QUARK - backward compatability

[Richard9901]

A problem we are having here is that we can save Quark documents in Quark 6 as either Quark 6 or Quark 5, but not Quark 4. We are now using OSX.

I seems that a lot of our customers are still only on V4 and have a problem opening files from us. As a short term workaround the files can be saved in PDF format, but not really good enough.


I spoke to Quark, and they agreed that each version will only support the previous version. Version 5 is also not available for OSX though if that was an option.


Quark have suggested that a product for backward compatibility is available athttp://www.markzware.com/main/, I couldn't see anything there at a quick glance though.


Anyone with experience on how to enable us to save our Quark 6 files so that Quark 4 systems can read them?


Any ideas greatly appreciated

[toast]

http://www.markzware.com/markztools5/

[Gurnox]

Anyone know of anything similar for Adobe Illustrator?

[Richard9901]

I rang markzware and they told me the following:

1) tools 5 will not convert osx v6 files to v5 or v4. They are currently developing something for this (marzwaretools 5.5), but will not be available for a few months

2) saving in format V5 from quark 6 is still causing problems when attempted to be opened under v5 on os9. This must be a problem with quark compatibility themselves.

Unless there's another clever product out there, this is not looking positive, apart from going back to v4 on os9 for a few months.

[toast]

Well, why not providing your customers with PDF files ?

[Gurnox]

A lot of the time in the 'media' sort of environment, it's because they specifically ask for files in a certain format and won't take anything else.

Hell, we have clients that won't upgrade to the newest verison of Stuffit Expander and that's <i>freeware</i>.

And, after all, the customer is always right :-)

Originally Posted by toast

Well, why not providing your customers with PDF files ?

[Richard9901]

thats about right Gurnox, the customer wants it to load it up and work with it before printing.

[RacerX]

The best alternative is to set up an older system running Mac OS 9 and Quark 5 that everyone can use for converting down to 4.

A few weeks ago I put together an 8500 (with a 604e/250) for running older versions of software for one of my clients. I set it up as a general workstation with copies of 8.x/9.x apps. It comes in handy for converting backwards, and as a work space for any temp designers they bring on for jobs.