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kulverse · Mar 30, 2002, 02:47 PM

Ugh!!!

So I got this 136 page Quark 5 document, a Media Guide for an Arena football team. printing-wise im dealing with a broker. I ask him before I start the job if using Quark 5 was a problem. he says "not a problem at all" Great! I do this, go through weeks of changes/additions, and hand the guy the CD with a Quark 5 document.. he tells me on the phone that it looks great, they will output the films later (this is a rush printing job) in the day...good job. Later in the day I get this from the broker:

"The printer (a fairly large company in the area) called me and said that Quark 5 doesnt exist and you used a beta program to do artwork, and that is just not good business practice...yadda, yadda, yadda...they cant open your illegal beta crap."

I tell the guy to go to Quark.com to see that it is and has been available since January. Not only that, I told him i was gonna use Quark 5. He didnt want to hear it. He calls my client and tells him im a bad designer for using beta software, and in the end, im F***ing him. Luckily my client also bought Quark 5. So after that, i get a call from the broker sayng "Im sorry, your right, it is out, but the printer doesnt have it" after i do some "setting straight" about his attitude, i told him i'd save the document as a Quark 4 file and check it over to make sure all is OK, in Quark 4. I also used one of those handy little scripts and save each page as an EPS file. Well, the Quark doc coverted to 4 just fine, and the EPS files added up to 1.5 gig, so i trashed that idea.

First proofs should come back Monday...what a mess....

godzookie2k · Mar 30, 2002, 02:58 PM

Damn, that sucks, well, there is always PDF for the future...

kulverse · Mar 30, 2002, 03:41 PM

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
<STRONG>Damn, that sucks, well, there is always PDF for the future...</STRONG>

Yeah..I thought about that, but then I worried about color correction and whatnot on their end of things...it all worked out in the end, but it was annoying to say the least

andi*pandi · Mar 31, 2002, 03:15 PM

how nice that the broker was so ignorant and went to your client... what an ass.

kulverse · Mar 31, 2002, 04:19 PM

The funny part was that my client had Quark 5 as well. The broker got reamed from both my client and I. The printer aplogized as well to me and the broker. So it worked in the end, but I think I'll use Quark 4 till 5 get a little more exposure from now on.

MikeM32 · Apr 9, 2002, 07:09 AM

Being a little experienced in the pre-press/production end of the business I'd say using or saving in Quark 4 format is your safest bet for now. Of my somewhat brief experience in the printing end of things so far I've noted that many production houses will hold off on purchasing the latest software until it's absolutely necessary. I don't agree with that,but in the end it's all about the $$$$ (which is sort of ironic if you think about that).

Mike

mitchell_pgh · Apr 9, 2002, 11:21 AM

1) If a broker EVER called ANY of my clients I would:

a) Inform the broker that he had lost the job and any future job.
b) Inform the broker that if he ever contacted my client again that I would seek legal council.
c) Reaffirm with the client that you simply had an uninformed broker.
d) Call a different printer and say, "I have a project, can you meet this price?" Remember that the broker is printing it somewhere... If you send it out to enough places, one of them will probably call back saying (yah, I remember this quote)

Never trust brokers that would use such tactics. I hardly trust printers, unless I know them.

Anyway, as a designer, stick to Quark 4.0 for the next year or so. It's the industry standard, but it's going to take a long time for 5.0 to catch on.

andi*pandi · Apr 9, 2002, 02:54 PM

designers may be slow to adapt, but it's in the self-interest of printers/service bureaus to have the most up-to-date stuff. If they don't, you should walk it someplace else. The fact that they didn't, and said they did (or the broker said they did cuz he didn't know better) doesn't say much for their professionalism.

Mitchell, great suggestions...

::maroma:: · Apr 9, 2002, 02:59 PM

Can anyone here that uses or has used Quark 5 give a short review? I've read other reviews, and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. It seems to me they've added half-assed web features, and very few print improvements. Also, is the UI still butt-ass-ugly?

I love Quark(4.x), and have sworn by it for years. But they were so slow in getting v5 out, and it's a minor upgrade in my view, that they've lost a lot of credibility with me. I'm slowly learning InDesign, since I can see Quark slowly fizzling out into oblivion.

