[allformac]

Hello everyone.

First time poster, but long time reader.

Ok, I have a tough problem...

I can't decide what app would be more better for my needs...

Quark Xpress or Adobe InDesign?

Here's what I want I need the app for:

Starting a monthly online magazine that is going to be published in PDF. Each PDF file will contain text and graphics (PNG, JPEG).

I need a piece of software that will help me be able to publish high quality PDF documents.

Side Note: I also plan on buying Adobe PhotoShop for use with creating and editing graphics.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[gorickey]

Do you have more experience using one over the other by chance? Are you going to need alot of indexing features?

[-Q-]

Gotta vote for InDesign if you're looking for PDF features. While QX 6 has announced support for it, you never know what you're going to get. And the newsletter director of our local MUG has been very happy with it....

[coolmacdude]

If you are getting Photoshop and decide to get Indesign, I would definitely go with the Adobe Design Collection. It is cheaper than buying Photoshop and Indesign seperately and you get Acrobat and Illustrator as well.

[mpmchugh]

Since your planning on distributing in PDF, you should definitely go with InDesign. I used to be a Quark XPress user, and I switched entirely to InDesign with 2.0 and haven't looked back since.

Some XPress users will argue that their Printers (prepress) won't take InDesign files. If that's the case, then get a better printer! There are many printers out there that are happy to accept InDesign files... or PDF for that matter. Since you're not printing, this isn't even a concern, but don't let anyone convince you that this even would be a problem.

InDesign's PDF output is great and the integration with Photoshop is very tight. You can just place the native Photoshop files if you like -- no need to export to TIF, etc. Finally InDesign, hands down beats the pants off Quark in the area of Type controls -- Quark can't touch ID's multi-line composer.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

-mpm

P.S. ... and for the know-it-alls seeking credentials, I was a die-hard-pro-"agency employed"-Quark XPress user for 10+ years, and I still think you should go with InDesign over Quark XPress, especially for what you want to do.

[allformac]

Thanks for all your posts. They've been real helpful.

I think I might take your guy's advice and go with InDesign.

You see, I first intended to go with InDesign, but then I heard so much that Adobe's products run slow on the Mac. Is this ture or not?

And then I came across Quark Xpress, but I've also heard a lot of bad things about them, also.

I mean, does either have any significant advantages over the other? Or do they both offer somewhat similiar feature sets?

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by allformac:
Thanks for all your posts. They've been real helpful.

I think I might take your guy's advice and go with InDesign.

You see, I first intended to go with InDesign, but then I heard so much that Adobe's products run slow on the Mac. Is this ture or not?

And then I came across Quark Xpress, but I've also heard a lot of bad things about them, also.

I mean, does either have any significant advantages over the other? Or do they both offer somewhat similar feature sets?

There are both minor and major differences between Xpress and InDesign. There are too many for me to list. You should try to find a good review from Macworld.com or something. They usually compare and contrast the features.

[my 2�]

As for my suggestion, based on what you have said, I would also suggest InDesign. It is true that lately, Adobe's apps have been getting slower. But seeing as how Apple can't even get their software to fly on OS X, then I suspect Adobe is having the same sort of issues, and they will eventually be resolved (hopefully sooner than later). The slowest Mac I use InDesign on is a G4/500 Sawtooth at home. It is slow, but not unusable. On fairly light projects, if speeds right along. When you start importing high res graphics and use all the fancy features that InDesign has, you will start to see slowdown.

And seeing as how you are looking to buy sooner rather than later, and there's really no telling when Quark will release Xpress 6, you have to look at Quark 5. And if you are going to be doing PDF work, then you must use InDesign. Quark 4/5's PDF features are nonexistent. InDesign is a dream for handling PDF files.

Also, as someone else said, if you are going to be buying Photoshop, you might as well get the Adobe Design Suite. It's a great deal. And on a side note, when you're commonly working simultaneously in Photoshop and InDesign, the experience is much much better than working with Photoshop and Xpress. Interfaces are similar, key commands are similar, and they play very nicely with one another (obviously).

So, I would say go with InDesign. I was a long time Xpress user who recently switched to InDesign. I've been very happy with it (aside from the speed issue on my home machine). I only see InDesign getting better and better, and on a good timeline. Honestly, I see Quark withering away. Quark updates much less frequently, and while Printers might like that, Designers don't. We want the problems fixed ASAP. Quark just doesn't do that, and it's pretty frustrating. And seeing what Quark has listed as features for the upcoming Xpress 6, it looks like they are now playing catch up with InDesign.

