King Quark hath returneth!

[Slammer]

Ugraded our antique Quark 6.0 to the new Quark XPress 2016 and have been playing with it for a few days.
Aaaaaand... Loving it, all the Quarky bits are there, Indesign import, PDF etc. etc.
Anybody else using Quark or planning on giving it a try?

 

[Gianni_S]

Hi, I also have upgraded and I really like what I've found.
However some problems are still there.
I'm referring to some transparency pdf issues printing on a Fiery digital engine.
Just test and finding a way to work it around.
For the rest… It's a great piece of software than before!

 

[Slammer]

Hi, I also have upgraded and I really like what I've found.
However some problems are still there.
I'm referring to some transparency pdf issues printing on a Fiery digital engine.
Just test and finding a way to work it around.
For the rest… It's a great piece of software than before!

Oh, going to have to test that as we have quite a few customers with fiery.

 

[Slammer]

Just got confirmation from Quark, the alien is no more...;.(
However it would seem that the support is up to standard, live chat and an answer per mail a few hours later.
Quark2016 is looking better and better.

 

[dabob]

It may be back better than ever . . . but I'll wait and see just how many quark files come into my shop . . . haven't seen one now for at least two years, and if thats all I see I won't be jumping ship.

 

[pippip]

The problem for Quark is that everyone who needs photoshop and Illustrator already pay a sub that includes inDesign. I mean you'd really really need to be a Quark fan to pay for it now.

 

[AP90]

We still use Quark at our office. All of our prepress layout is done with it for our magazines. Then we have 2 stations with the full Adobe package and a station with quark and photoshop. Our 3 stations that use Quark do not handle any photo editing, graphic design, ect. It is strictly layout, and quark is a simple and effective tool for that (although indesign is too I believe).

 

[gregbatch]

We haven't received a Quark file in 4 years, so probably won't upgrade unless that changes.

 

[Joe]

It still creates a PDF that is about 5 times larger than an InDesign PDF that contains live transparency. And it places some InDesign PDF's that contain transparency fine and some it still butchers. So no thanks.

 

[Slammer]

It still creates a PDF that is about 5 times larger than an InDesign PDF that contains live transparency. And it places some InDesign PDF's that contain transparency fine and some it still butchers. So no thanks.

Wasn´t able to confirm that, the PDF´s I got were roundabout the same size, what version were you using?

 

[DCurry]

Too little, too late. If I never open another Quark file I'd be fine with that. At least they haven't gone the subscription route (yet.)

 

[Mark]

Quark should have gotten Freehand, a image editor and bundled to compete with Adobe. I see a dim future for them now.

 

[wonderings]

We haven't received a Quark file in 4 years, so probably won't upgrade unless that changes.

Same for us, though longer since receiving a Quark file. I switched us over to Indesign around CS3 I believe and have not looked back. There are some nice features Quark has added, but nothing that would make me want to leave InDesign at the moment and go through the hassle of switching everything and back to Quark. Always nice to have options, but Adobe pretty much has people locked in with CC. If you stop paying for CC you have zilch from them, the earliest version you get is CS6... if you paid for it back then. So stopping with Adobe CC means not being able to open files saved by any version of Adobe CC.

 

[Joe]

Wasn´t able to confirm that, the PDF´s I got were roundabout the same size, what version were you using?

I'm not using Quark. I received Quark 2016 PDF's from a customer who just upgraded recently. A 24 page PDF that comes in at 697 mb is crazy. Basic magazine format. Nothing that should make the file that size. I get that same type file from InDesign customers that come in under 100 mb. I won't rule out it is because the customer is doing something stupid. That happens frequently. I don't have any other customers using Quark 2016 to compare it to though.

 

[PrintIT]

We have Quark 2015 (won't upgrade until needed) installed for the 2 of our customers that won't give it up, and I've seen some weird overprint issues.
We had a customer send a PDF with a red rule that went behind an image, and for some reason the image was overprinting on the rule. I had them send the source file, and I exported a PDF, and it was fine - no overprint.

Then the opposite happened with another customer's file - They sent the Quark file and I exported, and an image overprinted on top of art behind it. I looked through all the trap settings in Quark and saw no reason for the overprint. Customer exported a PDF, and no overprint.

Now we don't trust it and we're going over every Quark generated PDF with a microscope. Thankfully we only get a Quark file every few months.

 

[Slammer]

I installed the first Quark at a customer last week, things are running fine and at least for the moment overprint has not been an issue, going to be keeping a keen weather eye open though.
Can Quark replace Indesign? If you think that at one time the question was: "can Indesign replace Quark?" I have the notion that Adobe is getting to where Quark was in the late nineties, too slow on the updates, and when they came they were at best mediocre, they never listened to the wishes of the customer base, and worst of all they conveyed customers the feeling of unbridled arrogance. "We are Quark, we are the best, nobody is better!"
And now, a decade and a bit down the line, it would seem that Adobe has not learned from the past mistakes of Quark.

 

[Puch]

Re: huge files. Quark's default PDF export scheme creates documents with ZIP compression. Switch that to JPEG and you'll get files roughly the same size as from ID.

Adobe is getting to where Quark was in the late nineties, too slow on the updates, and when they came they were at best mediocre, they never listened to the wishes of the customer base

That's right, just don't forget that InDesign is a very mature product, as Quark was once in the 90's. Back then I used to say: "Drop me on an island with Quark 4, Photoshop 4 and Freehand, and I can do everything on paper." Now the same is true with InDesign CS4 + Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3. If you're into print exclusively, you still can be king with that age old golden trio.

 

[Joe]

Re: huge files. Quark's default PDF export scheme creates documents with ZIP compression. Switch that to JPEG and you'll get files roughly the same size as from ID.

ZIP (lossless) compression is used for a reason. No thanks on jpeg compression. I don't use jpeg (lossy) compression in InDesign and I'm not going to start having it used in Quark.

 

[Slammer]

Re: huge files. Quark's default PDF export scheme creates documents with ZIP compression. Switch that to JPEG and you'll get files roughly the same size as from ID.



That's right, just don't forget that InDesign is a very mature product, as Quark was once in the 90's. Back then I used to say: "Drop me on an island with Quark 4, Photoshop 4 and Freehand, and I can do everything on paper." Now the same is true with InDesign CS4 + Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3. If you're into print exclusively, you still can be king with that age old golden trio.

You are correct, Indesign and indeed Adobe´s finest are mature products, mature to a point where they have been developed to the nth degree, maybe we will see a tweak here and a neat feature there in future releases, but nothing with a wow factor, there is no real difference between ID5 and ID 6, or the CC for that matter that would justify the godzillains of Dollars poured into development, as a analogue you could take a look at the internal combustion engine, basically the same for over a hundred- odd years. During that time the engine has been improved to a point today where it can no longer be much better than it is, Adobe, like the internal combustion engine is at the limit of economical development.
Maybe also like traditional print...

 

[DCurry]

I don't use jpeg (lossy) compression in InDesign and I'm not going to start having it used in Quark.

I do use JPEG in ID - most of the time, the naked eye can't tell anything bad is happening. The exception is if there is text in any of the images - you can usually see the JPEG artifacts around the letters, so in those instances I'll switch to ZIP.