Quark Vs Indy_Type

[frailer]

Had a whinge to other prepressies on another forum, but would love some GD feedback on this one,
Sent a link of some free online training in Indy to our in-house designers, who have used Quark forever; but have had CS2 for about 2 years, or thereabouts.
We have never received an Indy job from them in that time, Below is a response from one of them:


[If only it was as easy as that!

I notice they didn't mention how incredibly time consuming and painful it is
to edit type in indesign!!!!!!]


Would love some Indy users comments, (who've used Quark in the past).

BTW the link was:

http://www.yabb-adobe-doo.com

...I'm a sucker for Blatner's corny humour; it helps me learn.

Please comment if you can:confused:

[Samakimoto Graphics]

For any software there is a learning curve, the gradient is determined by how much time the learner invests, the learner's interest or keeness, the availability of time away from daily work to learn and the ease of transition from the old to new which is guided by the similarity (or dis-similarity) in features between the two, and perhaps how useful it will be to change from one to the other without loosing too much time from the daily grind (pace of work).

I am a Quark-turned-Indy user only in the last 9 months and some... I have never really found learning software difficult as I approach it as above. I am self taught in all the the DTP software (as my background is in illustration). Lucky for us here, the Publishing department was so kind as to organise a brief training and compile an "Indesign for Quark Users" manual that outlined the similarities in the two- this made it a million times easier to transition.

During an education fair last month I met a graphic Design instructor at a local college who "rubbished" (for luck of a better term) Indy against Quark. granted there are areas that make Quark superior as relates to output, but it's debatable, and in the end it's only a tool - the difference is how the designer applies it to save time and out put quality (as illustrated in the link you attached).

[PrintDriver]

Damn, I left my dead horse beating stick in the PC vs Mac thread.
<leaving to get it...>

Type editing in Q or InD is no different. The professor the Sama speaks of is correct on this point though, Quark does some things better than InD and InD does some things better than Q. It all comes down to workflow and knowing the tool. If it prints, it's all good.

Ask a prepress guy which one is easier to get a trouble-free file from and you might hear a LOUD "InDesign". However, I am a firm believer that if the designer knows how to use his/her tools properly, printing from either should be trouble free.

[chrispea56]

Agreed, I've always felt that they ARE just tools, and found the ADDITION of ID to be quite easy having become well versed in Quark. They do things differently in some regards, but they both function well.
Prepressie middle of the road response.

[hewligan]

Well, I'm very much in the designer camp, but with a reasonable understsnding of prepress isssues (I used to work in magazine design, where we had to fix much of the same stuff that prepress people do).

I'm also someone who moved from Quark to Indy. And I don't regret it for a second.

There is a learning curve, but if you're already familiar with the other Adobe apps, not much of one. The issues with output from Indy disappeared at least a couple of years ago. Honestly, if you're still having problems in that area, you need to change printer.

And Indy is an application that was designed for what designers want today. The success of Quark was a reault of giving us what we wanted then. But that was over a decade ago, and they seem to have forgotten about us, since. They seem to have an attitude that, because they're Quark, we'll keep wanting their products.

Screw them. Adobe gave me the application I want today. I switched to Indy, and I have no regrets.

[frailer]

Thanks for the replies...I'm putting it down to the nature/personality of the person who sent the response. I'm s**t-hot/know-it-all. Impossible to have a calm rational conversation with her about the simplest thing. What was I thinking, doing the caring/sharing link thing? Shoulda known better.