QuarkXpress 8 or Adobe InDesign CS3

Which one is better? I'm swaying more to ID since I have 3 Adobe products already.

Thanks

That's easy, InDesign knocks the socks off Quark

If you already have other adobe products, contact adobe to see if you can merge all your software in to an Adobe suite license

how so, doe sit knock the socks off quark?

I stopped using Quark at 6.5 and got on the InDesign boat. I switched for one reason: I was trying to import a PDF into a document, then export it back to PDF and quark was giving me an error. The people at Quark could never resolve the issue. InDesign did this just fine.

I find InDesign to be more intuitive and easy to use than Quark was. If you are used to Adobe Applications, you will feel right at home. The integration between Adobe file types is awesome as well. Some say you can do more with text in Quark, and many still prefer it because its what they are used to, but I won't use Quark again unless I am forced to.

kmkl said:

how so, doe sit knock the socks off quark?

Click to expand...

Tables - quarks are horrendous - Indesign's are bliss

Support for Photoshop files - just works

Imports illustrator files, no need to save as eps

Table of contents - easy if you have used style sheets

Preflighting - just much much better

Export to PDF - no nasty surprises

Add interactive elements to PDF files - much simpler and more comprehensive than quark - and doesn't crash when you add loads of links.

INdesign does crash - but it rescues most of your lost work - how good is that!!

You can put master page elements on layers - Quark is so dumb on that

A proper scale tool - I have been asking Quark for that since 1995 (yes I did email them, as well as ask a rep during a seminar)

It is cheaper

Don't get me wrong - I used Quark for years and found the switch difficult at first - but Quark just treated it's users like well paid cattle

I just have always found InDesign much more intuitive. Quark seemed to fight what I wanted to do. Maybe it was just me though.

I swear the earlier versions of CS could open Quark 4 or 5 files. Not sure of the new InDesign can still do that.

I'm going to put in vote for Quark. Yes it's clunky and old fashioned, but it is far easier to use than ID.

v7 brought in long overdue new features, but kept the familiar interface. At long last 8 has sorted that out, but it's too early to say what the result is.

I wouldn't buy either at the moment until CS4 comes out though.

Alexis said:

I'm going to put in vote for Quark. Yes it's clunky and old fashioned, but it is far easier to use than ID.

v7 brought in long overdue new features, but kept the familiar interface. At long last 8 has sorted that out, but it's too early to say what the result is.

I wouldn't buy either at the moment until CS4 comes out though.

Click to expand...

Since InDesign feels like other Adobe Products, it sounds like the better fit in this situation. Besides, it seems to me that InDesign has been taking over as the industry standard. Maybe its not there yet, but its gaining ground.

thanks for all of your input!

InDesign all the way! I started out with Quark in the 90s and my feelings then was 'this is way better than Pagemaker.' It wasn't until 4 years ago when I started my present job that I got aquainted with InDesign CS1. My employer had both Quark and ACS1, so right from the start, once I got familiar with ID's interface, I found myself using ID more than Quark. It was simpler for me, I learned it a lot faster than I did with Quark.

One bothersome Quark thing: On occasion, after I had saved my document to our networked archive server, I work on my job and go to save it again it gives me a "file not found" error. I see it in its folder, but yet it's "missing." I have to save my doc outside the customer folder and keep it there. Moving it back inside the customer folder gives me another error message. My thoughts: whatever, p.o.s.

Quark 8 FAR superior...for those who care to know

I see no real desire on the part of CS users to actually educate themselves on the productivity advantages Quark has such as:

1. Multiple layouts in one project file...worth the price alone
2. Ability to synchronize text and picture content between layouts and pages
3. Ability for several people to work on the same document
4. Job Jackets for enforcing font and color usage in a wider project or client based
5. Color based transparency...way better than Adobe's
6. Much better shadow controls
7. Much better PSD layer palette than InDesign
8. Full color correction and picture effects built in
9. WAY better hanging punctuation than Adobe has
10. Far superior grid technology for ALL languages
11. Many fewer palettes to get a better job done
12. Support for more output types including flash
13. WAY better interactive creation than Adobe has...simpler for the average designer to understand
14. Sooo many more XTensions
15. Much better item styling options and search and replace tools


I'm sorry...I find clinging onto yesterday's winner (InDesign 2) is costing companies and individuals millions in lost productivity...it's actually ridiculous.

Quark 8 rules when it comes to efficiency, features and support. Adobe is getting further behind with every release of their flawed plug-in based architecture..scrambling to catch up.

Certainly don't waste your money on CS4. Also the PDF (EPS with a rasterizer built in) days are rapidly drawing to a close as the world clamours for an open standard closer to what Microsoft is offering...not some proprietary shareholder-driven format they have to pay and pay for. Quark 8 solves all outstanding PDF issues.

The Adobe run is over...the call was answered. BTW: Quark and Apple are working much more closely than Adobe and Apple which are becoming rivals. If you like Apple, you should like Quark who were 9 months ahead of Adobe releasing Universal Binary.

Please educate yourselves at planetquark.com and see the true story....time is precious.

I partially agree with wizenpub, but...

this is for QuarkXpress 8.0, 7.0 did not stand a chance against InDesign CS3, and I would wait for CS4 before making comparisons, yet.
I used mostly Quark up to 6.0 and I switched to InDesign with CS2 and up to now (CS3) is the main application for DTP here. Although I use Quark (6,6.5,7,8) for 3rd party projects that come here for corrections (mostly aesthetic), I cannot say I see any reason to go back yet.
With CS4 I believe this is going to be harder.

Meanwhile I have to mention that InDesign has better support for languages up from the start, no extra localization needed.

Here in Greece QuarkXpress supported Greek correctly only for Mac OS from version 4.0 and up, whistle InDesign (from CS2) does it out of the box in both platforms. Maybe if I never switched to Windows (1996) I could have stay with Quark. But then again, I am back to the Mac 2 years now and Greek is better in InDesign there too, so....I am staying with Adobe for now!

I guess will have to wait and see.

By the way I'd like to see Quark flourish and even some of the open source apps, because having more choices it is always better for the consumer and the technology!

late to this party, but oh well...

ok i'll throw in my two cents. in our small but very hectic design shop (3+ over-caffeinated designers) we work on both quark files and (legacy) indesign files. in a scientific poll, just completed, none of us would choose to start a project in indesign. we all think quark is more intuitive at helping us play with type, which is what we do a whole lot of. a previous post itemized the tech betters; our youngest designer learned indesign in school and "i had to unlearn some bad id habits, but now i'm more of a quark kid, most days." and another, "quark's color windows are much better than id's stupid swatches." So there you have it from the horses mouths.