long, even a less-than-perfect tool looks like manna from heaven.

There is an undo history pop-up menu that appears when you click and hold the undo icon (see Figure 5). This tracks the undos and acts as a navigation tool should you wish to go back to a certain step. This allows you to undo multiple actions (but only sequentially). XPress empties the undo history when you close the document, but saving the document along the way does not disrupt the undo history. Redos are also handled in a pop-up menu, so you can redo multiple successive actions. But the labels Quark uses for these menus are pretty simplistic and may not tell you enough to pinpoint a specific action.

Sadly, Quark is beginning to suffer from the "too-many-palettes-and-menus-syndrome" that has cluttered our workspace and is one of the more intimidating things you notice when you first open InDesign. But of course you can turn them all off if you want and work with keyboard or menu commands in most cases.

Enhanced Tables
You're either a person who uses tables extensively, or you hate them and avoid them at all costs. I'm afraid I fall into the latter category, so some of these improvements are hard for me to judge. The Table Tool was added in version 5.0, which gave very basic table capabilities -- a far cry from the advanced table features (extensive enough to be a menu item) of InDesign. In 6.0 you can now link text cells in a table to any text box in an XPress layout and you can link cells to one another. You can also set the tab order of cells, and there are some improvements to the way you format table elements (see Figure 6). It is also now possible to convert tables to a group, and to apply clipping settings and other specifications to a picture imported into a picture cell within a table.

But you cannot flow tables across multiple pages, or import tables from Microsoft Word and Excel (as most table are created in these programs, this is an essential feature and one that InDesign has). And the alternating pattern options Adobe built into InDesign tables is sorely missed here, as is the option of splitting cells horizontally and vertically. Power table users will surely be disappointed with XPress 6.0.

Improved Layers
XPress introduced the layers palette in version 5.0, which allows the grouping of objects into separate layers. Each layer can then be locked, suppressed, hidden, merged, printed, or arranged in front of or behind other layers. This gives you a lot of flexibility in making multiple versions of a document, for example, and brings to XPress the capabilities we've grown accustomed to in Adobe products for many years. Neither company allows you to change a layer's name without opening a dialog box, but they both allow you to delete all unused layers with one click. Unfortunately, you cannot share layers across layout spaces.

In version 6.0, the options for printing various layers has been improved, and you can now firmly lock a layer so that no changes can be made, regardless of the locking status of each individual item on that layer (see Figures 7 and 8). You can also easily select all items on a layer through the layers palette context menu and make global changes.

By combining synchronized text and multiple layers, designers can create much more flexible documents of the kind that change often or have multiple versions. I think Quark missed some innovative interface options, though, that might have broken new ground in how we visualize the interconnectivity of versioned and linked text.

PDF Export
Quark fought this one for too long, but has finally given in and accepted that PDF is an essential output choice, though the near absence of PDF references in 6.0 documentation is certainly curious. The PDF export capabilities of XPress are rather basic (no PDF/X support, no security features, only 1.3 support), and are based on Global Graphics' Jaws engine (see Figure 9). Jaws, which Quark is licensing, is a respected technology, and unless something happened in the baking process, XPress should generate good clean PDF files. I exported several PDF files and ran them through Enfocus PitStop Professional to check for errors and nothing alarming came up.

You can choose to down sample your PDF files to various resolutions, just as in InDesign or Acrobat Distiller, but there are no pre-selected configurations and you can't save PDF styles -- this is a real drag for multiple-use projects. And unlike InDesign, for XPress to make PDFs, you have to have a PostScript print driver installed. If you don't have an appropriate printer connected to your network, you'll have to create a virtual printer and select it (a bit of a hassle). For this reason XPress PDFs take longer to make than in InDesign -- XPress writes PostScript to the disk and then distills it. With InDesign PDF files are written directly to disk.

Whether from XPress or InDesign, I recommend that you or your service provider use a third-party application or service (like Markzware FlightCheck or Enfocus PitsStop) to assure that your PDF files are ready for print. But checking and modifying an XPress PDF file will be much, much easier than distilling it from the application format as we had to do before. And certainly creating PDF files for intermediate proofing, printing on non-PostScript printers, and markup and approval is now considerably easier. Remember, though, that you'll have to change the settings manually every time you want a different flavor PDF file. And you cannot write PDF to disk for an entire book (in the book palette) or all of the layouts in a project.