So, anyone here blown away by v5? Or is it what I fear...a really bad upgrade to a very old version?

mitchell_pgh · Apr 9, 2002, 04:56 PM

Yah, I am a loyal Quark user, but InDesign has intrigued me. It really looks like Adobe wants to take over the design field as "the standard", and from what I read, they are well on their way. Unfortunately, Quark pays the bills for me.

I'm considering purchasing InDesign for X once Photoshop is released, but I still am holding onto OS 9 for a ton of work... Sad...

Quark should drop the idea of building web pages from Quark files and focus on print. There are a million other programs for web development, but only a few for high quality print jobs.

maroma · Apr 9, 2002, 05:24 PM

Quark should drop the idea of building web pages from Quark files and focus on print. There are a million other programs for web development, but only a few for high quality print jobs.

I agree. I don't know what Quark has been thinking about these past few years. They've dropped the ball, and have yet to pick it back up. And holding out on OS X for so long will only hurt them more. They need to jump in early, and learn as they go, or they will be in serious danger of InDesign passing them right by. (which I wouldn't mind too much)

InDesign's only problem is that it's a rookie. It needs only to be wholly accepted by the print community. After that happens, it's bye bye Quark for me, I'm afraid. Too bad too, I've invested many many moons in Quark.

kulverse · Apr 9, 2002, 05:25 PM

Well, to update y'all on this. Everything looks great, and was printed very well. I am happy with it, and the client is in love with the finished product.

The broker was just ill informed, and we would have gone else where, but this was one of those "Here's the last bit of content 10 minutes before the printer needs the CD" kinda deals. So we had no time to look for a new printer. I will never deal with that broker again, thats all. Brokers are always a pain in the butt, in my experiences. he was used because my client had luck with him in the past. He was not my find.

The ONLY reason I used Quark 5 was because I previously asked the broker if it was OK. he said "No problem"

I have learned my lesson here. I'll wait a year or so before i use Quark 5 on a job again. luckily, it converted down to Quark 4 with no problems.

A Quark 5 review:
Its basicaly Quark 4 with a platinum interface. Yes, Quark has joined 1997 and supported platinum.

The web stuff if shotty at best. Still only 1 undo

Needs Distiller for PDF. Exports Gigantic EPS files. The scripts menu is handy though. And some new non-postscript printing options are a welcome find. but it very much feels like the same old Quark. I just got InDesign 2. i'm looking forward to messing with this.

Thanks for all your help. Graphics people rule.

buddhabelly · Apr 9, 2002, 09:00 PM

Hello,

I have worked in prepress in a printing company for 2 years now, and as far as getting the latest and greatest, it only happens when a "big" customer comes in with a new job that only supports features availible in the newest version. ie. when Illustrator released version 9. The reasons vary, from money (not just the cost of the program, but how much revenue will we make by accepting jobs in these programs) to having to spend time to learn the new features. It took over a month and 3 submitted jobs from a regular customer to upgrade to Illustrator 9, and that was a couple of months after the program was released.

I am greatly hoping for industry adoption of Indesign. We have at work and just received a 92 page catalog using the program and are falling right into it. Some quick adjustments to where tools are located was all I really noticed. You can do anything in there that you can in Quark. One thing that we haven't experimented in yet is importing native Photoshop and Illustrator files. Main reason for this is that we us an OPI ripping system, and as far as we can tell, Indesign will embed all graphics placed in native format.

As far as the huge eps files go, it's not really Quarks fault. It's how you save them. If you save them with your graphics embedded, and you have a lot of graphics, that's where your file size comes from. Same thing in Illustrator or Pagemaker. Depending on your printers system of working, you could save all your graphics in a specific folder, save each page as and eps and omit images for OPI and then give them a disc with your images and pages. Pros/Cons: Small file size, no one can make changes or cause reflow/Your printer will not be able to make any last minute changes. etc

We have in the last year put in a new Ripping system using Rampage, and use the above system as our workflow. It has cut our trouble shooting and trapping time down by at least 50% We use Preps software for imposition. One of the great things about Preps is once you build a library of templates, imposition time is cut way down.

Anyways, sorry about the lengthy post. Just thought I'd give some insight from the prepress/printer point of view.

mitchell_pgh · Apr 9, 2002, 11:38 PM

Here is a question for the pre-press people.

What are the major issues you find in Quark/Photoshop/Illustrator files sent from "design" houses?

I'm talking about "embet all images" or "don't think about registration"... stuff like that. Whenever I send a project in, they just say "Everything is fine" and don't give any feedback.