[/my 2�]

[aaanorton]

You'd have to be mentally deranged to START using XPress now. It's one thing for entrenched designers defending their position on XPress based on YEARS of investment, but it's an entirely different matter to set yourself up for the pain that is being a Mac-Quark-customer now when you have a choice. DO NOT DO THIS! ID is amazingly capable, especially for only a 3rd major revision. And it's only gonna get better. Adobe is aggressive with ID. ID is the one to watch.
Thank you for reading.

[allformac]

Thanks for everybody's help.

I have did a little more research on InDesign and have decided to go with that.

I will probably take your guy's recommendation and buy the Adobe publishing collection w/ InDesign, PhotoSHop, etc.

Thanks again

[godzookie2k]

If your magazine is two pages long with one stamp sized graphic and you have a six month gap between issues to wait for ID2 to scroll to the next page, then yes, its the right choice for you.

The *only* reason to go indesign is for better customer support and osx compatibility. And the latter is obviously not going to be a factor soon. There are quite a large number of applications that are involved in a magazine environment beyond the layout application, and most of them aren't carbonized. Maybe you should do some more research into what is involved in putting out a magazine remotely regularly, and look at the tools you *will* need.

You'd have to be a madman thinking that you can work in a magazine pdf based workflow without distiller. What are you going to do? have the entire issue in one giant id file?

[allformac]

No...

I planned on creating my issues using InDesign. Remember, my issues will use a combination of both text and graphics. THe issues won't be just one large graphic file.

Also, I planned on purchasing Adobe Acrobat along with InDesign so I could convert my InDesign projects into PDF form and then edit them further.

[allformac]

Hey,

I came across this software at Version Tracker. It's called RagTime.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16797

Anybody every hear of this app or use it?

Is it similar to InDesign?

[:haripu:]

Originally posted by allformac:
Hey,

I came across this software at Version Tracker. It's called RagTime.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16797

Anybody every hear of this app or use it?

Is it similar to InDesign?

No. You could compare the functionality to Apple Works or Office.

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
You'd have to be a madman thinking that you can work in a magazine pdf based workflow without distiller. What are you going to do? have the entire issue in one giant id file?

If he gets the Suite from Adobe like he says he will, he'll have Distiller. InDesign is the smart choice for him. He's probably not putting together a nationwide magazine, so don't get too much on his case.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
If your magazine is two pages long with one stamp sized graphic and you have a six month gap between issues to wait for ID2 to scroll to the next page, then yes, its the right choice for you.

The *only* reason to go indesign is for better customer support and osx compatibility. And the latter is obviously not going to be a factor soon. There are quite a large number of applications that are involved in a magazine environment beyond the layout application, and most of them aren't carbonized. Maybe you should do some more research into what is involved in putting out a magazine remotely regularly, and look at the tools you *will* need.

You'd have to be a madman thinking that you can work in a magazine pdf based workflow without distiller. What are you going to do? have the entire issue in one giant id file?

Just another echo from yet another jilted Mac XPress user.

[godzookie2k]

distiller = os9 only.

ID2 slows down bigtime. I didn't imply one large graphic file. I implied one large indesign file.

::maroma:: no its not, and I will get on anyones case I choose to. No offense. Not like I was getting on *anyones* "case" in this...erm...case. Just stating an informed opinion, being that I design for two nationally distributed magazines.

[allformac]

My online magazine isn't going to be distributed to that large of an audience (although who knows what the future might hold :-) ).

I already own Adobe Acrobat and Office.

I tried creating my issues with MS-Word, but I don't like the quality of the PDFs it produces.

That is why I was looking at purchasing software such as InDesign.

In regard to the speed issue...

I will expect a certain slowness when using memory intesive applications. I'm a patient person. I'd rather purchase a slow app that creates high quality PDFs than a fast app that produces low quality PDFs.

[gururafiki]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
distiller = os9 only.

This blows chunks

When will distiller be OSX native?

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
distiller = os9 only.

ID2 slows down bigtime. I didn't imply one large graphic file. I implied one large indesign file.

::maroma:: no its not, and I will get on anyones case I choose to. No offense. Not like I was getting on *anyones* "case" in this...erm...case. Just stating an informed opinion, being that I design for two nationally distributed magazines.

