QuarkXPress 8 to target Adobe's Creative Suite this August - Page 2

The discussion was about translation. As in, the document was already made in one language, now you need to make a different language version of it based on that original document without redoing it from scratch, just replacing the text. I don't know these programs, nor do I know the demands of translation, I don't know if there's something that the users aren't realizing.

Hopefully it won't be as half-baked as 7 when it was released. What a nightmare. Our design team decided to make the leap from 6 to 7 when it was first released. Big-mistake-crash-fest! Quark was never really stable for us till 7.2 or 7.3 and it's still glitchy. Adobe is trumping Quark's features left and right. There are great features in 8 as there was in 7, which convinced us to move, but I don't think we will be jumping anytime soon after the disaster with 7.

Software companies really need to start focusing on delivering a more stable products to us end users. If it weren't for our dependency of having to use Quark because of a long legacy of doing so, we would have moved to InDesign long ago.

It's unfortunate that Abobe has bought out all of their competition.

I see no real desire on the part of CS zombies to actually see the productivity advantages Quark has such as:

1. Multiple layouts in one project file...worth the price alone
2. Ability to sychronize text and picture content between layouts and pages
3. Ability for several people to work on the same document
4. Job Jackets for enforcing font and color usage in a wider project or client based
5. Color based transparency...way better than Adobe's
6. Much better shadow controls
7. Much better PSD layer palette than InDesign
8. Full color correction and picture effects built in
9. WAY better hanging punctuation than Adobe has
10. Far superior grid technology for ALL languages
11. Many fewer palettes to get a better job done
12. Support for more output types including flash
13. WAY better interactive creation than Adobe has...simpler for the average designer to understand
14. Sooo many more XTensions
15. Much better item styling options and search and replace tools

I'm sorry...I find clinging onto yesterday's winner (InDesign 2) is costing companies millions in lost productivity...it's actually pathetic.

Quark 8 rules when it comes to efficiency, features and support. Adobe is getting further behind with every release of their flawed plug-in based architecture..scrambling to catch up.

Don't waste your money on CS4. Also the PDF (EPS with a rasterizer built in) days are rapidly drawing to a close as the world clamours for an open standard closer to what Microsoft is offering...not some proprietary shareholder-driven format they have to pay and pay for.

The run is over...the call was answered. BTW: Quark and Apple are working much more closely than Adobe and Apple which are becoming rivals.

You're funny.
And way off your rocker.

I'm a former Quark Guru who held tight onto it as long as I could until I saw the light. I could go over your list point by point but I have better things to do today. There are 2 main reasons alone why InDesign trumps Quark, especially in a print environment and that is it's superior PDF export capabilities and the separations palette which Quark can't even touch with a 10 foot pole.

It's not just the big features though, it's all the little things QuarkXpress does that take more steps to do or things that get in your way or force you to do it manually. Quark can keep adding new features to try and trump Adobe but until it goes back and rethinks most of the app it is dead in the water. And no amount of Xtensions will help.

Well..obviously your guru days are over because last time I checked the specs on Quark 7 and especially 8, it handles PDF separations just fine and I didn't see a place in InDesign, please correct me oh guru, to switch the view mode into grayscale or any other colorspace so your document appears while working as it will when printed, no matter what colorspace it's in.

As far as a palette, the separations palette in InDesign is a plug-in and anyone with a modicum of XTension skill could write the same thing for XPress if needed.

Further, the Jaws PDF engine was developed at the same college (ie Cambridge) that Sir Isaac Newton went to and is used throughout the planet to produce perfect ICC PDF-X that you see printed every day.

You can't possibly address my list of superior XPress features above as InDesign simply doesn't cover so much of it...in any way, shape or form.

You have become the new PageMaker users all over again. PageMaker was rebranded as InDesign and Adobe tossed in some Illustrator palettes and functionalities and now they are tossing in Photoshop in a desperate attempt to stay relevant. So you like PagestratorShop. What can I say.

