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Mac Hammer Fan · Dec 14, 2007, 03:48 PM

M$ office Word has too much trouble with long documents containing a lot of illustrations and equations. Every time I work with large files I get "the disk is full bug" (more than 50 GB free on my HD.
And a lot of drawings seem to move to places that I don't want.
Please can you recommend me a better alternative?
Quark? Indesign? (unfortunately FrameMaker is only PC)
Quark Education (QX 7, Expert Tools and Interactive Designer) seems to be 30 % cheaper than Adobe Indesign in Europe. Is the extra premium for Indesign worth the money?
Which one is easiest to learn? More user friendly?
TIA

mduell · Dec 14, 2007, 06:29 PM

Are you using the chapter feature in MS Word to break the document into manageable sections?

(La)Tex is pretty much the standard for professional academic publications. There are a few decent Mac GUIs for it.

Thorzdad · Dec 15, 2007, 10:21 AM

Long-form documents? For publication? If so, InDesign is pretty-much the de-facto layout app for designers on the Mac now. Quark shot themselves when they bungled their transition to OSX.
That said, professional print shops still use Quark because it's been so deeply integrated into their workflow. But designers have moved to InDesign, for the most part (with apologies to the Quark diehards here. No diss intended)

red rocket · Dec 16, 2007, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by Mac Hammer Fan

(unfortunately FrameMaker is only PC)

FrameMaker 7.0 works with OS 9, Apple even made the iPhone User's Guide with it, apparently.

Mac Hammer Fan · Dec 16, 2007, 07:58 AM

Originally Posted by red rocket

FrameMaker 7.0 works with OS 9, Apple even made the iPhone User's Guide with it, apparently.

I know and FrameMaker is great, it has a wonderful built-in equation-editor too. But there is no classic support on an Intel mac such as my new MacBook.

red rocket · Dec 16, 2007, 08:08 AM

Ah, I see. Your signature suggested to me that you still had a Classic‑capable machine, that's why I mentioned it.

Mac Hammer Fan · Dec 16, 2007, 08:14 AM

I bought a MacBook last month. I still use the Dual G5 for desktop computer too, but it's running Leopard now and there is no more classic support.

KeriVit · Dec 16, 2007, 10:40 AM

I think the commands of InDesign are most like Microsoft if that's what you are familiar with. There is an EDU version available as well. Also, if you are sharing the doc with people, I feel InDesign is more cross-platform friendly.

I am not trying to start the debate. If you want to compare Quark and ID, search the forum. But, my opinion is that ID would be the easiest transition from where you are at now.

Mac Hammer Fan · Dec 16, 2007, 10:48 AM

I have downloaded trial versions of both and I have noticed both Quark and Indesign have some features that the other application doesn't offer. But overall Indesign seems indeed to be the most powerful layout program.

phobos · Dec 17, 2007, 12:38 AM

Stick with InDesign. Adobe hasn't had a great luck with their cs updates (ruining things that were working perfectly fine) but you can be rest assured that InDesign is going to be updated regularly, and refined unlike Quark.

alex_kac · Dec 17, 2007, 07:14 PM

I actually moved long documentation based stuff to Apple's Pages from InDesign. ID is awesome and I use it for ads and other design oriented stuff, but for long docs, Pages actually works better.