Quark begins cut-price product, upgrade deal

[Blue Velvet]

The main reason is that the designers don't have time to learn OS X and to figure out how to do things all over again...

This is true but it's also important for any creative to keep up with technical developments especially when the cutting edge becomes commonplace... I didn't force through an OS X transition at work until I had about a year of messing with it at home and had researched a number of issues. In fact, it was that experimenting that lead me to this very forum.

While it all comes out of my own time, I also see it as an investment in my career and it pays off. I would hate to be still wedded to OS9, a position I was in 2 years ago... InDesign is something I intend to spend a lot of time with over the next few months at home before trying to do a day's work with it.

 

[narco]

This is true but it's also important for any creative to keep up with technical developments especially when the cutting edge becomes commonplace... I didn't force through an OS X transition at work until I had about a year of messing with it at home and had researched a number of issues. In fact, it was that experimenting that lead me to this very forum.

While it all comes out of my own time, I also see it as an investment in my career and it pays off. I would hate to be still wedded to OS9, a position I was in 2 years ago... InDesign is something I intend to spend a lot of time with over the next few months at home before trying to do a day's work with it.

I agree. It's up to the designer to keep up with technology, otherwise they risk being replaced by someone who does. The transition from OS 9 to OS X wasn't tough, but I can imagine the transition from Quark to ID would be.

I feel bad for that whole department using OS 9.

Fishes,
narco.

 

[e-coli]

I hear the death rattle...

 

[Blue Velvet]

The transition from OS 9 to OS X wasn't tough, but I can imagine the transition from Quark to ID would be.

It's not the initial learning curve that worries me, it's getting up to the same fluency and deftness with an application that takes time and practice.

Getting keyboard shortcuts into muscle memory, learning new words for the same processes etc.

Also, once you're very familiar with a package you can think and plan your way through a design/technical problem knowing what you need to do and what order you need to do it in. It literally becomes second-nature and that's when creativity and work just flows without you having to think about what it is you're exactly doing.

 

[narco]

It's not the initial learning curve that worries me, it's getting up to the same fluency and deftness with an application that takes time and practice.

Getting keyboard shortcuts into muscle memory, learning new words for the same processes etc.

Also, once you're very familiar with a package you can think and plan your way through a design/technical problem knowing what you need to do and what order you need to do it in. It literally becomes second-nature and that's when creativity and work just flows without you having to think about what it is you're exactly doing.

Someone told me that you can import Quark shortcuts into InDesign. If this is true, this would help out a TON since I use my keyboard more than I use the mouse. Different names for the same procedures would take getting used to, though.

Fishes,
narco.

 

[717]

Also, once you're very familiar with a package you can think and plan your way through a design/technical problem knowing what you need to do and what order you need to do it in. It literally becomes second-nature and that's when creativity and work just flows without you having to think about what it is you're exactly doing.

Well said. This is why i'm stil on Quark 4.1 and on Illustrator 5.5 in classic mode (and they startup faster). I have Illustrator 10 and it s*cks on a 2.0MP G5.

–717

 

[Eric5h5]

It's weird, I think Quark5 is one of the long lost mysteries of the world. Either people are using Quark4.1, or Quark6 -- never 5.

I'm using 5. Unfortunately. I try to use Quark 3 whenever I can, because it's much faster, much less annoying, and has way way fewer bugs. Only printing is better with Quark 5.

--Eric

 

[sambo.]

my two cents.....

quark died a few years ago, it just hasn't stopped breathing yet.....
admittedly, InDesign 1.0 was *****, but what fool buys first release of any software?

quark still has a huge user base and who cares if you don't get every upgrade? so long as you can talk to the printer ok (easy thanx acrobat), what software u use is largely irrelevent, so long as it works(ish)

i'm putting out a weekly newspaper with PageMaker 6.5, Photoshop 5 and Illustrator 7 running on a seriously underpowered celeron 500. it's painful, it crashes, i have very little of my hair left, but the paper comes out and i can't afford to upgrade (YET!)

when i do upgrade (oooohhh, within the next six months or when RevC G5 PM's are released), adobe all the way baby. why pay for quark, when you can essentially get it for "free" with a photoshop license. remember it wasn't all that long ago that PS would set you back AUD$1200, now the whole CS is around $1800! cheap. quark had to drop their prices, but they waited FARRRRR too long, now they are dead.......

just IMHO.........

cheers
sambo.

