QuarkXPress vs. InDesign For Speedy Production

If You’re a QuarkXPress old user, it’s better to stay with this software. I was working heardly both with QXP and InDesign, but I like more Quark for its stability. If you can, make an upgrade to QXP v8 – it has strong tools for working with vectors (like Illustrator), accepts AI files and PSD files, it has an excellent PDF export tool (verified – PDF files are working great, even the new PDF-X3 file type) and a very good color management, both on PC’s and Macs. More, QXP v8 is already an international version (I’m using it for texts in non-english languages, it has excellent hypenation even in other languages). I’m using ID only for generating PS files from layouts received from my clients and that’s all – even in ID I use the Quark keybord shortcuts, it makes sens to me! But the decision is Yours, at least.

- does it make sense…..
Both apps are fine for either production or fancy design

- does prod. get faster….
Of corse it does!, especially if you like time saving techniques such as working with adobe native files loaded with layers and transparencies

- are there hidden keyboard….
I dont know that specific quick key command but if you need space at the end of paragraphs
Sure! Lots to learn. http://www.uwec.edu/help/InDesignCS2/frmt-para.htm

-Also, is there an easy way…..
There are conversion techniques, both within Adobe and with 3rd party companies but mileage will vary. Expect a lot of file reworking. Legacy files are a great reason to stay with quark.

- Has Indesign fixed……
You can export an nterchange format to open across versions. Quark is particularrly friendly with past versions either. It really is asking too much to expect an old program to interpret code that hasn’t been invented yet so it is nice at least that old features are compatible with old software (whereas the new features are not.)

- ALl you quark and IND users…..

I switched to Indesign on a big project and the slow down factor was VERY frustrating, but afterwards I never felt compelled to return to quark. I need to move software from machine to machine and I found Quarks copy-protection scheme to be intolerable. Perhaps things have changed in that regard since I switched. I was also VERY angry about $600 upgrades for VERY unstable software back in the v5 & v6 days. If you dont have time to deal with the learning curve and need to use old files then DO stay with Quark, but at least say thanks to Adobe for putting a competitor out there to force quark to deploy reasonable pricing and to have incentive to make a more solid product.

Shirley, I feel your pain. We’ve all been there. It seems like ID is so inefficient… but after you learn how it works, and start customizing it to the way you work, you’ll start to see why the majority of the publishing world has switched to ID now.

You asked about keyboard shortcuts: Yes, there are lots and lots of shortcuts in InDesign. In fact, every shortcut is editable (Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts) and every menu or panel menu item that doesn’t have a shortcut can be given one.

If the Control panel is displaying character formatting and you want paragraph formatting, press Command-Option-7. Press Cmd/Ctrl-6 to jump to the Control panel, then 5 tabs to skip to the Space After field; type value then Enter.

As for converting QX files: ID can read 3.3 and 4.1 files by itself reasonably well. Later versions of QX files can be opened with the Markzware Q2ID plug-in.

I will say that if you have an old computer, and QX4, it may be faster for straight flow of long docs than ID. But when dealing with 21st century computers or software, ID is the way to go, in my humble opinion.

Best wishes,
David Blatner, indesignsecrets.com
(Ex-QX user from the old days)

Hi, Shirley,

I have tried InDesign and for a while it seemed to be cooler, as it could do shadows and transparencies, whereas Quark could not.

However especially version 8 I am using Quark extensively again.

Main reason is – like others have posted here – the speed and simplicity. I can create layouts in Quark much faster than with InDesign’s Palette/Panel Zoo. The interface in Quark is much cleaner and with less clicks I can still achieve almost everything I can with older versions of Quark or InDesign.

Speed is king, isn’t it?

Beside that I like how Quark uses transparencies: I can make one character opaque, something that is hard using InDesign. Also, in Quark 8 the optical character alignment is customizable. In InDesign I need to trust programmers for good typography. Trust who?

And recently I have discovered the Flash export in Quark. I thought Adobe had followed Quark with CS4 but they just did a pretty limited and static Flash export in CS4. I still need the Flash app to create nice banners or Flash web sites using ID.

It might be me, but that’s just too difficult for me. Quark allows me to do that without any programming, no timeline to struggle with and so on. Really easy in Quark and a great time saver, as it allows synchronizing content. Ok, I am not creating many Flash pages yet, but it is good additional business and probably the future.

