QuarkXPress or InDesign?

QuarkXPress or InDesign

  • QuarkXPress

  • InDesign

  • Other (please specify)

  • Microsoft Publisher :D

Results are only viewable after voting.
hehe... Well. When you learned its tricks and learned to back things up, you could actually live with PageMaker, I'd say. Of course it always depends on what you have to accomplish.
 
Heres a little bit from me representing the future designers of the south pacific :)

I just finnished my 2nd year of Design School where, in one assignment we were introducted for the first time to Quark and ID, we were given both programs to choose from and our tutors could teach other either of them.

I dont know if its the fact that my generation was brought up with photoshop (well actually, If I had to, I would put it down to that) but every person in my class picked ID.

No one really even touched Quark right from the start.

Gotta tell you something about Quarks future.
 
Okay, so all of you who use InDesign, what do you use it for? Same question for Quark users. I mean, have any of you used these programs for actual work that they get paid to do? I mean, I've only used In Design on one paid book in two or so years. I've used Quark on 13 books in that same time.
 
I was an ID user anyway, but that is what my organization uses, so I've used it the last 18 months to design a whole bunch of posters, a brochure, design and monthly layout on a publication etc etc etc.

I know old school designers are often Quark fans and remain with Quark but if you aren't specifically trained in layout etc and you need to do a bit of layout, i think organizations like ID as they are familiar with Adobe products. This is a symptom of the current tech aware generation, if you need design you often get a young guy (or girl) who understands illustrator etc, not someone with actual training in the concepts of design.
 
I've been using InDesign (since version 1.0, actually) for three main purposes:

1.) Posters and ads. Backgrounds in Photoshop, some other elements in Photoshop as well, art in Illustrator, putting everything together and adding text in InDesign. Could be done in Illustrator as well, I guess.

2.) Brochures. Mainly based on CI of the company I've been working for. InDesign is just _great_ with text and interaction between vector art and text.

3.) Books. I've layouted (laid out?) three books in InDesign now, and it's been a great experience. ID has gotten the tools for it in version 2. I think I still had to do much indexing by hand in version 1.x. ;) The important part is: Block text simply looks gorgeous when done with Adobe's multiline-composer and optical margin alignment. And it's not just creative geeks (oh, this solves the riddle of whether I'm a creative head or a geek, then, eh?) who see the difference. It's clearly a much better tool for this.
 
fryke said:
...Block text simply looks gorgeous when done with Adobe's multiline-composer and optical margin alignment....
Click to expand...

Hmmm... That's what I keep hearing. But the one book I've done in InDy (2.0, tho' I now have CS2) I hated the word-spacing. I guess I haven't worked with it enough to know how to alter the defaults. It took me a while to find defaults in Quark that left me satisfied with word-spacing thruout a bookload of text. But out-of-the-box, I was disappointed with InDesign precisely because I heard the multiline-composer was revolutionary for the way it handles type.

As to Quark's clearly taking a backseat to InDY, even tho' I still use it, because (as a mercenary) it's simply what my clients requuire) I have two thoughts: 1) Don't let the door hit you in the ass, Quark (the company); and 2) it's mainly inertia that has all the newbies and schools going to InDy--that is, we all use Photoshop and Illy, so it's economical to buy the whole package and get into InDy, too.
 
Oh, of course I didn't leave the word-spacing I hated alone. I went thru, line-by-line, till I was pleased with how it looked. If anyone has any suggestions for changing defaults to give more eye-pleasing word-spacing from the jump, I'd love to hear.
 
If the multiline composer is turned on for your paragraph styles, I doubt going through your text line by line and adjusting each space between words is really fun. You should rather look at the paragraph style's setting etc.
 
esteban said:
Okay, so all of you who use InDesign, what do you use it for? Same question for Quark users. I mean, have any of you used these programs for actual work that they get paid to do? I mean, I've only used In Design on one paid book in two or so years. I've used Quark on 13 books in that same time.
Click to expand...

I mostly work in branding & advertising, so don't do much book layout (unless you call catalogues books). I know earlier versions of ID had real problems with longer documents, and slowed down massively the more you put its huge (Quark killing) feature set into operation.

A good friend of mine is an Art Director at Penguin Publishing, and they have made the decision to move to ID after being Quark-ers forever. The same goes for many of the UK's big name publishers (both books & magazines) including MacMillan, Future and I believe Dorling Kindersley.