 

[Greencardman]

I agree with you Blue Velvet, you phrase things very well. The problem, I guess comes in how does a designer afford an up-to-date computer, Panther, and Indesign at home on which to learn? (well, legally would be the real question). Furthermore, you cannot switch until the people in charge are prepared to pay for it, a designer cannot just go out and upgrade a business without approval. And when the people in charge are still afraid to spend money and interrupt workflow and upgrade computers and learn new software, well, then you have an agency stuck on OS 9.2. (plus, lets face it, upgrading a small ofiice to OS X and Quark 6 and Adobe CS is going to cost a couple of grand, something a small agency might not have).

I hope the cheaper Quark prices could be some incentive, (as well as the frequent downtime associated with OS 9.2, Quark and old computers) to persuade people that they're loosing more money by not upgrading than they ever will from the downtime associated with switching.

 

[winmacguy]

It's not the initial learning curve that worries me, it's getting up to the same fluency and deftness with an application that takes time and practice.

Getting keyboard shortcuts into muscle memory, learning new words for the same processes etc.

Also, once you're very familiar with a package you can think and plan your way through a design/technical problem knowing what you need to do and what order you need to do it in. It literally becomes second-nature and that's when creativity and work just flows without you having to think about what it is you're exactly doing.

It is initially only about a 1-3 week cross over phase from Quark to Indesign depending on the individual. After that your speed picks up from repitition. It took me about 10 days or so to move from Quark back in 2002 and that was with no training and very little support except that I was working with Quark templates at the time that became Indesign templates and I was well versed with Photoshop shortcuts and Illustrator short cuts . I made it a point of learning 2-3 new quick key combinations every other day or so. I also switched to Indesign 2 which with its multiple pallet set up is probably more fiddly than Indesign CS which I currently use.

 

[winmacguy]

Someone told me that you can import Quark shortcuts into InDesign. If this is true, this would help out a TON since I use my keyboard more than I use the mouse. Different names for the same procedures would take getting used to, though.

Fishes,
narco.

Yes it is true Narco. you can also open up existing Quark templates in Indesign and resave them as Indesign templates with all your colour swatches and style paragraph/character style sheets saved into Indesign. It makes the transition process a lot easier. It also means that you down have to rebuild your templates. I have to say though that once you get used to Indesign shortcuts I tend to prefer them to Quark ones. Some of the object resizing shortcuts in Indesign are the same by default as Quark.

 

[winmacguy]

Indesign does crash in OSX from time to time, although when it does it remembers the document you were working on when the app quit and will open right back where you were.

 

[winmacguy]

Well said. This is why i'm stil on Quark 4.1 and on Illustrator 5.5 in classic mode (and they startup faster). I have Illustrator 10 and it s*cks on a 2.0MP G5.

–717

A lot of places I know of are still on Illutrator 8 because there are so many pre press issues with transparency in Illustrator 10 and illustrator 8 works fine. We use Illustrator CS where I work.

 

[narco]

A lot of places I know of are still on Illutrator 8 because there are so many pre press issues with transparency in Illustrator 10 and illustrator 8 works fine. We use Illustrator CS where I work.

That's kind of strange though-- you can't deny that some clients have Illustrator 10, and those same ones are bound to use transparencies sooner or later.

I went to some Adobe seminar aimed at "print professionals" last year that went over the entire creative suite, especially transparencies and using files with them in InDesign. It was funny watching all these pre-press guys bitching and moaning about transparencies, but the Adobe spokeswoman swore that "they are working on it" and gave the steps to fix them before press.

Fishes,
narco.