Bottomline: Don’t underestimate training. If you are good in Quark, why learn a new layout app, where you’ll be slower? For the occasional illustrated cover page I rather use Illustrator and import the AI into Quark.

Plus, Quark gives me two installations, even across platforms. As I have a few Windows customers, I can use the second installation on Parallels.

Anyhow, that’s my opinion. David’s experience seems to be old (Quark 4? 5? 6?) as he states himself.
And David’s opinion might be humble (his InDesign tips & tricks are great!), but as he earns money teaching InDesign, he might have a strong personal preference.

Cheers
Peter

My company is switching from Quark to InDesign. What a horrible decision. InDesign makes things harder to do for no good reason. It slows down production. If you can do things in one step in Quark, it will take three steps in InDesign. Stay with Quark!

The decision is easy to make, Shirley, just think Quark is dying, you definitely want to use a product for the future, right?

That’s what they say – Quark is dying. And who knows, it may be true. It seems InDesign has a lot of people hoodwinked. And it’s a great mystery to me why? InDesign is a painful program to use. We are taking a step backwards in ease of use for no good reason. It’s doubly hard to get to the text and pictures to move and manipulate the copy/images. The spell checker is clunky and slow to use. It tries to think for you and does things you have to correct later because you really didn’t want to do it. You have to keep changing tools more often than Quark so it slows down your production. It reminds me of people who defend PCs over Macs. Mac is simple and user friendly. PCs are cumbersome. Quark is easy and user friendly. InDesign is a headache. But some people seem to prefer to do things the hard way.

I always have to laugh when I hear of people holding on to QuarkXPress. I used it back in the day and loved it. But, lets face it, QuarkXPress is a dying product and it is so for good reason. The only reason I see people holding on to this product is because they are set in there ways and afraid to use something new or different. There is certainly a learning curve and your production will slow down for a bit until you get used to it but the integration and familiar key commands will allow you to layout faster than ever. I love InDesign and cringe if I ever have to open up Quark. InDesign is simply a better program.

But here’s the deal. I’ve been using InDesign now for about 6 months. I’m not afraid to try something new. I’m doing it. But I find it to be an inferior product with regard to ease of use and function. And that disappoints me. Because the truth is I really wish that I would have discovered that it’s better. Because I really like better, easier, superior. But InDesign is not! A lot of people got mad at Quark because they were not a particularly friendly company and their product is expensive. But the truth is they have a superior product. Going from Quark to InDesign is like going from a power drill to a hand drill, and then claiming the hand drill is a better and easier product to use.

My company has recently made the switch to InDesign. For me, I am very happy about the switch since I was using InDesign for side projects and personal things anyway. InDesign is hands down a quicker program. Navigating the layout is much faster than Quark. If it is taking you multiple steps to something you could have done it one step with Quark, you are doing it wrong or a roundabout way.
I’ll just tackle the few things you mentioned.
You said that getting to text and moving images and copy around is doubly hard in InDesign.
Actually, the ease of going from text to images is one of the number one reasons why I think InDesign is faster. If you have a text frame selected with the move tool, simply double click the frame and you are in the text. Press escape and your back to the move tool. Now in Quark that would be, go over to the tools panel, select the text tool, go back to frame, click and then you can edit your text. Need to go back to the object tool, well there is another trip to the tools panel. When your on a graphic, double click to switch to the direct select tool and double click again to go back to the move tool. Want to do the same in Quark? Well you’re going to have to make a few trips to the tools panel again. And how about linking a text box to another. How many trips to the tools panel is that in Quark, when in InDesign you would simply click on the square in the lower left of the frame and click anywhere to make a new frame or click an existing frame to thread text to it instead. Plus, don’t even get me started on importing text and graphics. In Quark, draw a frame, cmd/ctl E, select picture or text to bring it in, then repeat over and over again for every element you need to bring in. In Indesign, grab all the files you need, drag and drop them on the layout. No need to draw frames ahead of time and bring things in one at a time. InDesign makes frames for you and can import more than one graphic or text document at a time.
Now, Quark may do some of these things better in version 8 (I don’t know because I don’t own it), but that brings to the other reason you should drop Quark. More than likely you need AI, Photoshop and Acrobat so it only makes sense to buy the bundled creative suite which comes with InDesign. So why spend more money on a separate program that may or may not be just as good as a program you already have. For my company, even if Quark has finally improved their program with version 8, it is too little, too late.