Printing Options
XPress 6.0 adds an "As Is" and a "DeviceN" option to the color output menu. When you choose As Is, each object's source color space is maintained and will be converted or managed by the RIP being used for output. These new features may seem a bit late, but they finally address the workarounds being used by those who manage color at the output device and those who need to produce both composite and separated color files.

By checking DeviceN, XPress lets you output blends, multi-inks, colorized TIFFs and other items as composite color, but also retains their color separation definitions (see Figure 10). InDesign gives more print bells and whistles overall (like the ink manager), and provides a print summary with many more parameters than XPress. And XPress won't print or create transparencies, fast becoming a hallmark of InDesign.

Pages are still limited to as small as one inch by one inch or as large as 4 feet by 4 feet. (InDesign allows pages up to 18 feet by 18 feet.) And XPress still limits zooming to 800%, while InDesign tops out at 4,000%. Somewhere in between is probably the sensible place -- I've run into the 800% limit numerous times.

Web Layout
Almost everyone has panned the idea that XPress will be used as a true multi-media publishing tool. The Web capabilities of XPress are not as full-featured as those in Adobe GoLive or Macromedia Dreamweaver. But I've been a supporter of Quark's efforts in this area, even though admittedly they may be too late, and they haven't done a complete job. Had Quark put its resources into the Web earlier (instead of into Quark Immedia or its ill-fated image editing tool, XPosure), I believe XPress could have easily been a favorite Web authoring tool. By now, though, most Web designers and producers have already chosen and learned an alternate, more capable program.

But XPress is now a basic Web publishing tool, and for those who are having trouble getting into the more complex Web-authoring programs, you may be surprised what you can do with XPress. Publishing to the Web in XPress is like doing page layouts in Illustrator, or setting type in Photoshop -- sometimes it's just easier to work in one application, even if you do give up some advanced (and you could argue basic) features.

The core Web tools in XPress came first in version 5.0. In 6.0 quite a few enhancements have been added, including the ability to create cascading menus, make two-position rollovers, preview and export HTML, and create better forms (see Figure 11). But you can't import the HTML you create in XPress back into XPress. The interface is unfamiliar enough that you'll need to consult the manual, but once you figure out what each tool does, it feels pretty XPress-like.

Though it may not be adequate for most Web designers, I look at it this way: you buy XPress to create print documents and now you get a rudimentary Web design tool thrown in. By linking text and keeping Web and print documents together in Projects, it could be XPress is a reasonable alternative for Websites that are primarily "brochure ware." You can change a print document layout into a Web document layout and vice versa, though that's just a dump of content -- not an automatic conversion process of any sort.

Missing from XPress 6.0 is the ability to preview many Web actions directly in XPress -- you have to export to HTML to see things like rollovers and cascading menus. And you cannot preview pages in multiple browser versions to see how they will perform. There is no anti-aliasing, and you can't globally set the import resolution for graphics. And as mentioned earlier, you can't print Web layouts from XPress -- you have to export them to HTML and print from the browser.

Other Features
There is now full-resolution preview of graphics courtesy of an XTension that you get after registering with Quark, (which can take 48 hours or more, so don't expect this feature right out of the box). This is a much-awaited feature that is playing catch up to InDesign, and it's a little disingenuous for Quark to hold it back pending registration. This feature addition allows you to view graphic files in their maximum resolution, which makes zooming more accurate, and improves the integrity of the screen image. You cannot automatically turn full-resolution preview on for all graphics in a document (you set it for each preview after import). Since this feature has a tendency to slow things down quite a bit, you can at least turn off the full-resolution preview feature for the entire document.

Full-resolution preview has its limits -- it only works to 800 percent, and while this capability will help when printing from XPress to non-PostScript printers, you have to be sure each image is manually set to full-resolution before printing, a rather cumbersome process.

Fonts are now grouped together in families in the fonts menu, and are collected as part of the "collect for output" feature.

