Does anyone use Quark anymore?

[wonderings]

Never used it until I changed employers about 15 years ago, only used Quark until InDesign came out, I have never looked back, BUT, I use CS6, I will not "rent" software from Adobe. I know several who did the cloud and wish now they had stuck with CS6.

Quark was terrible to deal with for a while. I think it was in version 8 that you still have to phone quark to de-authorize a computer so you could install it on a new one, or on a fresh install. They eventually released an update so you could do it yourself, but it was very late coming. Another reason Adobe CS was a refreshing change from Quark. Everything was stored online for registration numbers etc, very easy to move to a new machine, just de-authorize old and authorize new. Adobe had that for a while before Quark got themselves together and offered that.

 

[vegasartman]

I'm a semi-retired graphic designer. I still use Quark 9 & 10. Q9 is very buggy. I was hopping that the problems would be over w/ the release of Q10, but it is even worse. I liked it a lot at first, my PDFs started coming back from printshops as unusable. It is not able to produce good spot color PDFs. I spent many many hours for one & a half years with tech support. They verified the problem but their work around was to use Q9 for PDFs.

A year or two ago I was able to get the ear of Gunther Mathias on Quark's Facebook page. He agreed to look into the problem & verified it, but was unwilling to send me useable software. He only offer to make things right was a 20% discount on Q2015. I told him that I was a 20+ year user, and that I would never buy another copy of Quark.

Have anyone had similar problems? Anyone interested in a class-action lawsuit? I want my $279 back!

 

[SnoopDoug]

Quark is the name of the company. I've never received a file from Quark. Do you mean the program XPress? LOL

BTW the program is called QuarkXPress - always referred to as such, or simply "Quark". Nobody has ever said XPress.

To answer the question. We so rarely get a Quark file that, when we do, we download a trial of the latest version, run the job, and forget about it till the next job comes in. Quark users are rare on the west coast, very popular in Denver (home base), and scattered thoughout the midwest. Not sure of the popularity on the east coast.

 

[David Milisock]

We have 2 companies in my area that I know who use Quark, a magazine publisher and book publisher

 

[Tim-Ellis]

I still have Quark 8 on two Macs. Use it about three times a month. I have lots of old HP Smart Stream jobs that use the Quark plug in.

We used Markwearz Q2ID to convert our old documents to Indesign. We needed it for about one year and it did a really nice job of the conversion.

I never had a problem with Quark. Been using it since 1998. But the cost of running seven licences became too dear. Well.... Until Adobe CC came along.

To be honest, I hope they get their act together real soon. What Adobe needs right now is a serious competitor to keep them sharp.

 

[keith1]

Gosh! Haven't used Quark in years. I don't like the Adobe Cloud thing. But I also don't use Cloud (for that reason). I don't foresee upgrading beyond InDesign version 6. And I usually use version 5.5 because to re-save so many of my files to 6 would be a pain. But then I plan to retire sometime within the next couple years, which puts me in the fortunate position of not giving that much of a s--t.

Keith

 

[David Milisock]

Gosh! Haven't used Quark in years. I don't like the Adobe Cloud thing. But I also don't use Cloud (for that reason). I don't foresee upgrading beyond InDesign version 6. And I usually use version 5.5 because to re-save so many of my files to 6 would be a pain. But then I plan to retire sometime within the next couple years, which puts me in the fortunate position of not giving that much of a s--t.

Keith

Good for you, on the PC side CS 6 runs on windows 10 so those users are good for a decade or more even if they stay modern with their hardware.

 

[wonderings]

Good for you, on the PC side CS 6 runs on windows 10 so those users are good for a decade or more even if they stay modern with their hardware.

The downside is Indesign CS6 is not a 64 bit app and thus will never use all that horsepower when upgrading processors. It works well, but I had issues with some massive files exporting to PDF. Would not go in CS6 but when I tried a demo of Indesign CC it exported no problem.

 

[dabob]

Sorry . . . but I just gotta throw this in here . . . I've seen more quark files (3 or 4) in the last ten years than I've seen Corel files . . .