With that said, there are a handful of things that are annoying about InDesign. For one, you have to click a little bit above a line of text to select it. It is like the baseline of the text tool is higher in InDesign than virtually every other program on the planet. I have been using InDesign for almost a year now and still end up selecting the wrong line. Also, you can’t just justify text if the text frame is wrapping around an object. You can fool it by checking the box that says “ignore text wrap,” then selecting justify, then unchecking the “ignore text wrap” box.
But the few annoyances in InDesign pale in comparison to the vast amount of headaches that Quark caused me day in and day out.

You should not go what others say, make your decision depending on what you get.
SHOULD use evaluation copies of QuarkXPress 8 & ID CS4 too.
-Evaluation copy of QuarkXPress 8 will work for 60 days as a full functional copy and then you can decide if you want QuarkXPress or ID. Here you go……

I use Quark and InDesign interchangeably. I have Quark 8 at my home office, and use Quark 7 and InDesign at a separate job. Many printers prefer InDesign. I find InDesign to be a bit of a dog. When I want to slam out production, I use Quark. InDesign is slow and fussy. There are no key commands for where they are most needed. I don’t want to customize key commands in InDesign, because I don’t want to deal with it, and don’t want to confuse custom commands at home with the uncustomized InDesign at my other job. InDesign reminds me a bit of the slow,bloated, grogginess of Illustrator. (I loved the superior program, Freehand.) It seems that in the computer world, people feel obligated and suckered into embracing whatever is newest.

You can debate the pros and cons of these two programs until you’re blue in the face but the underlying determining factor really comes down to price for most people.
Basically Indesign is free because most designers will want to purchase Adobe Creative Suite which includes Indesign. So why pay $800 for a program that no one is really sure is better than the free one. Creative Suite will be the nail in Quarks coffin.
I have never used Quark but I can tell you this. I just love Indesign and have used it for ten years.

Call me crazy… I’m a bit of a thinker. I like 2 button mice, more features and more options. So yeah I like Indesign better than Quark.

If you like 1 button mice and you never want to learn anything new and just breeze through the day on auto-pilot slapping designs together without much thought then continue to use Quark.

I’ve had to use Quark for years and I tried Quark 8. The fact that the program has continually become slower and that all the new features are “tacked-on” and late coming (remember multiple -undos and drop shadows) just shows you that they cater to the less mindful computer user, the non-artist, the non-thinker.

I have an interesting take on this debate. I started doing layout as a volunteer in the non-profit world in 1999. The museum had pagemaker and that’s where it started. I took a job at another non-profit in 2001 and they had purchased Quark at a discount and were using it for newsletters, print ads etc. Like moving from a Pinto to a Lexus. I’m pretty much self taught and managed to muddle my way through the program for about 3 years. Then I decided there had to be a better way to work so I took a class at the local community college. They taught Quark for the first half of the semester and then moved on to InDesign. They did this because after using both, NO ONE ever went back to Quark. Traded my Lexus for a Ferrari! Now, in 2009 Quark isn’t even offered, it’s InDesign all the way!

I have used indesign since it came out. Before that I used quark and hated it every time I used it. I cursed how it was layed out and the lack of keyboard shortcuts for the things that I wanted. When InDesign came out I jumped head on into it and never walked back.

My production is 1000 times faster. InDesign is not bulky at all. The palettes make it easier to use. I have converted many die hard Quark users to InDeisign as well as two other companies.

Once they use it and see that quark hides a lot of its features and InDesigns has them all in palettes they never turn back. I also teach as well as have my own design business and we do not use quark or teach it at all.

I find quark to be cumbersome and bulky. I recently checked out QXP 8 and not only are there features a little to late, but some of them look exactly like IND. The have palettes on the right and a welcome screen like IND..HMMMM

Quark is terrible. Yes, I have used both. I haven’t touched Quark since 2001 (back at University) and there is a perfectly good reason for that, it is a silly program – as Dale said ‘just shows you that they cater to the less mindful computer user, the non-artist, the non-thinker.’ I don’t think anything decent and worth looking at can be created in Quark.