And Distiller probably never will go OS X. ID already exports decent PDFs and there are a number of free or reasonably priced "PDF shrinker" apps out there. PDF export will only imrove in ID.
There categorically is no justification for a new user to buy into the Quark nightmare any more. Particularly if you're a Mac user. Quark has publicly gone on record as being indifferent, at best, to the Mac market. And this is being GENEROUS. They also see publishing as a whole to be plateaued. And this is the company you're championing? Ppppffffftt.

[LightWaver-67]

aving been a XPress 'PowerUser' for so many years... I would say (similar to others) that if you're not an existing QXP user... go for InDesign.

I Have been using it since it was released and have not looked back. Granted, I am not into full-blown publishing and have not tried to do the advanced tasks I used to do in QXP back in the day... but so far, it is a WONDERFUL replacement.

The simple fact that I can use the alpha transparency of an existing PShop image and not have to do clipping paths or the "old" tricks of QXP make it that much more useable.

I have yet to be able to either Export or Save As into a format that retains the appearance of the layout though. Be it .PDF (all settings) or other image formats, there's always SOMETHING that just isn't quite right, whether it's color shifts, transparencies ignored or blending modes not rendering correctly in the translation... so. It still needs some work, but worth looking in to.

[cowerd]

And Distiller probably never will go OS X

That would explain all those Distiller 6 disk images circulating around the usual places, which strangely enough, runs in OSX.

[godzookie2k]

The simple fact that I can use the alpha transparency of an existing PShop image

AND NOW, ALL NEW ID2 WITH THE ADDED BONUS OF CLOGGING RIPS IN 2 PAGES OR LESS!


and for whoever it was who said distiller isn't needed. Don't make many PDF's do you? Or rather, you don't do much batch pdfing do you? When you are dealing with lots and lots of pages that need pdf'ing for press, especially in the publishing world, you *need* a batch pdfing solution. Even ID2 doesn't have this and Adobe better get off their slack asses and carbonize distiller soon if they expect the publishing world to move to X anytime soon.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
AND NOW, ALL NEW ID2 WITH THE ADDED BONUS OF CLOGGING RIPS IN 2 PAGES OR LESS!

It just never stops being funny when QXP users knock ID over compatability issues.

[CheesePuff]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
And Distiller probably never will go OS X.

Distiller is already up and running on Mac OS X. Expect a release of Acrobat 6 this summer.

[godzookie2k]

heheheh because its funny and true?

[beb]

~

[ppc970]

XPress is crap (soon crap 6.0).

Go for InDesign.

It's that simple.

[ppc970]

Originally posted by gururafiki:
This blows chunks

When will distiller be OSX native?

Acrobat 6 Family will be announced tomorrow. Including Distiller 6.0.

[-Q-]

Edit: redundant with the above post...

[voodoo]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
You'd have to be mentally deranged to START using XPress now. It's one thing for entrenched designers defending their position on XPress based on YEARS of investment, but it's an entirely different matter to set yourself up for the pain that is being a Mac-Quark-customer now when you have a choice. DO NOT DO THIS! ID is amazingly capable, especially for only a 3rd major revision. And it's only gonna get better. Adobe is aggressive with ID. ID is the one to watch.
Thank you for reading.

You are an *******.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
Just another echo from yet another jilted Mac XPress user.

moron

[voodoo]

Originally posted by allformac:

I will expect a certain slowness when using memory intesive applications. I'm a patient person. I'd rather purchase a slow app that creates high quality PDFs than a fast app that produces low quality PDFs.

You have obviously never tried ID 2 have you? Slow... is an understatement. ID 2 is downright frustrating.

Anyway, you would be wise in gettin Distiller to make the final pdf, so ID 2 pdf expert functions are insignificant. You would be unwise in thinking that XPress is a fast and yet somehow "bad" design app. It is darned fast, stable and delivers PERFECT .ps files that make stunning pdfs (using Distiller).

XPress is amazingly intuative and powerful. Tradeoffs are that you have to run it in Classic and a constant nagging from stupid ID/Adobe zealots. They tick me off. Benefits are much bigger and include a very fast app, perfect for magazine making, handles pictures and text brilliantly, non confusing, logical, intuative, standard of the design industry, wealth of books and tutorials available... and it is actually one of the few apps that have a near monopoly in their nich because they are so good they can't really be beaten. (This irritates the ID2 zealots beyond anything). It is much like Photoshop, but for pagelayout.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by ppc970:
XPress is crap (soon crap 6.0).

