![]() Most of us knew that software like the back of our hands. It wasn't easy to move away from Quark though. So, when Adobe announced InDesign and how the interface was Photoshop/Illustrator-like, we were all intrigued and loved the idea of dumping Quark. Along with Quark, we were all also using Photoshop and Illustrator. Then Adobe announced a re-design from the ground up of PM, and called it InDesign. ![]() The only other alternative was Adobe PageMaker, which was considered a home DTP app. Quark Sucked *** for their policies towards users. ![]() I was both a designer and an IT guy for ad agencies in SF at the time. They would only give bug updates on an individual basis to companies that bought into their system, foregoing all others with file corruption issues. Furthermore, Quark would deny any issues with corrupt files.there were a LOT of them. Essentially, you had to buy the package all over again if you wanted to upgrade. But, Quark ruled with an iron fist.updates were very expensive and there were few free maintenance updates. It was incredible, giving unparalleled control over type and layout abilities. During the 90s, Quark was the only worthwhile software used by professionals for DTP. Even when Adobe bought Aldus, PM never made it back into the professional market. QuarkXpress came out and PM and RSG were done. I used PM and RSG, each for their unique abilities depending on the job. When Aldus developed it, it was the better of two DTP applications. These days, I dread having to open legacy QX files.Īdobe PageMaker never was a player in the professional arena. Our work schedules quickly incorporated document conversion as they were needed. Staff griped about having to learn a new thing, of course. We quickly put together a proposal that made the advantages of switching apparent. ![]() I'm happy to say I disagreed.Ī product we were hoping would live up to its early promise had indeed turned into a desirable design and production tool, and third parties were finally making the one or two specialty plug-ins we would rely upon for things like math textbooks. I remember walking out of there hearing older production guys muttering about how awful the change would be, and how strongly they'd resist it. I attended an Adobe product expo that ably, hilariously demonstrated the painful consequences of comparing the newest InDesign to Quark's neglected product. My superior and I tested the InDesign demo and liked what we were seeing. As the Ars Technica article explains, two succeeding versions of QX failed to provide genuine value for the cost of upgrading an entire growing department. We'd hated what QuarkXpress had become: version 4.11 had become the rusty anchor that tied us to a buggy workflow without the hope of relief. ID CS2 was the clincher for the book design team at the educational-services company I worked for in that previous decade. But eventually InDesign met their needs and Quark failed to keep their business, and the rest, as they say, is history. Many companies were in no hurry to change processes that worked. And initially Adobe had its work cut out for it - very expensive, very elaborate workflows had been developed using QuarkXPress. They were slow with updates, slow to adopt new technology, arrogant and treated their customers like crap.Īdobe gave QuarkXPress users every reason to switch as soon as they could be convinced to do so. And abused their position of privilege by not giving a damn. Newspaper publishers, magazine publishers, graphic design firms - everyone used QuarkXPress. In the late 90s, QuarkXPress was the dominant software in desktop publishing. That is what we in the publishing biz refer to as “totally insane.” But things swiftly changed, and by 2004, Quark’s market share reportedly declined to 25 percent. We didn't immediately notice something that had as good a chance at taking over our honed workflow as did a reversion to Letraset. Most of us were too busy using XPress in hardened, well-established production routines under tight deadlines. To say that InDesign made a splash would be optimistic.
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