I am currently working as a graphic designer, putting together 3 different magazines. When I first started here back in 2008, the company had Quark 4 (which is just ridiculous), Photoshop 7 and still used CorelDraw! I managed to convince the boss to get with the program and update. The ‘designer’ here (who I replaced) was the accounts lady who self taught herself ‘design’ – no wonder Quark was still being used here. I was so quick to redesign everything in InDesign – which didn’t take long at all.

Quark died a long time ago – get with the program. It’s not about ’selling out’ or just following trends, it’s about being professional and UP TO DATE – which is what a great designer should be.

hey marie – you need to back that up by showing us an example of great design by your fair hand … because without it, i susoect what you’ve posted is the bullshit all of us already know it is. we are talking about practicalities here. we don;t want to wank on about ‘features’. we mwant to get a job done. to standard. quickly.

I would never go back to Quark either – my last usage was version 6. I worked in a company with 4 other designer who were ID resistant. I was hired because I convinced the owners that I was going to save them money by shaving off production time with ID. They gave me 1 year to convert their staff. In the beginning I just showed them basic time saving ideas get their buy in. By only 6 months everyone was integrated in ID including the “dinosaur” of the bunch. Now they hate having clients send Quark files and I can safely say that we were able to shave days off our production schedules. PS I don’t work for Adobe I just love my ID. For those who love their Quark hotkeys you have an option to select them in ID.

Steve. If you re-read my post I never wanked on about features or my design skills. The only reason people/companies stick to Quark is because they can’t be bothered changing – don’t like change or they need to reference to old files (which is a poor excuse).

There is a reason why Universities don’t teach Quark anymore. Back in 2001 at University they were teaching Quark for about 6 months and then they switched to InDesign – I wonder why. Could it have to do with the fact that it’s just hands down much better? – Or maybe they were onto something back then? Have you ever heard of any designer that has used InDesign go back to Quark? Or prefer Quark. I don’t think so.

If you want to breeze through your day as a’designer’ on auto-pilot producing the same tired shit then stick to Quark. Otherwise – evolve and learn new skills. After all, that’s what it’s about isn’t it? Not about how fast you can produce tired- out of date work.

Ps. I don’t need to show you my work. You’ve probably already seen it

I started our working with Pagemaker, which later became Indesign but alway found it very frustrating and limited – poorly designed software is not for professional designers, I currently have a copy of Indesign CS4 which is, in my opinion, no better than any of the previous editions (and its slower – mac pro quad) Quark has always been a fast and logically arranged program, I changed from indesign to Quark at version 6, I now use version 8 on a daily basis for newspaper production and my own design company and will continue to do so too. Indesign is perfect for creating a school flyer or newsletter and is akin to Microsoft Publisher in many ways, but what do expect for something that comes for free with Photoshop!

I absolutely agree with Shirley and Steve. Indesign simply slows down the design process and still has this page maker feel. I switched to ID for a while – and also thought it had cool features, but it’s just not worth it, as Shirley said, it crashes far to often. All that QuarkXPress-Bashing from Publishing-”Experts” has not convinced me at all. After QuarkXPress 7 came out I’m back to and happy with Quark. ID is slow and an uninspiring software … kind of microsoftish.

Perhaps Quark for design is alright. I used to use it up to 6.0, because I thought it was better than ID. But now I’m an ID convert. Especially for production, InDesign is just more intuitive and easier to use. Just compare making PDFs from InDesign (very intuitive and easy to use) or from Quark (you have to change preferences to toggle between postscript output and straight pdf). I can automate so much of the layout with GREP and XML. And I couldn’t live without nested styles and object styles. I also experienced a bug in Quark 7 where placed pdfs kept shifting in their boxes; I convinced the publisher to go with InDesign.

Steve said:

“Indesign is perfect for creating a school flyer or newsletter and is akin to Microsoft Publisher in many ways, but what do expect for something that comes for free with Photoshop!”

ID doesn’t come free with anything AFAIK, but it definitely doesn’t come w/Photoshop. Bridge, however, does. I’ve used both MS Publisher and ID and have yet to see how anyone can say they are comparable. ID is hands down better that MS Pub in every way.

As for Quark, I’m not a Quark user so I can’t say unequivocally that it’s better/worse than ID but I can say ID is far superior to anything Microsoft has offered, ever.

