I think you should switch to InDesign. The sooner, the better. I switched in 2000 and now I would never use XPress. I would rather change my profession than to use it again. I really deplore people who still have to work with XPress.

I moved over to InDesign a couple of years ago although I still use Quark for certain clients. One client recently upgraded to Quark 6.5 despite my warnings. I personally don't see any significant improvements with this version and I have to say if Quark Inc don't buck their ideas up for version 7, they're going to find themselves in serious trouble.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news...

Do you think he's escaping a sinking ship perhaps? It's an insight to say the least.

I would use InDesign for ANY page layout tasks given the choice... It simply sooooooooooooo much better than Quark in every conceivable way and it's compatibility with Photoshop and Illustrator means there's no turning back as far as I'm concerned.

I don't work for Adobe by the way :)

When you finish switching you should also consider upgrading from coal to natural gas!

We don't have coal in England :)

Yes. It was a clever decision. I was a Quark user and I decide to go for InDesign CS for a lot of reasons and I congratulate myself for that. You will see!

It seems to be unianimous already...but I firmly agree with all previous statements. I use Quark XPress daily at work, but only use InDesign at home. It works so much better, its a lot more intuitive...and so far it has never crashed on me. Here at my office everyone I work with has had Quark problems. It constantly crashes and is very buggy. Its not unusual for me to have to close the program and restart it because it isn't rendering properly.

BTW, Quark files can be opened in InDesign. InDesign also has more "undos". Quark didn't even start having "undo" until 6 came out. Quark also seems paranoid about software theft requiring a seperate installation and password for every individual workstation.

Why not just switch to the company that uses all the programs you use in page layout programs anyway? You can place native Adobe files in InDesign. I also don't work for Adobe. :)

Well Terry, I don't know about you, but InDesign crashes for me all the time :(

Still, it is way more stable than any version of Quark I've ever dealt with. I switched to InDesign in 2001, and haven't looked back since.

I've used all three of the DTP apps, PageMarker (1994–2002), Quark (1996–2001), and InDesign since 2001. No competition anymore, really. Even if Quark 7 ever makes it to market.

__
www.typeoff.de

Don't any of you have an issue with all major software from one company? I do. Competition is good. If you hate QuarkXpress, so be it, but you should hope that they make a great product to keep Adobe honest. Seriously, do you think Illustrator is going to be updated in any significant way, since Freehand is pretty much dead? If you think so, you don't see the market as it really is. What we need is a third layout program that would bring massive innovation to the market. Imagine 3 companies combating for top dog? Free sidegrades, 2 million fonts (OOPS), upgrades as we breathe!

I think Indesign does some nice things, but really when push comes to shove, you can do most anything in creative ways with either program. I love QuarkXpress, have been using it for nearly 18 years. I use Indesign/Illustrator at work(PC), but at home I use Quark/Freehand(Mac) and get more done at home.
The biggest fault of Indesign is the poorly thought out box scenario, it is too cumbersome to me. I like the Export to PDF, it is better than Quark there.
Also Adobe really won't tell us how large a user base they have, but I have worked in Digital print, Label and offset in the last 8 years and can tell you ID has very small market share, and I see much more Pagemaker files than ID files. Only Corel Draw has fewer users!:)

Quark has one huge advantage, it is 13 years older than ID, we had 7 years of learning v3.3xx and more pages have been made in it than any other program.

I think most people don't like the company and push against its venerable program. To be honest, I do not think much of Adobe or Quark, but I think it is good that they are both out there.

Sincerely,
Rodrigue Planck

The Truth shall set you free

None of the following should be taken as an official Adobe position, just my personal musings. :)

"Seriously, do you think Illustrator is going to be updated in any significant way, since Freehand is pretty much dead?"

Sure. Can you say "Photoshop"? Seriously, even if one granted the assumption that Adobe has no competitors in the drawing program market, that just means that we'd have to compete with our previous versions to keep on getting upgrade revenue.

That being said, I agree that competition is good and healthy.

