QuarkXPress 6 = Dogshit
March 18th, 2004Calling all creatives: Do not buy, install and/or use QuarkXPress 6. Can we please migrate all creative to Adobe InDesign? Yes, Adobe isn’t exactly the most friendly software supplier, but we’re talking the lesser of two evils here, people.
It has been a long time since I had cracked open a Quark product, having made the transition to InDesign a couple of years ago. It’s as if Quark looked at their interface and said, “Let’s spend 20 minutes… ok, 5 minutes making XPress OS X compliant. By the way, let’s also disable key features until they call our support line or register online. Let’s also make sure that our North American clients call an offshore call center in say, Bangalore where English is a third or fourth language.”
Nothing has changed since 1999. It’s dreadful. All the bad memories came flooding back. The crashes. The arrogance of Quark as a company. The pain of using their flagship product. But hey, I can export my print design TO THE WEB! Nothing says that a company is clued in like integrating print and web design IN THE MOST RIDICULOUS WAY POSSIBLE.
Then there is the PDF exporting. 154 Megabyte PDF. Sweet, bro. Sweet. Same file from InDesign, 4 Megabytes. Baby, why you got to play me like that?
Plus, I love having the following discussions:
With agency:
Me: “Can you please provide the files in InDesign?”
Agency: “Quark is the industry standard.”
Me: “Yes. The industry standard PIECE OF SHIT.”
Agency: “Quark 6 files will be coming your way soon!”
With press professionals:
Me: “I’ve done these in InDesign.”
Press: “Oh lordy.”
[time passes]
Press: “Dude! You were totally right about InDesign! It is great!” o
April 13th, 2004 at 2:26 pm
Why is Quark even around anymore? The sad fact is, layout people can’t seem to make a change, even if it’s for the better. They fall into old ways and have been hypnotized by Quark’s stupid interface. And the stupider Quark gets, the stupider the reasons for staying with it get. People who continue to use Quark have serious battered wife syndrome and need help.
Help in the form of InDesign. Salvation in the form of being able to work without the stupid piece of code crashing an hour’s worth of work. Salvation in the form of being able to edit a table within the flow of the document. Or master pages that, y’know, work like a master page.
I “inherited” Quark 6 and Quark files from my manager and his “consultant,” after successfully moving to InDesign in my private life and I just wonder what God is laughing harder at: my pain or our collective stupidity.
I’d like to uninstall this useless monstrosity and toss it in the East River. Being in California, I can almost guarantee the bastard won’t come back.
Can we start a support group for people who need help? Can Adobe come up with some competitve upgrade discount for the suckered?
Hate Quark? No. If I hated it, I would want to see it die a slow death. I actually want to see it just end quickly and painlessly. Call me a wuss.
April 13th, 2004 at 7:45 pm
Oh…My…God Becky!!!
When I began with Quark several years ago it was cool…but, now it sucks sweaty elephant b@!!$. It has become my biggest headache. I don’t even know how many times I have to try and create a freaggin’ pdf. IT SHOULD BE AS EASY AS PICKING YOUR NOSE PEOPLE!!!
I can give you an idea:
1. open print diologue and do the usual b.s.
2. save to file
3. wait for distiller
4. open file to realize it didn’t work
5. do over again or
6. create a f$#@% eps page (that makes sense)
7. open in illustrator (blood pressure climing)
8. save as a pdf
9. it still didn’t work right
10. pull your hair, spit, curse really, really bad
11. scream at your monitor
12. take a 9 iron to your computer
13, have a corinary because they want the file yesterday and you can’t create a simple freaggin’ p…d…f.
14. strike a deal with the devil to get InDesign.
Oh, and don’t even get me started with the student discount (audience…”what student discount?”).
Exactly.
Thanks, InDesign.
April 17th, 2004 at 2:10 pm
I continue to think Quark is a wonderful program. But please… don’t let that interrupt your torrent of hatred and bile.
April 17th, 2004 at 9:33 pm
I seem to hear a lot of people say they have activation problems with Quark 6; did earlier versions of Quark have this problem? Anyone know if 4.1 for Windows will run on Windows XP?
April 19th, 2004 at 10:09 am
If Quark XPress won’t work on a beautiful, easy to use macintosh, then your Windows version is F@@ked.