I spent some time reading your comments about Quark vs. InDesign and all I can come away with is that both “camps” seems so firmly entrenched in their positions. I’ve used both with success however I like to think about all the “tools” at my disposal as an artist, as media…Oils vs. acrylics, etc. Does it matter? Will it matter five years from now? Look, use what you like, learn what’s lacking and enjoy the results of what you can produce…Unless you want to go back to ChartPak ruling tape and registration marks?! Oi.

I have used both and InDesign is far superior. It can handle EVERYTHING Quark can and more. Yes, it uses more memory and the layout more complex but it allows you to better tweak the settings. Quark is a great program since it realized it was losing the competition and had to FINALLY move from Quark 4. InDesign does require a good amount of memory and hard drive space but works flawless with the CS suite. There are tons of pallets available, but only use and place the ones you want.

Either way they will both be around for a while and that is good. If InDesign went away for some reason Quark would just sit on their product and not do ANYTHING, not even to work with newer systems. Competition between the two creates a better AND cheaper product!

Steve, your smoking crack. Where the hell did you get that ID comes free with Photoshop?

What does it matter which is better? Print is almost dead, anyway. Look at all the newspapers and magazines going bankrupt. I only say this half in jest.

…Ok, well perhaps that was not worded correctly! I bought CS4 Design Premium as an upgrade, I bought it for Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash and so Indesign was kind of an extra in the package so to speak.

(25) Vee says:
“I’ve used both with success however I like to think about all the “tools” at my disposal as an artist, as media…Oils vs. acrylics, etc. Does it matter?”

I have to agree! Each to their own, i am sure each is suited to its own purpose.
But i would still recommend anyone try the latest version of Quark before making their mind up!

I used Quark for everything from 1999 to 2002, while I was studying and in my first design job. Then a colleague suggested I give InDesign a whirl. No pressure, but he was using it and thought I might like to, as well.

I’ve never looked back. Hours of study went in to using Quark, but InDesign was so intuitive–particularly if you are already using the other Adobe programmes–I had picked up the basics in no time. I’ve since done some quick and dirty workshops to learn how to use it more effectively, but honestly, it is so much easier and faster than Quark, even if you started out on Quark, the way most of us of a certain age *cough* did.

The other designer at the company where I work still uses Quark 6 and every once in a while I have to go into her files to update something or modify. I dread it because I know I’m in for hours of clicking on tools instead of double clicking. Often it’s quicker and easier to just re-do the damn thing in Indesign!

ID is only inefficient for old Quark users unable to learn something new. ID is actually more efficient for books and large projects because you can convert to printer’s spread quickly and easilty, you can create style sheets faster, and you can even create object styles. Master pages, and automatic text boxes make ID FAST!!

I am an old Quark user and I teach both Quark and InDesign in a community college. I will choose InDesign over Quark for efficiency anytime.

First of all, some of these comparisons are pretty unfair. “I was using Quark 4 and then switched to InDesign CS4 and it’s way better.” Duh. You can’t compare an old version of one program with a new version of another. That’s like saying, “I was using a rotary phone and then switched to a Droid…I can really see the difference!”

That said, I use Quark (7), am familiar with it and love it. But I am looking to pick up a copy of InDesign on the cheap because that’s where most printers are headed. I’m sure InDesign is fine too, but they’re both page layout programs. What could possibly make one so much better than the other? It all comes down to personal preference, which is the real driver of efficiency.

And to the poster who says great designers are professional and up to date…the same can be said about crappy designers. What sets the great designers apart is that their creative does its job. Who cares if you can hang it in a gallery? Did it work? Your clients (the ones who write the checks) don’t care about the software you use. They care about three letters…R O I.

Jeez, I hate these arguments. Both Quark and InDesign are tools. Each has its merits and drawbacks. Once you spend your thousand dollars you owe these companies nothing. Certainly not your loyalty. Deciding that you hated a 6 year old version of this or that program doesn’t make you an expert on what’s available today. I was hoping to find a real comparison. Type handling, ease of use. object manipulation, page/layout handling. Is there anything Quark is particularly good at that ID isn’t or vica versa? If you don’t use both on a regular basis.. you really have nothing to contribute here.