Go for InDesign.

It's that simple.

... 12? .. . ok no. 11 years old?

[Cory Bauer]

Quark is a joke. No I am not 11 years old. One level of undo is reason enough not to use Quark for anything. Most shareware applications have a better designed interface than Quark does, and it is my dream that by the end of this year, people won't remember what Quark was.

[allformac]

Originally posted by voodoo:
You have obviously never tried ID 2 have you? Slow... is an understatement. ID 2 is downright frustrating.

Anyway, you would be wise in gettin Distiller to make the final pdf, so ID 2 pdf expert functions are insignificant. You would be unwise in thinking that XPress is a fast and yet somehow "bad" design app. It is darned fast, stable and delivers PERFECT .ps files that make stunning pdfs (using Distiller).

XPress is amazingly intuative and powerful. Tradeoffs are that you have to run it in Classic and a constant nagging from stupid ID/Adobe zealots. They tick me off. Benefits are much bigger and include a very fast app, perfect for magazine making, handles pictures and text brilliantly, non confusing, logical, intuative, standard of the design industry, wealth of books and tutorials available... and it is actually one of the few apps that have a near monopoly in their nich because they are so good they can't really be beaten. (This irritates the ID2 zealots beyond anything). It is much like Photoshop, but for pagelayout.

You're right Vooddo...

I have never used InDesign before. That's why I came here asking for some advice of what others thought about these two apps.

Also, I never said that Quark Xpress is slow. I was merely stating a fact that for me, speed isn't that much of a feature. It's a bonus.

As long as the app can produce crisp and clear looking PDFs, I'll be a happy camper.

You must understand, I come from the world of publishing PDFs using MS-Word. And I am just sick and tired of Word's attempt at making quality PDFs.

Every PDF I publish seems to have a very light pink background transperancy and the text is a little blurry.

I have tried fooling around with the settings and nothing I seem to do fixes the situation. That is why I am now on the search for a quality app to help me layout my online magazine pages and then either do one of two things:

1) Export them as PDFs

2) Export them in a format that can be transformed into a PDF by Acrobat.

Now through all my searching of all the Mac software, Quark Xpress and InDesign were the only two apps that seemed to be what I was looking for.

Remember, I have no biases regarding wither of these apps.

Any recommendations or advice is greatly appreciated and taken into serious consideration.

[Cory Bauer]

I suppose I should say something positive about InDesign instead of simply putting down...what's it called again? Oh yes, Quark.

I do all of my multiple-page design work in InDesign 2. I have a fellow graphic designer who just moved to InDesign for a monthly print magazine he puts together. Until recently, he had been putting up with Quark because the printers told him they could not take an InDesign document. He had been so fed up with Quark for a long time (he's not even on a Mac, so it has nothing to do with the PC version being better than the Mac version). Three months ago, he took the chance that a PDF out of InDesign would print just fine, and he's been doing the magazine with InDesign ever since. Both of us learned Quark in college, which is where my familiarity with Quark comes from. I downloaded the InDesign 2 demo the day it was available, and switched to InDesign exclusively shortly after that. Everything from a designer's perspective is so much easier in InDesign, and the application functions and behaves like a professional designer's application, which isn't surprising since it comes from the same company who makes Photoshop, Illustrator, etc etc. You know, those Adobe guys.

There's an interface fluidity to Adobe applications, from pallet layout to keyboard shortcuts for every tool, Adobe apps are very usable and it's generally easy to move from one to the other. When myself and fellow designers moved to InDesign, we were already daily Photoshop and Illustrator users, so to learn InDesign all we had to do was think, "Ok, I want to do feature xxx of Quark, how would Adobe incorporate that into an application?" and we'd have it figured out in seconds.

Quark on the other hand looks, behaves, and functions like Mac OS System 6, and has about as much fluidity as a fin-less fish on the sanded ground of the Sahara desert.

[voodoo]

"Everything from a designer's perspective is so much easier in InDesign, and the application functions and behaves like a professional designer's application, which isn't surprising since it comes from the same company who makes Photoshop, Illustrator, etc etc. You know, those Adobe guys."

