Moving from Quark Xpress to InDesign

[wienerdog]

My company has licenses for Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS2, and Quark Xpress 6.5. I'm growing tired of the limitations of Quark and would like to switch to InDesign. I'm wondering if we should purchase a license for InDesign CS2, or wait and upgrade with a purchase of the CS3 package.

I haven't used InDesign since version 2, I think, but I like it a lot better than Quark these days.

[doubting_thomas]

What platform and OS version will you be running them on? That'll probably lead to the answer because there can be big performance differences between them, especially if you're running Macs.

[wienerdog]

Nope, I'm on PC, so there's no issue with performance with CS2.

[doubting_thomas]

I run Illustrator and InDesign CS2 on Win XP with a pretty new Pentium D 2 gig ram,
and I don't have any issues at all. Worked fine for me on Win 2K, also, though
the PC I worked on at the time was pretty underpowered for them. Don't ask
about Photoshop. It's a sore subject. But at least I have v7 on Mac.
I don't have any idea about the Vista OS.

IMO, InDesign CS2 will be the industry standard for offset for at least 2 or 3
years. The new CS3 suite will have some cool features supposedly. Most
print shops/plants are very happy to receive exported live pdf's, or the native
files if set up in InDesign CS2. It's going to take a little time once CS3 comes
out for business' to catch up, and for the bugs to be fixed. Once it's stable you
can upgrade. I know that Quark still has a loyal following, and is pretty solid, but
from a prepress perspective InDesign is the way to go. It's good at so much.

Hope this helps in some way.

[wienerdog]

Definitely, thanks!