I’m a professional newspage designer and use QuarkXpress 6.52 in office and Adobe Indesign CS2 at home. It really makes no difference what tool you used – clients only want good creatives. Ultimately, with a decline in newspapers and magazines, both tools will become redundant some day, and probably all designers would have to learn DreamWeaver and Flash. I learnt Indesign CS2 in a few months, whereas it took me a whole year to learn QuarkXpress 4. I continue to remain neutral – its your design skills that set you apart – not necessarily your tools. Now let’s get that design rocking!

ok about the University and collage remark it’s not about what is better to use, IT’S CALLED MARKETING Adobe gives Universitys and collages their product for free! yes free, good marketing alot of students get use to using it and promotes it where ever they work or send work otherwise it would be a happy world using Quark, it’s kinda like reinventing the wheel why even try. Canon gives Universitys and Collages their cameras for free too but yet if you look up Pulitzer prize winners over 75% are taken with a Nikon, and yet most collage students buy Canon and Indesign, its sad that people can’t really see what is the better product. I have been a prepress production supervisor for years and have used both Quark and Indesign I have seen more problems with the output of adobe products Indesign and pagemaker in the end thats the most important thing is to get it to print and please the client
good luck on your decision

Indesign CS1 has more functionality than QuarkXpress 8.

I have worked in Litho, Repro, Corporate Publications and Advert side. And all of them agree…

From a technical side: Indesign wins
From a Design side: Indesign wins
From a stability/reliability side: Indesign wins
Production/Repro side: Indesign wins.
Ease of use (starting with no knowledge): They say Indesign wins
Ease of use (Prior Quark experience): For me Indesign wins

It is a slight mindset-change to change over to Indesign, but once you get over that it is a absolute dream to work with.

Eg.
1. Try making a gradient fill with more that 3 colours.

2. Try giving a stroke a gradient.

3. Indesign has Photoshop Layer effect…. (super bonus)

4. Bureaus love the PDFs I send. (smaller than Quark, and works every time.)

5. With Adobe CS you get a package deal with Photoshop / Illustrator and Indesign…. With Quark you just get Quark.

6. Adobe’s auto updates is a Godsend.

and finally…
Using CS now for 7 years… (it crashed about 10 times on me). Used Quark for 1 year (crashed and lost data more times than I could count).

Even the CEO of Quark has been quoted in saying that they ‘lost the war’ against Adobe.

Old Quark bunnies will always argue that their product is better… but if they invested 1 week and really tried to get over the learning curve, I’m 98% sure they will make the switch to a brighter and better designed future.

As one poster puts it, I must be one of the “old Quark bunnies”, and I do prefer Quark. From day one, I appreciated Quark’s ability to set type professionally and layout pages accurately. I’ve used ID on MANY projects and I keep coming back to Quark. Just got 8 and am looking forward to using it. From my perspective, ID creates bad habits and laziness. Quark keeps things honest, clean + simple. It’s a pro’s tool.

All other arguments aside, I would still love InDesign for one thing: GREP. In Find/Replace functions and in Style Sheets, GREP is a godsend.
For those who don’t know it (and that’s probably even something like 98% of InDesign users, sadly) GREP allows you to use variables in find/replace functions or in style sheets.
For example, I need to take all instances of ‘am’ or ‘pm’ in my document and make them small caps. You can’t just change all instances of ‘am’ or ‘pm’ because then you would also end up with ‘trAMp’ or ‘chiPMunk’. But GREP allows me to specify that I’m only looking for any instance of ‘pm’ that is preceded by a number.
It also allows you to make ’smart’ embedded style sheets. I have a regular client that produces a monthly concert program guide, and every page has an Info section for the times and ticket prices, etc. The format goes: “DOORS: 8pm / CONCERT: 9pm / TICKETS: $20″, and for each item I want the title in bold and the remainder of the text in regular. Previously I would set the paragraph style to regular and then manually apply the ‘bold’ character style to each of the titles. Now, I just set the paragraph style, and GREP does the rest — it looks for the words ‘CONCERT:’ ‘DOORS:’ or ‘TICKETS:’ and applies the style automatically.
One click, versus seven. It may sound like a small thing, but if I’ve got 20 shows to format, that amounts to setting all that type in 20 clicks instead of 140.