Zealot

Adobe is far from being perfect. The best app they make is Photoshop, with Illustrator a close second. Yet it ain't good enough to squash FreeHand. Apps like Dimensions, Acrobat Reader, Streamline are hardly the best apps out there for the job. In most cases simple shareware apps outdo them (no insult meant to the shareware community). The fact of the matter is that your post is highly blinded and biased. The funnies tart is where you set out to make the System 6 interface sound lika a bad thing! Hah! System 6 and 7 were probably the best UI designs ever made... to date. OS X is getting there. I guess what annoys you is the lack of the windowsish platinum look on the buttons? 'Cause that is about the only thing that is the difference between XPress 4 and ID 2 in UI. Oh, I forget, ID 2 also clutters your monitor with a heap of impractical floating windows that generally only serve as a curtain over your WORK. Funny too how ID 2 goes to great lengths to incorporate all the XPress UI metaphors, look and feel. But fails. The fact that you can work with a XPress document with 3 floating windows open (none of which have the cascaded feature of Adobe apps) but have to have double as many in ID 2 says a lot about UI design and ingenuity. I am not necessarily dissing ID 2 here, but rather pointing out the immense benefits XPress has over ID. XPress has SPEED, XPress has SIMPLICITY, XPress has COMPATIBILITY, XPress has FEATURES, XPress has PLUGINS and XPress has an experienced group of people, which means there are many great tutorial books available for XPress. ID has these things, but only in a smaller degree (and when it comes to speed it is non-existant). The only thing it has over XPress is a native pdf distilling featur, but when you have Distiller, why the heck would you use it anyway? Heh. This is a feature the will appear in XPress 6 due out this summer. You get the upgrade free if you buy XPress 5 now.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Zealot

Adobe is far from being perfect. The best app they make is Photoshop, with Illustrator a close second. Yet it ain't good enough to squash FreeHand. Apps like Dimensions, Acrobat Reader, Streamline are hardly the best apps out there for the job. In most cases simple shareware apps outdo them (no insult meant to the shareware community). The fact of the matter is that your post is highly blinded and biased. The funnies tart is where you set out to make the System 6 interface sound lika a bad thing! Hah! System 6 and 7 were probably the best UI designs ever made... to date. OS X is getting there. I guess what annoys you is the lack of the windowsish platinum look on the buttons? 'Cause that is about the only thing that is the difference between XPress 4 and ID 2 in UI. Oh, I forget, ID 2 also clutters your monitor with a heap of impractical floating windows that generally only serve as a curtain over your WORK. Funny too how ID 2 goes to great lengths to incorporate all the XPress UI metaphors, look and feel. But fails. The fact that you can work with a XPress document with 3 floating windows open (none of which have the cascaded feature of Adobe apps) but have to have double as many in ID 2 says a lot about UI design and ingenuity. I am not necessarily dissing ID 2 here, but rather pointing out the immense benefits XPress has over ID. XPress has SPEED, XPress has SIMPLICITY, XPress has COMPATIBILITY, XPress has FEATURES, XPress has PLUGINS and XPress has an experienced group of people, which means there are many great tutorial books available for XPress. ID has these things, but only in a smaller degree (and when it comes to speed it is non-existant). The only thing it has over XPress is a native pdf distilling featur, but when you have Distiller, why the heck would you use it anyway? Heh. This is a feature the will appear in XPress 6 due out this summer. You get the upgrade free if you buy XPress 5 now.

Ummm... yeah...

Are you saying that YOU'RE conveying your thoughts 100% Bias-free...? EVERYONE has a varying degree of bias. I have used both Freehand and Illustrator for YEARS... they both have good points & bad points. Personally, I think Adobe edges ahead of Frehand in the big picture... at least from MY point of view. There are numerous things I can do in Illustrator that I cannot replicate in FH... and only a couple vice-versa. Sure... multiple pages is nice... but hey, that's where InDesign comes-in for me.

Don't get so "High-and-mighty" as if to say that because YOU think QXP is superior or preferred to YOU ove ID2... that others are idiots for thinking otherwise.

I used to TEACH XPress back in '94 and I knew EVERY shortcut, trick, key-command, workaround... you name it... I mastered it. I have since forgotten about 95% of all that since I've been out of the 'print' world for over 7-years.

I recently did a freelance stint at a highly respected ad-agency here in Boston... and it was a BEAR trying to remember how to use XPress... "Oh yeah... I can only reduce to 10%..." etc...

Using InDesign right out-of-the-box was a no-brainer to get back up to speed creating multipage layouts... and I used to be a Quark PRO... not some part-time, weekend-warrior design schmuck. So lighten-up on those of us that happen to like it better... we're not WRONG because we disagree with you.

