Quark: Mac OS X Not Ready

blankmange writes "NewsFactor reports that Quark's QuarkXPress is not quite up-to-snuff under Mac OS X." Sources in the article claim Mac OS X still isn't quite there in regard to printing, or predictability. That is, I suppose, you don't mind crashes as long as you know when they are going to happen and what is going to cause them.

Where's the Quark Clone?

[mshiltonj]

There's Gimp, Sketch, Killustator (I forget what it's called now; I use Gnome). But where is the Quark clone?!

Just another reason

[techsoldaten]

Just another reason to switch to InDesign...

Quark is too complacent

[Spencerian]

Quark has milked its dominance in DTP for too long. Adobe tends to get its products polished by version 3, and its InDesign 2 product has received very positive reviews over QXP 5. The fact that QXP isn't supported natively in OS X is a nail in Quark's complacency coffin.

I'm not a big fan of QXP due to its history of annoying and serious bugs that caused all manner of stability and reliability problems. I do wish them success, but unfortunately they either have a lot of legacy issues or they really think that other companies won't be a problem while they take their sweet time to port. OS X's printing isn't perfect, but the fundamental PS support is there and works well enough, so that's a poor excuse.

Ask Lotus (1-2-3) about the consequences of complacency in the marketplace. Microsoft laughs all the way to the bank.

Sounds to me like...

[ivan256]

Sounds to me like they're making excuses while everybody [microsoft.com] else [adobe.com] seems to be having no [corel.com] trouble [filemaker.com] making their products work [aliaswavefront.com] under MacOS X.

Quark die

[Ioncable]

Quark has always been the bain of designers and Prepress. The only reason Designers use it is because prepress house asked them to. The only reason prepress uses it is because years back it was the only app that could output color sep film right from the app and a few other things and Pagemaker sucked for prepress. Quark has always raped its customers with costly tech support, expensive upgrades and really bad bug fixes that caused more problems then they fixed. If fact the company I work at just 12 months ago officaily switched to Xpress 4 because of all the problems. I hope InDesign gets a following. I've looked at Xpress 5 but it's more of a 4.3 release in my opinion. Quark was in the right place at the right time and nothing else. Aldus dropped the ball with Pagemaker and fell on hard times when it had the opportunity to kill Quark. Any problems Quark has with Mac OS X is all Quark and bad programming on their part. The only app I have that crashes my OS 9 mac. The only reason I would want it on OS X is so I don't have to reboot all the time.

Quark is a dinosaur

[theolein]

If there is any company that is worse in terms of upgrades, stability problems, costs and user support than Quark (including, believe it or not Microsoft) I'ld like to hear it. The other posters here are dead on: The company has raped and abused it's monopoly in Prepress for years and doesn't care the slightest about customer opinion. However, Prepress houses and Printers have not helped at all because if there was ever a conservative, stuck_in_the_mud group of software users it's those people in Prepress. On the one hand they work in an industry that is already entrenched and has a set work flow and extremely tight deadlines to meet (worked there myself) and is thus unwilling to take the risks of trying out new processes that could entail stoppages in the process. On the other hand, this (and I've witnessed this myself) is a group that gets upset because InDesign has different keyboard shortcuts to XPress and then decides that InDesign is "too different" and switches back to XPress.

On top of this most editorial bureaus are stuck with that Pig of a software editorial system: CopyDesk, even though it is typical Quark slow, crashware. Adobe has an answer solution and hopefully this will stimulate the market somewhat.

I have my own beef with Quark as regards the mFactory mTropolis Multimedia Tool that Quark bought up in an attempt to get into that market when their own useless POS, XPress_coupled Immedia didn't get anywhere. They provided no marketing, no support and no development of the tool which then consequently and unsurprisingly didn't expand it's user base. The brilliance of mTropolis can not be overstated in that, even now, 5 years after Quark killed it, there is an *expanding* user group on yahoo groups.

After Quark killed the tool, the user base tried various methods to get the source or at least a development licence from Quark to no avail. Apart from the one million dollar price tag that Quark put on the dead code (which the user group could obviously not afford) they stipulated that "all negative comments pertaining to Quark" must cease before they would think about it because there was such an outcry.

I do *not* wish that company well.

Everybody just chill!