You've always been able to size a graphic to fit a picture box, and starting in 5.0 picture boxes can be automatically sized to fit the graphic. This helps cut down on box clutter and is a benefit to people who place graphics visually.

And a new industry standard XML parser from Xerces improves XML exporting and can color code tagged content. I've minimized the discussion of XML capabilities in XPress (done through avenue.quark which is included with XPress), because I don't think many people are using them yet. But as we move to more and more complex content management and cross-media situations, these tools are critical, and Quark deserves credit for coming early to the XML bandwagon, even if Adobe has made some gains in implementation.

What's Missing
There are a few glaring omissions in this release. There is limited support in XPress 6.0 for OpenType, no ability to make drop shadows without a third-party XTension, no transparencies (which despite early output problems have become very popular), and no ability to embed fonts in EPS files. Again, you kind of get the impression Quark is still reluctantly supporting Adobe standards.

It is also important to point out that XTensions from earlier versions will not work in XPress 6.0, so add those into your investment calculations. And XPress is not Unicode compliant, so it doesn't deal as well with non-English fonts.

The people who still care about type will be disappointed to know that Quark did not make any significant improvements (at least not documented) in typesetting capabilities -- no automatic hanging punctuation, optical kerning, or other InDesign type features. And if you dislike the XPress H&J routines, there is no indication of any big improvements. Considering the marketing muscle Adobe has gotten out of the type features of InDesign, you'd think Quark would have thrown us a few bones. But in a world where many people are still trying to figure out the difference between a hyphen and an em dash, I'm not sure how popular those features really are. Still, it would be nice to have the options.

I've never liked the XPress spell checker, and I don't see why we can't have better word-processing tools directly in XPress. I know most people author in Word, but it's surprising how much copy gets entered directly in XPress text boxes.

Gone is Publish and Subscribe, so you can no longer link a graphic to its native application. And of course you cannot import native Photoshop files or Illustrator files (without a third-party XTension) directly into XPress as you can in InDesign. But XPress does embrace AppleScript and comes with several pre-loaded scripts, selectable from a Scripts menu.

Will XPress 6.0 be a Success?
I have no doubt that many long-time XPress users will upgrade to 6.0 -- despite all the talk and threats about moving to InDesign, many companies simply don't have the guts or resources to tackle a big change. And legacy will override emotion in a lot of circumstances. Besides, even if Adobe converts 20-30 percent of XPress users, Quark will still have a hugely successful product with market share enjoyed by very few companies.

There have already been reports of problems in 6.0 related to opening previous-version files and importing index entries, and Quark has a fairly long list of known problems on its Web site (some of them disturbing). But I had no issues with my copy, could easily open very old XPress files, and did not have any unusual crashes during my testing. It is inevitable that the first round of any software will have some problems (even Apple couldn't get it right with OS X). But I'm sure Quark has daily dispatches flying back and forth between Denver and Chandigarh, India (where the bulk of the programming takes place) and fixes are on the way. This is only disappointing because of the long wait we endured for 6.0 when all along we were being told it was because Quark refused to release the product until "it was ready."

Anyone who upgrades directly into production is asking for trouble. Quark has a pretty average record, I'd say, for bugs and other problems, but the program wouldn't be so pervasive if it wasn't nearly rock solid. Remember what it was like trying to get clean film out of any number of competing page-layout programs of the past? Adventuresome users will jump in right away, the more conservative among you will wait for 6.0.1.

QuarkXPress 6.0 does feel a bit dated and long in the tooth, but consistency and familiarity may be two of the reasons it remains a popular tool. The whole industry is getting older and more conservative -- we've been doing this for 16 years now, and the excitement has worn off. The choice between XPress and InDesign in many ways is not much of a choice at all. Though InDesign brings many new capabilities to the market, there's nothing new or revolutionary about how you build pages in either application -- same old fill-the-box metaphors.

And though I have a copy on InDesign 2.0, use it frequently, and think it's a great program, I'll eventually cut my check to Quark and buy the upgrade to 6.0 (my press copy has a built-in expiration date). When I just want to crank out a job and not think about it, I always turn back to XPress.

Read more by {link http://www.creativepro.com/author/home/1939.html Gene Gable