adobe indesign vs. quark...

im looking to do magazine layout.

i know qusrk is the industry standard, but people also are starting to lean towards indesign, and say it is more flexible and user friendly.

any thoughts or expereince?

I have been working in the magazine biz

for some years now.

Although Quark is the industry

standard, and it is what i know, it is now

a arcahic piece of shit. I despise the program.

What adobe has managed to do is have all

its CS programs creative suite work in harmony, & when

your spending time moving from vector graphics,

to layout, to images, that helps.

Quark also took an age to release an

OSX friendly version of its software,

& even now its still full of bugs.

I wont go on, I'm sure other more

experinced designers will give

you similar advice.

I'm a graphic designer and have worked both with quark and indesign. InDesign is a far better developed program, epecially if you already work with other adobe products. It has much better usabilty between the sofware and has the same key stroke shortcuts as other adobe products. If you are doing magizine layout and are currently using quark you really should take the time to make the switch to indesign, it is worth the time it takes to train yourself, but if you already know quark and adobe illustrator you basically know indesign...

ive used quark here and there,

and ive been "raised" in my collegiate career to use indesign.

it is by far superior.

...any body else hear this...adobe is planning on buying out macromedia...it was on an AP bulletin i read the other day...

Hopefully so, Adobe is whats up. Macromedia is alright, but their web design products are a bit of a bitch. I'm just looking for something that makes web easier. I'm familiar with Adobe so the buy out will be cool with me. I guess its all in how you look at it and what you are versed in.

It is easier to use. Adobe interface/menus are nice and familiar.

Adobe did buy Macromedia for 3.5 Billion, Software is still going to be based

off of what Macromedia has created. Only thing that will change is Adobe is

going to slap there name on it and make it look slightly familar to Adobe

programs that you use. But if you don't understand how to use Flash or Dreamweaver,

The fact that Adobe is buying them will not make it easier. As Far as Indesign

and Quark, I use mostly Quark because thats the program my work has

invested in. I used InDesign twice in its early 1.x stages and it seemed ok

My question to InDesign users is about how the type works? In Illustrator

When you kern type it takes around 25 to see anything Noticeable where

as Quark the most you need in body copy is +/- 3-5. So My question is

Are Type adjustments more like Quark or more Like Illustrator? If its like

Quark. then i think the future is Indesign since it can work flawlessly with

AI, and PS.

I've used both and I gotta go with Indesign too. Quark seems like they really fcuked up a couple of years ago with the OSX thing...the fact that they refused to do a compatable version for mac unless mac agreed to a,b, & c seems lame, and they're paying for that now (& I roll with XP). Also, since the other Adobe products are already what everyone's using for everything else, Indesigns a whole lot more fluid to use with those. And that'll get better and better with time.

@Colt: InDesign's Kerning is simple...like PS. It's in increments of 10, but as far as work flow...it's nice.

Depending on what im working on i have to move back and forth between both Indesign and Quark. I honestly hate quark for a alot of the same reasons as everyone else. On top of that though.. I think its important to know how to use quark..because it will prove useful in alot of office environments. it will eventually become less used since more design schools can only afford to license Adobe Packages since Quark licenses are so damn expensive. In the meantime its going to take Indesign a few iterations before they nail out alot of kinks. because of the cross compatibility btwn adobe software theres lots of glitches to be worked out. occassionally i get a chain of corrupt files due to embedded fonts in a placed EPS or Illustrator file. sometimes this can corrupt a whole packaged file and i only realize it months later when i open it up.

Its only a matter of time.

Im hoping that with this whole absorbtion of macromedia into the adobe product line we will see some of the actual good mechanical functions of freehand be brought into Illustrator. Freehand has always been a bit more precise then Illustrator even down to not rounding decimal equivalents like illustrator does.

BTW..when it comes to actually seeing the kerning.. that can also be due to how closely you are scaled to the document. sometimes you dont see a change because you are too far away. the same way that type sometimes looks like complete horseshit when you are at 35%

Whats up Al? What i meant by the kerning question is Quark's 3 letter spaces actually equals about 3 letter spaces.

(I'll have to use PS and AI for comparisons since i haven't used ID for 2 years.) where in AI and PS if you want to

kern it out 3 letter spaces you have to put in a number of 20 or 30. Quark even though most of its abilities are archaic,

like you mentioned the one thing it still has going for itself is the fact is that it is so precise with measurements.

So how does InDesign match up in the area of precise measurements?

*edit- had a bad line break. in a quark/ID thread no way.

Originally posted by colt45oe800@Apr 28 2005, 01:10 PM

*edit- had a bad line break. in a quark/ID thread no way.

Quoted post

haha nerd,.

my favourite part about indesign is the ability to change the resolution of placed images in your document. manipulating type/shapes/lines/etc over images in quark was always so vague.

oh. layers too. i know newer versions of quark have layers but i'm still on quark 4 at work. sifting through a page with the arrange command can drive a man crazy.

i'll second what al green said earlier about learning quark though. indesign won't be 'standard' for at least 5 more years, maybe more. most shops still run quark--meaning, employers expect you to know it.

the macrodobia empire is sure to produce some sick software. i'm hoping they re-introduce the basic scripting pane back into flash for all of us non-programmer types. it's a wonder adobe hasn't been brought up on some anti-trust charges though. if this isn't a monopoly i don't know what is.

...i have wondered about the anti-trust ramifications myself...time will tell...all major mergers have to be aproved before they become legit anyway...but either way you look at it, both companies have monopolies on their individual markets anyway, as you guys are arguing, quark is the standard, everybody uses it, the same with illustrator and photoshop...combining all these into one integrated system could be used to take advantage of companies that need to use it, but it could also yield some great new programs...

we have quark 4 at my work as well,

but indesign is the next purchase.

i can't wait.

indesign burns quark. so many more options and the ability to move between photoshop, illustrator and indesign is great.

Yes, Indesign is way better

InDesign CS2 is whats really good. :love2: