Quark vs InDesign – the feedback

From Matt Davis

Already moved our entire DDB and Rapp Collins Studio, Creative and web departments in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to InDesign CS and will not be returning.

Interesting to note that for designers and Studio Mac operators that InDesign is far superior for design and creativity and for us that is more important than price. Although price does play a part in a large corporations strategy. 18 months of full InDesign use and we are happy campers.

Cheers

Matt Davis
Studio Manager

DDB Worldwide - Advertising Age and AdWeek's 2003 Agency Network of the Year


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From Sarah Jones

My name is Sarah Jones, I am currently a Design & Prepress teacher at RMIT's
International Centre of Graphic Technology.

I have just been reading the article: Desktop Wars. It has only been
recently that I have started teaching full time,
before this I was running a small design & prepress business for approx three
years.

I must admit that before I commenced teaching full time, there is no way I
would've switched to InDesign, obviously if
you have been trained in Quark, it's hard to break those old ways. I enjoy
using both programs now, almost equally
(although inDesign's table options are obviously superior, this is one thing
that has always been a huge issue in
typography).

I have observed much in the recent months:
– Almost every full time student prefers InDesign over Quark, it is a much
more comfortable format for them, and this
seems to be the only reason why. These students will go out of their way NOT
to use Quark, it is not practical to them.
Plus most of them having bought the Adobe CS (particularly being students)
are not willing to spend the same price on
just one package. Currently, it seems difficult for them to get jobs as most
of them are unable to use Quark to industry
standard.
Yet, the majority of apprentices prefer Quark (as they use it in the
workplace)

As most people heading into our area are not from apprenticeship
backgrounds, I can see that eventually InDesign will
win over.

The article noted that there would be a need for training in InDesign, and
that may be one of it's biggest setbacks, but
if at least 80% of new entrants into the workforce prefer the Adobe program
then I can't see this being a problem. The
major problem that I can see is many current employees (from 25-60years) had
better watch out, or be able to adapt to
change. This younger generation will be cheaper for companies to employ and
have much more up-to-date skills.

I think Quark is being quite naive if it thinks it'll be around for much
longer. I don't think they realize just how
many advantages InDesign has over it's own product.

Like many others, as a business person it was extremely difficult to obtain
any information or help from Quark,
especially being in Australia.

Thanks for your time, I thought it may be of interest to you.

Regards

Sarah Jones

RMIT ICGT

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From: Geoff Dean

Hi,
In response to your question 'Would you switch from QuarkXPress to InDesign?'

We have four licences for Quark (4.1 x 3 and 6.0 x 1) and two for InDesign (1.5 and CS). Currently we only use InDesign to process client supplied files (about 5% of our workload). We use Quark exclusively inhouse for all of our file construction.

We are looking to update our three existing G3's and 1 G4's to G5's this year, and unless Quark can offer a much better deal on upgrades, there is a strong possibility that we will switch to InDesign.

Regards

Geoff Dean

PrePress Manager
Specialty Press (Sales)

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From Kym Falannery

As an ex-graphic designer who had made the switch with the move into Adobe CS, I have found little to complain about. InDesign is more intuitive for Adobe users and has more features than the Quark XPress 4.1 we left with OS9.


In my new career in Recruitment for the Advertising, Design and Print Industry I have found most, 65% plus, of our clients are requesting InDesign experience as a standard skill set. I know of at least one training company that has started cancelling Quark courses, while their InDesign courses are booked back to back...I think the writing may be on the Perth wall, however candidates arriving from overseas are telling us they have yet to make the switch in UK studios.


I have been informed by pre-press operators that InDesign still lacks the fine controls for colour output management found in Quark and because of InDesign's ability to handle raw and native file formats, including Word docs with embedded pics and graphs there is an ongoing issue for print worthy documents. Transparency is another major issue with some designers thinking that WYSIWYG screen images and laser proofs translate to printable, problem free files. All in all I think unless the Quark company quickly makes a major culture shift, they will lose this race. The only real issues with InDesign are more "pilot error" issues than true faults with this package

We live in interesting times

Regards

Kym Flannery

Recruitment Consultant
Advertising & Design
Asphar & Associates

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From John Launder

In March of this year we bit the bullet and switched from Quark to InDesign along with OSX. It was an easy decision for me on the financial side and also the fact that I do not do any of the graphics work. Convincing my staff was not an easy task as they were all extremely pro Quark and adverse to change. The answer was open communication with the staff along with professional training. We are now six months on and all six staff say they would hate to go back to Quark as it is a vastly inferior product.

From a personal point of view it was a pleasure to leave Quark and their arrogance behind.


Regards,

John Launder

Managing Director
Print Creations
Bendigo

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From Gerry Wheeler

You seem to have forgotten that there are many people doing page layout in
Windows. For them, the choice is not between Quark and InDesign, but between
PageMaker and InDesign, and Quark isn't even in the race.

Gerry Wheeler

Quality of Life Publishing

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From Romic Pajak

HI Patrick,

I read with great interest your story on Desktop Wars - the battle between
Quark and InDesign.

When I first moved into the electronic era of Graphic Design in the late
80's, I was using Aldus PageMaker, and from a Designers perspective, I loved
it. It had that traditional "cut and paste" feel that I was used to and
immediately felt comfortable with. In the early 90's, I moved across to
Quark and found it very technical and unfriendly, nothing like the beaut
Adobe (Illustrator/Photoshop) feel I was used to. I suspect dedicated
typesetters found this OK, but for me it has never been a true designers
tool, not intuitive enough.

Two years ago, I started using InDesign (V2), my daughter at this stage was
using it at Uni and suggested I have a go with it. Well . . . it just blew
me away immediately. within a couple of hours I was flying, the learning
curve was very short, probably because I was so familiar with it's cousins,
Photoshop and Illustrator. I just love the Adobe programs, they are made for
creatives.

I have just recently moved over to Mac OS-10 Panther, and consequently
purchased the Adobe CS suite. These programs all integrate beautifully, and
provide a brilliant way for new starters to get set up with the necessary
software at an affordable price. My biggest beef with Quark is probably
their arrogance with pricing and support. In your story, you quote Daevid
Richards from Modulo as saying, "he is happy to overlook the budget
conscious one or two program design shops in favour of concentrating on the
larger sites". Well . . . this is exactly my point, what an attitude, with a
product that has always been overpriced (in my opinion) I think he is making
another huge marketing blunder. Adobe has finally bundled all of the
necessary publishing software into an affordable package, and it works
brilliantly, hats off to Adobe.

Personally, I would love to see Adobe win this one, I believe Quark has
taken the Microsoft approach for too long, "this is the only accepted
product on the market, and you will have to pay what we like to charge for
it".

A good article Patrick, I look forward to the future developments of this
war, and maybe a follow up story further down the track. Keep up the good
work.

Best Regards,
Romic Pajak