These are some of the largest publishers in the world, and as far as I can see, they simply wouldn't entertain a company level policy shift towards new software, unless it provided significant advantages. Whether it comes down to cost, feature set, future development potential, integration with other apps, or about a million other things, InDesign offers sooooooo much more.

Oh, of course I didn't leave the word-spacing I hated alone. I went thru, line-by-line, till I was pleased with how it looked. If anyone has any suggestions for changing defaults to give more eye-pleasing word-spacing from the jump, I'd love to hear.
Click to expand...

Esteban, both of these comments just sound like you don't know how to use ID, rather than it not being any good. Most people experience frustration with new apps that replace old favourites, but you should have the sense to see what's a short coming of the application and what isn't.

ID is not perfect, but so far it's text handling has been pretty much universally applauded even by the harshest critics. if you think there's an issue with work spacing, customize it to your taste. If you work professionally in this industry, you'd probably benfit from a short course. I was led through the new features (and MUCH more importantly, workflow) of CS2 by a member of Adobe dev team... it made a massive difference to me.

... and BTW it's not inertia that has newbies and schools going to ID, it's that fact that at every level (whether CS2, education, stand alone, etc.) ID is far more cost effective. That's not the same thing as intertia.
 
Didn't say I out-and-out hate InDy. Just that it posed an unexpected issue after hearing how wonderfully it handles type. As for inertia--inertia is best defined by the old saw: "A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion." Right now, it seems to me bodies are in motion away from Quark, both the company and the software, and InDy gives many reasons to stay in motion away from Quark. I think that's inertia.
 
I use InDesign - haven't had much experience with Quark..

Of course, I might switch to Publisher when the Mac version comes out -
picture2gf3.png
 
So according to Ora's definition, I'm "old school".

I use QuarkXPress for everything except web stuff. When I say everything, I mean that 95% of the stuff I do is for print: mostly books, catalogues and large, high-quality brochures – adventure travel stuff… Everest, jungles of S.E. Asia, that kind of thing.

Obviously I do my photo work in Photoshop, but I do line work in Macromedia Freehand.

Maybe "old school" could be interpreted as "old age". This old dog doesn't want to have to learn new tricks unless I absolutely have to. If QXP died the death (which, of course, it may yet do) and InD was the only alernative, then I don't doubt that I would pick it up in no time, as easily as I made the jump from PageMaker to QXP way back when…

But don't forget that Quark Inc came in for a lot of stick when the dominated the market and there were no real alternatives. How will it be when the Adobe megalith has absorbed everything…?
 
I started my design job with Quark. I never in my life had had any kind of DTP or design training, but I was able to learn it simply by following the turorial book that came wit the software. I used it for about 2 years and then my company decided to change to ID - what a blessing! Finally I could do table the easy way!! :D

I've been using ID for almost 3 years now and I still love it.

I do layout for books and book covers. In the last 4 years, I must have done some 40 books.
 
If Adobe beats Quark for dominance over DTP, we might end up with a software publisher unresponsive to its customer base... oh wait. :)

Actually, the Adobe monolith makes me uncomfortable. If it doesn't wake you up in cold sweats, consider that a bigger company could purchase Adobe. Blegh.

The only thing that has me cheering for ID is my contempt for the half-assed workarounds and bad habits imposed by Quark.
 
i too am becoming uncomfortable about Adobe. in the last 4-5 years they've swallowed up all their competition. all of it. the only competition left is Apple (who aren't going to touch Creative Suite), and possibly Quark, but InDesign has seriuosly hampered them.

the last big stalwart was Macromedia, but now that's gone too. Fireworks and Freehand are no more. remember also that GoLive was a seperate company as well, for example.
 
That's capitalism at work for you. Adobe sees how Microsoft tries to eat Acrobat for lunch and how Apple eats into Adobe's core markets with video and photo applications, so it _does_ have to defend itself. Macromedia was quite an obvious target, really. (And FreeHand was once Aldus', just like PageMaker, btw., so you see these things go waaaaay back.) But when I look at how the monolithically slow Quark has started to defend XPress' market share by beating Adobe at creating an UB of XPress, I think that this capitalistic system works quite well for the end user so far. If only there was _more_ competition, eh. Adobe sure takes its time to bring on CS 3. On the other hand: Users were complaining that CS 2 came too fast and that they rather would have seen CS 1 fixed more promptly instead. Now, of course, we're bitchin' about because we _know_ we won't see UB versions of CS 2 apps.
 
So suddenly, from being an ol' stick-in-the-mud, I am now a defender of freedom of choice and of the underdog! ::ha::

:D
 
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