[Cory Bauer]

Originally posted by voodoo:

I never made any suggestion that Adobe was perfect, nor would I think as much. But I can guarantee that Adobe Photoshop and probably Illustrator as well is installed on every Graphic Designers computer, and I can also guarantee that they use Photoshop every day. That being said, it's a given that a graphic designer would already be familiar with Adobe's application layout, and the way in which they (Adobe) go about things.

Let me touch on the System 6 interface a bit more. It's true that Quark Xpress 6 still looks like Mac OS 6 - why this bugs my is not because it isn't pretty like my other applications, but because the company has so little care for their product and customers that they are incapable of writing the application so it simply uses the OS interface - instead they hardcoded the GUI elements into the program itself, and leave it like that for ten years! I feel that the care and time put into an applications user interface is a good indication of the application itself and the company that makes it. Secondly, there were many functional improvements made to the OS GUI since system 7, and none of those are incorporated into Quark. Contextual Menus, Proportional Scroll Bars, Mac OS 8.5's Open and Save Dialog boxes, none of these are in Quark!* To say that System 6 was the best UI design ever made is to say that the original black & white Mickey Mouse cartoon was the best rendition of the Mickey Mouse character ever created. You know what function right-click does in Quark? It zooms in. Good grief...

That heap of "impractical floating windows that generally only serve as a curtain over your WORK" you mention are what make it so easy to transition from one Adobe Application to another, not to mention that everything you need access to is laid out on them, right there on the side for you. Sure, Quark only has 3 pallets, but that's because you have to bring up a interface-freezing dialog box to do almost anything, which covers a lot more of your document than those little Adobe Pallets on the side. Let's have a comparison, shall we? Something very simple here. I have a red box, and I want to add a stroke to it, or a "frame" in Quark terminology. To the left we have Quarks way of doing it, and to the right we have InDesign's way of doing it - you'll see the InDesign stroke pallet in the upper right. Click the individual images for a larger view:



Now tell me...how the hell does Quark have less clutter?! There's a big freakin' box! Covering the document! And you're frozen into making your settings in that dialog box before you can click on anything else. There's no ingenuity about it.

I can't think of anything Quark can do that InDesign can't, but I've never had the need for a plug-in either - I'm sure some people's workflow relies on special plug-ins, so I'm not going to say that no one needs them just because I don't.

The fact remains that I or any other Adobe user (which is synonymous with Graphic Designer) could sit down in front of InDesign and work with the program fluently without problem from the time they open it to the time the document goes to print. Quark is it's own bizarre interface that is unlike anything else, and I don't think that anyone would argue that gives it a steeper learning curve. Please, just look at those pictures...Quark looks like a Hypercard stack.

* it's worth noting that I have not used Quark 5 - if they have added tooltips, keyboard shortcuts for tools, proportional scrollbars, Mac OS 8.5 open/save dialog boxes, or useful contextual menus since version 4.1 then I praise them.

[godzookie2k]

I'd like to see a show of hands of how many people in this thread are agency employed full time and how long they have been working designers. Just so I know who's opinion I should bother reading, thanks.

Why? Because I am not going to continue to bother participating in a thread if I'm discussing QuarkXpress vs InDesign with a bunch of uninformed, sophomores taking their first design class who have never been on a press check or know what the hell a color separation is.

QuarkXpress is the industry standard for a reason. It is fast, stable, runs on any goddamn power pc ever made, and under 16 megs of ram, and quickly, it is intuitive, and does the job very well without any printer issues whatsoever. It does anything you'd need to do for print work, and it does it on any machine you can find. This is important. Do you know how much it would cost to upgrade....say, a 10 person studio to brand new G4's with 500 megs of ram, and osx *just* to run InDesign? A ****ing bucketload. And you need a brand new G4 because I guarantee you ID doesn't run remotely less than frozen mollassas on any other box. And here, let me give you a tip. Most design studios are running very old out of date hardware, and doing flip fantastic work with it, because quark runs on anything. You don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars updating machines and operating systems and hardware. I mean, who has time for that?

So, I'm done with this discussion now I think, because it seems like this thread is populated by the inexperienced, who have launched Xpress and disliked the start up screen enough to form their opinions of the program.

[godzookie2k]

InDesign and work with the program fluently without problem from the time they open it to the time the document goes to print.

When ID2 first came out I sat in front of the demo for a good twenty minutes trying to figure out how the hell stylesheets were handled in this supposedly 'intuitive' interface. I've been using Adobe applications since they came on 7 floppies.