 

[Blue Velvet]

was funny watching all these pre-press guys bitching and moaning about transparencies...

Just wait until they see Quark's implementation of transparencies in Xpress 7...

Tears before bedtime.

 

[O and A]

Well said. This is why i'm stil on Quark 4.1 and on Illustrator 5.5 in classic mode (and they startup faster). I have Illustrator 10 and it s*cks on a 2.0MP G5.

if illustrator sucks on ur dp g5 then u have bigger problems.
if ur using illustrator 5.5 then u are certinaly not a professional the design industry.

 

[Blue Velvet]

if ur using illustrator 5.5 then u are certinaly not a professional the design industry.

Complete illiterate rubbish.
I know people that can turn out beautiful work in old old versions of Illustrator...

Clueless.

 

[emw]

if ur using illustrator 5.5 then u are certinaly not a professional the design industry.

Spoken like a true professional

The version of the application seldom has anything to do with someone's skill level or place in the industry. Many factors impact the choice of application, including needed features for intended output, etc. Many of the features in newer versions of Photoshop and Illustrator make it more fun to design some things, perhaps, but also complicate life for those needing to actually print something.

 

[narco]

Complete illiterate rubbish.
I know people that can turn out beautiful work in old old versions of Illustrator...

Clueless.

It's kind of like my old photography professor said back in college. He made everyone take pictures with only a cheap $10 shapshot disposable camera throughout the entire semester. People had $2,000 cameras, but they were not allowed. He said that photography is how you see things and how you set up a photograph, not what fancy settings you have on your expensive camera.

Of course Adobe wants people to believe that newer versions make people a better artist, mostly because that's how they make their money. I'm sure I could put out the work I'm doing now with Photoshop 3 and Quark 4, but without layers, and layered tifs, it makes my job a little harder. But to say someone is not a professional because of this is pure ignorance.

Fishes,
narco.

 

[narco]

Well said. This is why i'm stil on Quark 4.1 and on Illustrator 5.5 in classic mode (and they startup faster). I have Illustrator 10 and it s*cks on a 2.0MP G5.

if illustrator sucks on ur dp g5 then u have bigger problems.
if ur using illustrator 5.5 then u are certinaly not a professional the design industry.

Illustrator 10 also sucks on my 2.0ghz G5, mostly because it crashes a lot. For the most part, I use 9.0, but 5.5 is a bit drastic.

Fishes,
narco.

 

[evilernie]

My office

In my workplace I am the only one with OSX because I needed it to run Dreamweaver (at least that's what I told them so they would get me OSX! )

Two other designers are totally afraid to upgrade to OSX. They are using Quark 5. And the three others that lay out books and publications still use Quark 4! One of them is still using a power pc! They are DEATHLY afraid of any type of change whatsoever. Why does this piss me off? Because they're total lack of ambition when it comes to keeping up with the latest technology is dragging me down. I cannot get the latest version of anything unless others get it too, but they don't want it. Dammit, I want inDesign.

 

[tech4all]

I know other's commented on this but....

if ur using illustrator 5.5 then u are certinaly not a professional the design industry.

What are you talking about? I can't believe anybody would even say that. Plus you're being a hypocrite, you're defining who is a "professional" based on what version of software someone uses, when you're using "words" like, "ur" and "u". Real professional


Give me a break.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Two other designers are totally afraid to upgrade to OSX. They are using Quark 5. And the three others that lay out books and publications still use Quark 4! One of them is still using a power pc! They are DEATHLY afraid of any type of change whatsoever. Why does this piss me off? Because they're total lack of ambition when it comes to keeping up with the latest technology is dragging me down.

I know a few places like that that only moved to OS X when they had to, when one or more of their ancient Macs crapped out. The learning curve for them wasn't anticipated and they really struggled...

A planned and scheduled roll-out with some time set aside for training is the best way to do it.

What it takes is someone with the guts and drive to force it through and to point out to the money people that it's just storing up problems for later while key staff keep their heads in the sand.