 

[wonderings]

Sorry . . . but I just gotta throw this in here . . . I've seen more quark files (3 or 4) in the last ten years than I've seen Corel files . . .

I think I have seen 1 Corel file come in in the last 7 or 8 years. Was a newer version then what we have so I just downloaded a demo of the latest and resaved the file so I could work with it in illustrator.

 

[SnoopDoug]

Do you really want to draw out more fire?
I will say in the 17 years at my company we received CorelDraw files from 1 customer. We ended up taking it in to Illustrator to work with it. What's even more amazing is that I'm pretty sure in one of the turnover/transition periods in Corel's history they were giving the product away. Maybe bundled with WordPerfect? I'm sure someone on this forum will dispute that.

 

[wonderings]

Do you really want to draw out more fire?
I will say in the 17 years at my company we received CorelDraw files from 1 customer. We ended up taking it in to Illustrator to work with it. What's even more amazing is that I'm pretty sure in one of the turnover/transition periods in Corel's history they were giving the product away. Maybe bundled with WordPerfect? I'm sure someone on this forum will dispute that.

I think photoshop used to come free with scanners back before my time, if memory serves me correctly.

 

[keith1]

I think photoshop used to come free with scanners back before my time, if memory serves me correctly.

Indeed it did. I got Photoshop - I think it was version 3 - with a Microtek Scanner. Not sure; could have been around 1999, 2000. It was a full version and I was able to register it.

Keith

 

[dabob]

Indeed it did. I got Photoshop - I think it was version 3 - with a Microtek Scanner. Not sure; could have been around 1999, 2000. It was a full version and I was able to register it.

Keith

I don't believe that is was "free" more likely it was bundled with the scanner. I remembering purchasing photoshop 2 as a standalone program. - Do you remember how much that Microteck was???

 

[PrintIT]

I also remember there being a stripped down "Photoshop LE" version that didn't have much functionality beyond scanning and very light touchup.

 

[KLMiller611]

Corel has a large following to this day in the sign industry. I used Quark after switching from Pagemaker about 1992 up to the time of my current job, which only had InDesign CS2. I like a lot of what Quark did, and how it worked, but I use InDesign now, simply because I can take a file home or to work as needed. I've bought Quark up through Version 10, but because I've got an older desktop machine at home, I am still running an older system than the newer programs like. If I could afford a new machine, I'd already have one.

In addition, I really don't like Adobe holding us hostage for a monthly protection payment. I could go along with it, if after a year, you "owned" the software to date and if you could not afford the monthly fee, you still had workable files, but unless you save them back to earlier compatibility, you are screwed.

Ken

 

[halmac]

We use Quark 2016 and love it. We have used Quark since around 2000 and we have so many Quark files we really can't go to anything else.

 

[wonderings]

We use Quark 2016 and love it. We have used Quark since around 2000 and we have so many Quark files we really can't go to anything else.

Well you can, I think most print shops went through the transition. When I moved us away from Quark we simply started doing all new jobs in Indesign. Old files we would pull and use in Quark if need be. Most I reset in Indesign. Many many many years of Quark files, and no real headaches when we moved to Indesign, other then the issues that come with a new way of working. Glad we did make the change.

 

[Slammer]

Started using Quark again big time now, QXP2016 does everything you wish from a layout program and then some without the shadow of Darth Adobe, having said that I miss the DataMerge function of the older versions, but the JoLetter Xtention does a really good job, however my biggest beef with QXP is that they have killed the aliens, no aliens anymore, how could they?

 

[dabob]

You know . . . I keep hearing about the continuing charges from adobe . . . pretty much everybody else does it in one way or another . . . admittedly you generally only buy one or two hammers in your life . . but your offset presses have continuing costs, ie rollers, blankets, and other non specific job related costs, power charges, water bills, etc. - to me 600 bucks a year for what you get isn't all that bad . . . and if you just need one app, for example, Acrobat DC . . . a years subscription is 15.99 . . . . I'll bet most of you spend more than that at Starbucks every month . . .

just sayin