[C.J. Moof]

"Hypercard stack"- very funny. And accurate.

I recently assembled my wife's doctoral thesis for printing- 200 pages of Word text, a dozen Photoshop documents and 2 dozen Illustrator documents. I could have started this project in Quark, and that would have made sense, since I work at an ad agency, and could get guidance from a few Quark pros.

Instead, I grabbed the demo of ID2 (which I don't know any pro users of personally) and dove in. Why? Largely b/c when I can choose OS X native over classic, I do.

In the end, I assembled a 250 page document and exported a PDF that printed perfectly, with relatively little effort. I had to use the online help and google a few times, and had to curse at it a few times too, but in the end, it wasn't very painful at all, considering I'd never see the app before this project.

ID2 came through for me.

[beb]

I 'm employed full-time.

As for the points Voodoo brings up, yes Quark is the standard... for most of the design/print house crowd. It has vast amounts of plugins and resources -but it's 17 years old. In all that time that Quark mostly held a monopoly on the print industry which would allow them to develop new product solutions for change and growth yet Quark practically squandered them.

Who the hell ever asked Quark to be able to make a webpage from an Xpress document? I wanted and still just want to make brochures, magazine spreads, calendars, flyers, posters, cards, ads, and the like. I want to do this in OS X dammit. I want to do it today dammit! And if Quark isn't ready after two years of OS X updates well then screw em!

Adobe's so called innovation with InDesign being able to import a Photoshop natively is like a well duh?!! Xpress should have been able to do this in 1990. Even the elder Pagemaker should have been able to handle Adobe's other formats natively. Pagemaker for all it's many many flaws is also a lot better at building indexes than Quark.

I'm not an Adobe fan either, but InDesign is the best marriage for most professionals and is made by a company with a better track record.

[Cory Bauer]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
I'd like to see a show of hands of how many people in this thread are agency employed full time and how long they have been working designers. Just so I know who's opinion I should bother reading, thanks.

That's funny. I will admit, I'm not an old timer like most of you probably are, but I've been a designer for three years now. Currently I'm working in a Video Production house full time, so I kind of strayed off course from my original graphic design field of work. Anyhow, I still do freelance print design and dabble in any print design we need done at my full time job. On the other hand, the fact that I haven't been sleeping with QuarkXPress for the past 20 years probably gives me a different perspective than many of you Designers with more experience in the field.

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
QuarkXpress is the industry standard for a reason. It is fast, stable, runs on any goddamn power pc ever made, and under 16 megs of ram, and quickly, it is intuitive, and does the job very well without any printer issues whatsoever. It does anything you'd need to do for print work, and it does it on any machine you can find. This is important. Do you know how much it would cost to upgrade....say, a 10 person studio to brand new G4's with 500 megs of ram, and osx *just* to run InDesign? A ****ing bucketload. And you need a brand new G4 because I guarantee you ID doesn't run remotely less than frozen mollassas on any other box. And here, let me give you a tip. Most design studios are running very old out of date hardware, and doing flip fantastic work with it, because quark runs on anything. You don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars updating machines and operating systems and hardware. I mean, who has time for that?

Like beb said, Quark has had a monopoly on the print industry for the past 17 years. Quark was there with the right product for the job when the whole computer/print industry took off, and so that's what everyone purchased and used. Since then, the only thing that's kept people using it is their investment in QuarkXPress and the equipment that works with it. I'm not saying good stuff can't be done with QuarkXPress, obviusly it can, but that doesn't mean you can't use something else. Everyone doesn't need to throw their old Macs and QuarkXPress software out the window if it's working today, but eventually those Design houses are going to need new computers, and when they do, they're going to need new versions of the software as well. When that time comes, there's no good reason to reinvest in QuarkXPress. Yeah, it's worked for the past 17 years, but there's a better way to do things now and it's cheaper too. QuarkXPress is your feet. InDesign is your hands. There's no need to design with your feet when you've got hands.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
I'd like to see a show of hands of how many people in this thread are agency employed full time and how long they have been working designers. Just so I know who's opinion I should bother reading, thanks.

Why? Because I am not going to continue to bother participating in a thread if I'm discussing QuarkXpress vs InDesign with a bunch of uninformed, sophomores taking their first design class who have never been on a press check or know what the hell a color separation is.