[pr0t0]

If you don't work in the industry (apologies to those that do), try to understand...we don't use desktop equipment, we use ultra-high-end hardware solutions from Heidelberg, AGFA, ABDick, Kodak and the like that don't change at the rate of OS architecture. Most of us have highly involved workflows that work, and we aren't going to change for the sake of changing, it has to be better - not different. OSX, while I think it's awesome and can't wait to implement it here in our business, is no where near ready for my industry. You can get files to print to your Epson? Rock on! But there is no way it's going to interface with the Harlequin RIP software sitting on the NT box (don't bother, it wasn't my decision!) that is connected to the ABDick digital plate maker. And that output device prints 99% of the plates we put on the press.

As for the Quark vs. Adobe(PM, InD) argument, that could be changing. Adobe burned some bridges by stating there was not going to be future updates on Pagemaker and then shoveling that POS InDesign 1.0 to us. But InDesign 2.0 is very cool! I like it alot and I'm using it more. Quark Killer? I don't think so. But it might split my project load with Quark.

I use hammers to pound nails, and screwdrivers to turn screws. I'll use the software that works best for the job at hand...and none of them do everything perfectly, so save religion for church!
--
I'm sorry, but your opininion seems to be wrong.

Re:Quark die

[Ioncable]

Xpress is the status quo, but that doesn't make it good. It's an ok app, I have used it everyday for about 8 years. My point is that the apps success was accidental and the company is horrible. The app itself really hasn't grown at all since version 3.3. It became the status quo for 1 reason: When Xpress and Pagemaker started the market share battle. Xpress had DCS EPS files and could output color separated film right from the app and had rudamentary trapping. Pagemaker required Preprint or Trapwise to separate a file. There were a few other things Xpress did, but the real one was the Output. Prepress and Printing Companies loved it and "forced" it on to the designers. Most early designers prefered Pagemaker, it was the Prepress people that got them to switch to Xpress. If Adobe can offer Indesign with the features that Xpress requies Xtension for they could start to capture market, because the Xtension have to be rewritten for 5 and OS X.

I may very well switch, but not this year.

[SandSpider]

There's something to be said for not interrupting the production environment unnecessarily. If you have to put out a weekly or daily publication, then you really don't want anything that's going to cause a serious delay. You have to test everything to make sure it works, and you have to give your production people enough time to train and become proficient before you force them to switch over. Otherwise, you might not have a paper come the next week.

More and more Presses are accepting PDF files these days, so it's not as big of an issue if they don't carry InDesign. More troublesome is if you receive ads from clients that are in Quark, and you have to maintain both programs (and, consequently, both environments), just to be able to accept the ads.

Also, there's the consideration of the various plugins (or XTensions, if you are speaking specifically of Quark), as well as applescripts and the like. You lose whatever you had for customized workflow when you switch, so there has to be time to get everything working in a reasonably similar manner before you switch. If you have a database driven workflow, breaking that is seriously going to suck. On the other hand, chances are that Quark will only upgrade 5 to OS X, not 4, so it will break all of the plugins anyways.

Finally, there's the budget. In my case, I'm not going to be able to afford all of the upgrades until next year, chances are. I'm not in a big rush to go to OS X, but it's definitely in the plans. I want to stop the computer from crashing. If an app drops out here and there, no big deal, but if I can reduce the number of restarts per day to close to 0, then I will consider that a huge win. The question is, which will be the better program when it's time to switch? Even given my time frame, I bet it'll be InDesign.

=Brian

Re:whatever

[DavidRavenMoon]

What's all that stuff good for? Almost all printed matter that I come across that is actually worth reading is black-and-white, has a simple layout, simple fonts, and simple typesetting.

You never read magazines? Or even newspapers? How about that box of cookies? The package your latest computer game came in? Music CDs?

All that stuff was done using this type of gear, and probably done in Quark, Illustrator, Photoshop, et al. Even that simple stuff.

Yeah, I work in the industry too...

Getting back to the Quark discussion, they have always had contempt for anyone but them selves. The CEO once said all their customers were crooks! I use the program everyday. I think it's a great program, BUT it's still riddled with bugs, and the fact that they didn't do an OS X version is just crazy. Anything they say is just an excuse to cover their ass. At home I run OS X 99% of the time, only booting into 9.2.2 to run Cubase VST. I use InDesign 2.0 now, and it's a great program. I don't miss Quark at all.

At work we are still using 9.1 and Quark ... but that will change at some point.