"Adobe really won’t tell us how large a user base they have, but I have worked in Digital print, Label and offset in the last 8 years and can tell you ID has very small market share, and I see much more Pagemaker files than ID files. Only Corel Draw has fewer users!:)"

Well, certainly InDesign didn't have a lot of users eight years ago. :)

My understanding is that today the majority of both magazines and newspapers in both the UK and Australia are produced with InDesign. The lists in the USA are getting pretty impressive, but I haven't heard anybody try to tote up the totals lately.

"Quark has one huge advantage, it is 13 years older than ID...."

Quark certainly has a large installed base, and a long history. But trying to do radical change on an existing ancient piece of software is very difficult indeed - age is not your friend here. There are strong reasons, which would apply to most any program, that the Aldus-and-later-Adobe folks started working on a new codebase (which eventually became InDesign) instead of continuing to extend PageMaker indefinitely. It will be interesting to see how successful QXP 7 is in terms of stability and bugginess. Good luck to them and their users.

Regards,

T

I work in digital prepress, preparing people's files for printing. I would say 80% of the designer files coming in are still Quark Xpress. The rest are a mix of InDesign, CorelDraw, Word, Powerpoint, etc. InDesign is increasing slowly but steadily.

I'm a long time Quark user who has to do various formatting projects. Starting to get to like Indesign now. Still feels a bit clunky and overloaded with not really needed features compared to Quark (sort of the same feeling comparing Corel Draw to Illustrator). I think Quark is the winner hands down for simplicity of the interface, and you can get very decent pdfs straight from quark.

They are both good software.

Tim

“Seriously, do you think Illustrator is going to be updated in any significant way, since Freehand is pretty much dead?”

Sure. Can you say “Photoshop”? Seriously, even if one granted the assumption that Adobe has no competitors in the drawing program market, that just means that we’d have to compete with our previous versions to keep on getting upgrade revenue.

The thing is, at least for Windows users, Adobe doesn't have a very good track record in that space. Freehand took the PC market in the mid-nineties, after Macromedia aquired and revamped it, because Abobe din't even bother producing a new Windows version of Illustrator for...what, four or five years after the crap first version?

Hi Thomas,
In terms of numbers UK and AU really don't add to a big number, but it is more of a "we have a similar quality" item. The issue really is the same as competitors against Photoshop, it has to be sooooo much better and yet familiar enough to existing base, and I can tell you that ID is a great program, I really like it, but it isn't sooo much better (I'll even give it a 50/50 with quark.) that the "Large" chunk of users are going to switch. Try it maybe, just to make sure (:
The part of ancient software puzzles me, do you apply the same rational to Photoshop or Illustrator? I am not a programmer, but I would think that a change to Unix on the mac side is a complete overhaul of any program from OS9 and below, and while they are at it they have new code for PC too, uhm or am I missing something?

The Truth shall set you free

As a recent graduate - my school decided to change from Quark to InDesign while I was in my second year (2004) of a four-year graphic design program. I had grown up using Quark in high school (basic newsletter stuff), at my co-op placement and in my first two years of university. I loved Quark - but was able to make the switch to Indesign without any problems.

As a student - I couldn't afford to purchase Quark. I didn't know one student who had a legal version of the program. Once the Adobe Creative Suit came along... you could purchase all the programs you needed (Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator) for around $800 CND. Compare this to Quark - something like $1,300? (I may be off - but it was more). On top of that - you only got Quark - you still needed to get Photoshop and illustrator.

So, my entire class (and each class following) has made the switch to Indesign.

Since I have graduated, I have worked at 3 different employers who use Quark. I am happy to do my work in Quark, but do all of my personal stuff in ID. The magazine I work for now is thinking of making the switch - since the costs and benefits of the Adobe CS outweigh the "loyalty" people have with Quark. Other major magazine publishers in Canada have already made the switch - including (if I’m not mistaken) Rogers, who publishes Maclean’s Magazine.

Yes, it's good to have competition. Yes, Quark did a good job. Yes, a majority of well-experienced designers still use it. Yes, printers still love it (but do any of them refuse PDFs? ). Yes, it will be around for a while longer... but unless something amazing comes along soon - I expect that Adobe CS will take over the market as soon as everyone still using OS9 (and are living off that Quark 4 license they purchased when it was new) decides that it's time to welcome themselves to 2006.

The next generation of designers is on their way... and Quark missed the boat.