Having previously worked for a medical marketing firm, I’ve had to deal with Product Monographs and Product Info sheets for a number of drugs (picture the 2-3 pages of warnings that follow any drug ad in a magazine, the stuff that’s set in 6.5pt, hyper-condensed type) that were 80+ pages long. Being able to do refined, intelligent find/replace searches and style sheets saved us days of work. Not to mention just being able to save those searches and reuse them over and over again.

Keep hearing that Quark is a Pro’s tool… I have worked as a designer and production artist (using Quark for over 10 years, InDesign for the last 3) I have to say that InDesign is the more professional tool. For anyone who cares about the production quality of their work, InDesign gives you far more ability to preflight your jobs, checking things like Ink Density with ease that you never and still don’t have in Quark. The PDF process and ability to send printers bullet-proof files is so far ahead of Quark. (Granted Quark 8 is taking some steps in the right direction, but it is years behind now, and there is no coincidence that these new features feel a lot like InDesign.) It makes me question whether these Quark die-hards really understand production very well. The Old-Breed clinging to quark is just not willing to adapt, and if they want to continue thinking they are geniuses and understand something that the rest of us just don’t, they will eventually find themselves out to see. Admittedly it does take more than 6 months to understand the InDesign the way you understand Quark if you have been using Quark for years. But you have to give it time. You’ll be glad you did, because publishers are already figuring out that InDesign saves them money and time, and the money thing is the most important. (Despite the Quark lovers objections, this is being proven time and time again) InDesign equals job security. It really does. It didn’t kill Quark as fast as some people thought 8 years ago, but it is doing it slowly. And that, once again, is a fact.

And lets not forget the printers. As designers we tend to look down on them, but for them to be almost universally gravitating towards advocating InDesign, there has to be something there. These are the people who are getting your jobs on press and know better than anyone what it takes to make the files best optimized for production.

I do have some issues with InDesign I will admit. But FAR more with Quark.

As a long time quark user (3.31 onwards) I have reached the absolute limit of how quickly one can work in quark. I rarely even click on the menus, as almost everything can be reached through the keyboard.

I have a copy of Indesign CS5 – and have barely tinkered with it. If I really wanted to dump the years of speed/experience with quark for something else, I could – and would get back some of the speed in the first few months. Eventually I would regain most of the speed, but not all. Why bother. Every job completed in the mean time would take far longer than necessary, which costs money.

The problem is – that good design is good design, irrespective of software used. In the real world, most clients don’t actually want graduated strokes, or text with photoshop layer styles applied. Look through the advertisements in all the leading consumer magazines – all pretty basic in respect of software used to create them.

There are pro’s and con’s to both – but if you have invested years in excelling in something – why throw it away on a whim. College designers rarely produce anything commercial anyhow – mostly just portfolio work.

The newspaper and magazine companies know where it’s at in respect of speed of production – and many, many are still using quark.

What newspaper and magazine companies are still using Quark? Hearst, Time Warner, Conde Nast… All InDesign… The big Publishing Houses, Penguin, Harper Collins, Random House, Houghton Mifflin… All moving to or already fully using InDesign. I said it before. InDesign is job security. Because it is cheaper, and better for production. It saves them money, because if you use it correctly, it does the job better. (The key is using the software correctly. Too many users of both don’t know how to use them correctly) Someone said that InDesign creates bad habits. Both Quark and InDesign create bad habits. With InDesign, you have a live pre-flight to help you fix them as you work. Quark needs pitstop, or flightcheck or some other 3rd party software or plug-in for that. And in my experience too many designers don’t even bother to use. If you really are serious about the production quality of your work, you have no choice but to use InDesign. If you are that die hard about quark, you clearly don’t know as much about printing as you think you do. The ONLY thing Quark does better is allow you to customize kerning sets. How many of you do that? Unfortunately I know Adobe has no plans to add that feature, however, I don’t think that is worth trading all the preflight features, PDF export capabilities, transparency features, and native file support with Photoshop and Illustrator.

I changed to InDesign two years ago. It was the best thing I could have done. It’s the fastest production software I’ve ever worked with, and I work in desktop publishing for more than 20 years. Adobe thought of everything. People who say that it’s not faster than QuakXpress it’s just because they don’t know the software and it’s ease of use. Things like nested styles and apply with next style combined with total control of keyboard shortcuts and many other features of that kind make it the fast, very fast. It may take a while to take full advantage of it’s advanced capabilities, like any good software, but it’s worth it.