I like parallel, multi-processor computers and Quark's approach to parallel, collaborative workflow is much more in tune with the IM, Skype generation. Maybe you're a lone wolf who doesn't care, but if you're actually paying the bills for a workforce, bells and whistles don't look as shiny as faster production and perfectly adequate output that 50% of the world still uses (at least).

See: http://planetquark.com/2008/05/29/qu...quarkxpress-8/ to get more depth
Also, realize that in Jay's article he doesn't even get into the full power of the features such as hanging punctuation which as fully customizable as preset classes and on a per character basis. Also Quark's approach to box and page type grids is a complete typographical smackdown.

I guess the power of the sub-atomic particle that makes up the fabric of matter just isn't going to be held down by a mud brick.

Bottom line... ... ...Quark sucks. They fell behind and they're trying to play catchup with all these added features that probably aren't going to work. I have been using InDesign since college and I'm really not going to switch. I refuse to learn a piece of software that sucks.

I use InDesign, but I'm starting to really dislike these groupies that have jumped on the bandwagon.

Criticizing an app because it has 'added features' is extremely stupid. No-one cares what you learned in college or what you "refuse to learn" in the future.

This isn't a college football team. We don't need cheerleaders. If you don't know Quark, can't compare the two apps properly and your only comment is that "it sucks", please keep it to yourself.

Folks who are looking for black n white, good v evil scenario are what's wrong with modern, polarized America. It's OK for Quark to get better isn't it? Or do they need your signoff to innovate. Let's remember, the Beatles were just 4 guys yet no amount of money or army of musicians could match their inspiration and put it in a bottle (though Target is trying).

What's so great about a monopoly? Believe me if Quark were successfully killed by Adobe...you wouldn't like the results and the world would become just a little duller and more uniform. Maybe that's how you like it.

A note on PDF format for those that think Adobe is the only company that can make them properlyremember anybody can make a proper PDF since the format is well documented, though convoluted and archaic. CompuServe invented the GIF format but do you only trust Compuserve to make a proper GIF? PDF is just a variation on Postscript and it hasn't changed that much since the eighties. As soon as the Postscript patent expired, PDF took over the world so Adobe would still have some licensing revenues. I mention all this because there's a mystique the Adobe makes the best PDFs or the best Flash apps which is non-sense. These are just file formats. And just like PNG has surpassed the GIF, something will come along and blow away the PDF.

Viva la difference!

Yes, that's what I meant when I said former.

Just read through the list of "what's new" in Quark 8. Most of it's features are already found in InDesign. This is good. If they can make it more like InDesign it forces Adobe to improve InDesign.

Well at least I see an openness developing so you may be on your way back to guru standing.

While it's true that Quark played some catchup with normal ID functions, I swear I just don't see an analog for:

1. Multiple let alone synchronized layouts in project and I don't think ID folks even get it without using it
2. Try making one letter in a text box one transparency and another a different one...note adobe was forced to copy although poory Quark's color-based transparency in CS3
3. Try scaling or skewing the drop shadow or run type around a drop shadow in ID
4. Try picking up a JDF Job Jacket with all specs for a job and enforcing that on a group of documents
5. Try working on a 60 page monograph where sally can work on page 3-7, johnny can work onpage 45 and when they save your master document updates the areas that were grayed out
6. Try making quote marks hang 50% on leading edge and 100% on trailing edge and commas or drop caps behave a different way
7. Try changing a tagline on your Envelope cover and having it update in all the various sizes and locations in your brochure, BRC, flyers, etc.

That said..there are also plenty of things Pagestratorshop does that Quark doesn't do yet but most have to do with trivial design things that can be handled by Illustrator CS1 or Photoshop 7.

So in conclusion: competition is good but it doesn't mean one side can catch the other due to patents and smarter architecture.

I think I'm okay with not having my guru status.
You can probably tell I'm an InDesign guru now, and people come to me to ask me InDesign questions. Actually, the most common question I get now is how a certain feature from Quark is done in InDesign.

Most of your 7 points there do not apply to me and where I work. For instance, I am the head of graphic design which currently has a team of one: me.