Talk:QuarkXPress
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Unfortunately, the demo cannot be downloaded because the Cold Fusion database the website runs keeps failing. And, they have no way of reporting errors like this, so here is the message for anyone responsible for this: Error Executing Database Query. Syntax error or access violation: You have an error in your SQL syntax,. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'phone, source_QXP6_demo) Values ('Tim', 'Fulton'
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[edit] Criticism of History section of article
This article is about the product, QuarkXPress, not the company; nevertheless, the history section is more about the company than the product. Moreover, whether or not this section is meant to be so, it strikes me as a subtle bit of negative advertising: taken together with the section in the introduction concerning Adobe InDesign, I think it is inappropriate. If I were to remove all benefit of the doubt towards the motive behind this section, I would accuse it of trying to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) concerning QuarkXPress, and the company, in an effort to sway customers towards Adobe's product.
I strongly suggest that this be edited to present the history of the product in an indisputably neutral manner. mariox19 20:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC) mariox19 2006.08.16 at 20:20 GMT.
- Turns out that text was a copyvio from [1]. It's been removed. Clappingsimon talk 22:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Neutral POV
pasted from article space
The wording in this article, especially the features section, feels like Quark PR, and is not up to the standard of impartiality that is and should be demanded of a proper Wikipedia entry. For example, states that "for a period in the late 1990s, new versions were slow to be released", but it doesn't say how slow (1996 for version 4.1, 2003 for version 5). The article asserts that QuarkXPress is the dominant page layout program, but this has not been true for some time: Adobe InDesign outsold QuarkXPress as early as 2002. Current estimates give Adobe InDesign a slight lead over Quark in terms of use by the publishing industry (a little over 50%). The statement that Quark is a "drag-and-drop" program is not entirely accurate, either. Text and objects already placed in the document can be moved around with the mouse, however Quark does not allow you to drag text and graphics from other programs; images must be placed, and text must be imported or copied-and-pasted into the document.
"Version 6.5, released at the end of 2004, surprisingly took the lead in support for the Photoshop format (PSD) and positioned QuarkXPress as the only layout tool with true integrated image editing capabilities."
This statement is vague, biased, and at least partly false. The article says that Quark "took the lead" by introducing PSD support. Took the lead from who? InDesign offered PSD support long before Quark did. Quark did not offer proper support (i.e. recognizing layers) for PSD files until version 7.
The article also downplays the considerable anger generated over the years among Quark users by the company's poor track record of supporting its software, and the controversy caused by the (former) CEO's comments alienating Quark users (eg. Quark users are "committing suicide" by switching to InDesign). The article also neglects to mention customer complaints about Quark's lack of features and slow updates, in comparison to its chief rival, InDesign. Lastly, the article doesn't mention complaints about Quark's lack of support for things like OpenType fonts, image transparency and drop shadows (prior to version 7) in comparison to InDesign, which has supported such features for several versions now.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Www.teamhcn.com (talk • contribs).
- Discussion needs to be posted on the talk page not in the article. This article is not the place to state without citation that InDesign is a superior product. Feel free to write a new article that compares the two products. Please provide a citation to the things you are stating as facts above. If you have a verifiable source for market share of the two products, that can be included. Sales and installed base are different matters, due to the leapfrog nature of software releases at some point in time one or the other products will always be outselling the other. It is likely that quark will pull ahead of indesign at some point - you really need figures for the period since version 7 was released. The release dates of the software versions are included in the article; the dates were included in the 'slow' section but were removed as they were repetitious and not a reflection of what is happening currently. BTW you state "1996 for version 4.1, 2003 for version 5" but the article has 1997 for 4.1 and 2002 for 5. The article actually says that Quark was dominant in the professional field not in total sales, they are different things. I'm sure that Quark has never been the most popular layout package in total DTP packages sold. Provide a cited source showing that in total slightly more than 50% of professionals use indesign and change the text. Not so sure pointing out the lack of features which are now included in the package adds anything much to the article. As to the quoted text above, I didn't write it, but always took it to mean that PSD editing, which you would expect to be easiest in an Adobe product, was equally easy in Quark. Do agree that it reads like it's actually easier in Quark, but you'd need a source to show which is true. I presumed it was taken from the citation for the Macworld Editors award. Cheers Clappingsimon talk 08:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Quark/InDesign Usage
I am an employee in the prepress department of a large printing company, and we print for several people and companies, from everyday people to world-wide corporations. Granted, we are just one company, so what I say may not matter much, but about 70% of the art we receive to print is now in InDesign. The rest is either raw Photoshop or Illustrator files, a few Pagemaker or Freehand files, or Quark files (perhaps between 15%-18%). Most of those are Quark 4 or Quark 6 files. Very few files have come in Quark 7. It doesn't seem like many people are using it yet, at least among the companies and designers that we deal with. Most of the designers are using InDesign, now, by a large percentage. However, from what I have heard and learned about various printing companies, many of them (the printers) still prefer Quark Xpress. I don't know how many of the files that they receive are Quark as opposed to InDesign, though. So, I suppose it really depends on what group of people you are talking about: designers, printers, and so on. As I said, I am part of just one company, but I am in the target industry, both as a designer and prepressman/printer. KevinStuart 22:08 MDT, 2 October 2006