QuarkXpress is the industry standard for a reason. It is fast, stable, runs on any goddamn power pc ever made, and under 16 megs of ram, and quickly, it is intuitive, and does the job very well without any printer issues whatsoever. It does anything you'd need to do for print work, and it does it on any machine you can find. This is important. Do you know how much it would cost to upgrade....say, a 10 person studio to brand new G4's with 500 megs of ram, and osx *just* to run InDesign? A ****ing bucketload. And you need a brand new G4 because I guarantee you ID doesn't run remotely less than frozen mollassas on any other box. And here, let me give you a tip. Most design studios are running very old out of date hardware, and doing flip fantastic work with it, because quark runs on anything. You don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars updating machines and operating systems and hardware. I mean, who has time for that?

So, I'm done with this discussion now I think, because it seems like this thread is populated by the inexperienced, who have launched Xpress and disliked the start up screen enough to form their opinions of the program.

Well... I stated my credentials earlier. I am an artist/designer and have been PROFESSIONALLY employed as such for over 13-years in all types of media. I have worked in big agencies and have freelanced to some of the largest companies out there. I was proficient at QXP at an extremely high-level. Some design firms hired me as a consultant to come-in and instruct their design team to utilize QXP better and become more efficient.

But that doesn't make my opinion any better or worse... QXP is most-definitely a robust and versatile app... but as I said before, I had been away from it for almost 7-years now and all that I learned had either changed or I forgot. Getting back-up to speed w/ this app was a bit slow and cumbersome... whereas starting from scratch w/ ID@ was extremely intuitive and I was capable of getting right to work.

I am not even 25% of where I used to be using QXP years ago... but jumping into ID2 has made it easier to get some of my recent print work done on-time, on-budget and looking good. I have a lot more to learn about ID2 and there are some buggy things about it... but coming from a "clean slate"... it's MUCH easier to use than QXP.

I can TOTALLY understand why current QXP users have a bias towards it... especially if they are already well-versed in QXP usability and workflow. There's a LOT to be said for familiarity of the app & it's UI.

Good luck in your quest... the best way to decide is find someone that has ID2 and give it a test-drive. You may be pleasantly surprised. (or not)

[allformac]

Thanks guys for all your advice.

I think I have made up my mind. I'm going to go with InDesign.

Since InDesign can publish in PDF will I really need to use Acrobat for anything other than viewing and editing the actual PDF files?

[:haripu:]

Originally posted by allformac:
Thanks guys for all your advice.

I think I have made up my mind. I'm going to go with InDesign.

Since InDesign can publish in PDF will I really need to use Acrobat for anything other than viewing and editing the actual PDF files?

no. you won't need acrobat for anything else.
however, if you are planning to buy photoshop as well, i would go for the adobe design collection, which also includes acrobat and illustrator and is cheaper than buying indesign and photoshop at their full price.

btw: that was a hell of a flame-war going on here. you chose the wrong question to ask print professionals.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by :haripu::
no. you won't need acrobat for anything else.
however, if you are planning to buy photoshop as well, i would go for the adobe design collection, which also includes acrobat and illustrator and is cheaper than buying indesign and photoshop at their full price.

btw: that was a hell of a flame-war going on here. you chose the wrong question to ask print professionals.

Well... differing opinions... sure. Were there really a lot of flames though...? I usually consider flames more of a rudimentary antagonistic response such as: "Shut up you loser... Quark RULES... Adobe SUCKS...!" but I think 'most' people attempted to clearly articulate their pro's & con's... maybe not ALL... but most.

Also... in MY experience... ID2's .PDF exporting has been 'spotty' at-best. I cannot find a 'perfect' setting that does not mess-up either transparecies, blending modes or both. I'm hoping this gets better over time, but I STILL prefer ID to QXP. Go figure...

[ shrug ]

[voodoo]

Yes, I would like to stress that *no app* makes good pdf files except Acrobat Distiller. So, by all means get ID2 if you are so inclined (it is cheaper after all) but don't rely on its pdf exporting capabilities. They may or may not work for you, but Distiller will always work. And then it doesn't matter what app you use to do the actual designing.

As for the flames, well... I have seen much more in QXP vs. ID threads (but the thread title sure invited the trolls and flamers). I think many ID trolls have calmed down alot after XPress 6 was announced for OS X. This summer (if you didn't know... and is a free update if you buy XPress 5 before XPress 6 is out).

[beb]

Stay tuned, because the next burning issue is whether Final Cut Pro is better or worse than Avid.