Introducing, QuarkXPress 5
Quark today announced the immediate availability of an update to their ubiquitous print publishing software package QuarkXPress 5.0.
Speaking as someone who started in, and then moved beyond print for the nutty world of web design and multimedia, QuarkXPress is a bittersweet experience. A couple of years ago I became bored, and annoyed, with the world of service bureaus, printing reps, paper companies, press checks, PreFlight Pro, and all the rest. Not that the world of cross-browser quirks, web standards, spagetthi ActionScript and crappy web hosts is that much better, but I digress.
So to read about QuarkXPress 5.0 is kind of like hearing news about an old friend, or lover, that you haven't thought about in a while. It's interesting, in a nostalgic kind of way, but there's that tinge of bitterness and emotional baggage. Okay, I'm probably way over dramatizing this, but QuarkXPress always brings back a flood of memories for me, both good and bad.
Looking over the feature set of 5.0, I get the weird, and admittedly silly feeling that Quark is invading my domain. Check out QuarkXPress's ‘What's New' page, and you'll see what I mean.
Quark has decided that XPress users want web publishing, so they're tossing in all kinds of HTML exporting features for tables, layers, and XML. That's probably a responsible direction to take from a publishing standpoint, but here is where it gets weird.
"QuarkXPress 5.0 lets you easily incorporate Web-specific features such as dropdown lists, rollovers, hyperlinks, image maps, and meta tags into your Web-page designs."
Rollovers? Drop-down forms?
Color me cynical, but this just sounds ridiculous. I can understand print designers exporting Quark documents for online proofing or whatever, but creating a full fledged web site?
The web is rapidly moving beyond the dark days of table-based layouts and content that requires a crowbar to change. To see that QuarkXPress is just now getting into the swing of things sounds like stale leftovers from the dot-com hype days where everyone wanted to get a piece of the overbaked pie.
Besides, where are the things that print designers want? I'm talking about native PDF exporting, better font handling, more robust typography tools, and even the ability to import and manipulate layered Photoshop documents. And then there's the most glaring oversight of all -- QuarkXPress 5.0 won't work in Mac OSX.
Quark says that native OSX support will come "later this year." But if you've been around as long as I have, you know that Quark isn't exactly the most productive company when it comes to software updates. It could be two, three years before an OSX version is released, and Quark is seriously missing the boat.
By the end of 2002, every major Mac application will be released for OSX. For Quark to wait this long, and to sink as much time and energy as they have into an update that's already way behind the curve, is just irresponsible.
That's not to say 5.0 won't be a success. Quark's large corporate clients (major publishing houses and advertising agencies) will upgrade, and in big numbers, but it's the smaller operations they will ultimately lose to Adobe InDesign, which is already out for OSX.
I'd love to hear what other cross-media designers have to say about all this. Comment away.
Comments
Perhaps you can help me, seeing as how you're versed in the arcane lore of Print. I'm in the opposite position - sort-of veteran Web guy, now told that I must design and layout a magazine. Haven't touched Quark in almost six years. Should I just skip it completely (blasphemy!) and go straight for InDesign?
Posted by: Neil at January 24, 2002 12:04 AM
Oh, Quark. What are we gonna do with you? I've been using Quark 5 beta 1 for a month now. It is a slight improvement over 4.1 with the addition of layers and a few other features. I like to think of it as version 4.5, not 5. I would've liked to see a Navigator palette a la Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as shortcut keys for the tools palette. I'm very disappointed to see the new release isn't OSX compatible. Oh, what a HUGE mistake! Why are the Quark people so damn slow and stubborn? And you know the web publishing feature is just going to vomit a tangle of unwanted tables. Yes, folks. It's time to make the switch to InDesign.
Posted by: Erich at January 24, 2002 8:05 AM
I am a graphic designer turned web designer too... and I agree with you completely. I actually have the same kind of feelings about hearing about the 5.0 release... and almost a twinge of pain like I won't get to know it because I don't really do that anymore (then again, who knows... if I can't get a web design job, I guess I'll go back to graphic design... I'm laid off at the moment. yeah! not!) It does seem kind of annoying that they'd spend so much time doing web-stuff to it and *not* make it OSX compatible (although I'm now on a PC now - so it wouldn't really affect me unless I went back to Mac). That company can be so irritating. They have such a hold on that market they just don't seem to care about their users.
Posted by: Jennifer at January 24, 2002 8:25 AM
I also hail from the print-to-web transition school (hey, I went from the paste-up/photostat/artboard school to the electronic layout school to the web), and I have to say, I was never impressed with Quark. I'm one of those heathens that tried Quark around the 1.0-2.0 stage, tried PageMaker around the same time, and ultimately went with PageMaker. Now I do everything in Illustrator and Photoshop, as everyone we use for print publishing accepts EPS files for digital-to-press output. But then, I'm not publishing magazines and books - when I do have to produce a print item, which is maybe twice a year, it's a one- or two-page ad for our company that goes into trade rags. Anyway, I digress. I have to say that the release of QX5 hardly registers on the radar for me, and I think InDesign (never tried it, heard great things about it) will move ahead of the pack as Quark tries to figure out where it went wrong and releases 5.x upgrades in a year or two. Just my $0.02 worth.
Posted by: Bob at January 24, 2002 9:46 AM
Print to TV to Web.
Quark allowed me to eat during the lean years, yet I was never so relieved as to leave such a benefactor when I went web. Now I despise it for its cloddy handling of type, and for the box-in-box design it subtly induces in the unwary designer. I intend to continue to avoid it, as much as I may.
Posted by: wilkes at January 24, 2002 8:09 PM
I too came from the print world and onto the web bandwagon. I say to hell with QuarkXpress. They deserve everything they get, or loose in this case.
I used Macs for many years, although I mainly use a PC now, I just cannot believe the thinking that went into Not making thier product usable on the new OSX.
Posted by: Ken at November 25, 2002 11:48 AM