Better get a new Job.
April 19th, 2004 at 10:09 am
If Quark XPress won’t work on a beautiful, easy to use macintosh, then your Windows version is F@@ked.
Better get a new Job.
April 23rd, 2004 at 9:09 am
Methinks that somehow the actual rudderless meandering of the once wave-making company, Quark, must be related to the retirement of the former captain of the ship, software visionary Tim Gill. That man deserves a lot of credit. But he called it quits between the releases of versions 4 and 5, if you catch my drift: isn’t that when things began to go bad? The XML stuff was a good idea, just poorly implemented, as he had left before it was fully written. So, now that he’s definitively moved on to other things, would someone please go over there and start driving that QuarkXPress thing in a good direction again, PLEASE?
April 29th, 2004 at 6:54 pm
die quark you fuckinn cock arrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!! after spending a whole night on a v tight deadline the fuckhead q6 decides to crash and delet the whole wanking file!!!! not to bring up the whole norton and suitcase conflict!!!3000 fonts and i cant manage one of them you fucking basterd quark!!! die die die!!!!!! ive allready dented the g5 in a rage next time its gonna be a quark md!!!! you fucker!!!!! ordering indesign is this gonna be any better??? why the hell cant these companys just make a friggin product…. barn on!!! and how dare you not fucking work after the whole mac world had had to wait for you money munching cunts to realese the product and then declare your greatness will ‘free upgrades ‘ that dont even fucking work when you should be paying me to fucking use it bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards !!!!!!!!!!
April 29th, 2004 at 7:00 pm
a whole nights work erased!!!!
April 29th, 2004 at 7:02 pm
die quark you fuckinn cock arrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!! after spending a whole night on a v tight deadline the fuckhead q6 decides to crash and delet the whole wanking file!!!! not to bring up the whole norton and suitcase conflict!!!3000 fonts and i cant manage one of them you fucking basterd quark!!! die die die!!!!!! ive allready dented the g5 in a rage next time its gonna be a quark md!!!! you fucker!!!!! ordering indesign is this gonna be any better??? why the hell cant these companys just make a friggin product…. barn on!!! and how dare you not fucking work after the whole mac world had had to wait for you money munching cunts to realese the product and then declare your greatness will ‘free upgrades ‘ that dont even fucking work when you should be paying me to fucking use it bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards !!!!!!!!!!
April 29th, 2004 at 7:03 pm
after spending a whole night on a v tight deadline the fuckhead q6 decides to crash and delet the whole wanking file!!!! not to bring up the whole norton and suitcase conflict!!!3000 fonts and i cant manage one of them you fucking basterd quark!!! die die die!!!!!! and how dare you not fucking work after the whole mac world had had to wait for you money munching cunts to realese the product and then declare your greatness will ‘free upgrades ‘ that dont even fucking work when you should be paying me to fucking use it bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards !!!!!!!!!!
April 29th, 2004 at 7:06 pm
hi im calmed now thanks for the outlet let me know how you are. we can talk about tranquil streams and rivers distant birds bathing next to water falls beautifull!
May 17th, 2004 at 11:07 pm
Started on pagemaker, taught Q for years, and switched to InDesign as soon as I could. NEVER going back.
The killer for me was when I called Q to buy it for the lab at my public high school. They wanted SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS for a license. I calmly explained that this was more than my entire budget for two years. The helpful, cold and unsympathetic person on the phone explained that I could buy a lab pack for only $3,000, but I wouldn’t be able to buy upgrades. I finally said OK and she sent me SIX PAGES of paperwork to fill out, including my course outlines, to prove I merited this huge educational discount. Oh, and there was one more thing…I was supposed to install plastic ‘dongles’ on each and every machine in order for Q to work…
I called Adobe and they beat the price. I spent about 20 minutes looking through the program and I was up and running in InDesign. I especially love teaching it to adults who are used to Quark and Pagemaker. As I go through its well-thought-out features, it’s like giving them a series of presents, and the ooohs and aaahs are music to my ears. It has a few bugs, but Adobe upgrades, REALLY upgrades, often, and they listen and fix things. I called tech support a few months and got a great guy who spent almost half an hour with me, free.
And by the way, if you haven’t upgraded to the CS version of InDesign, it has some really worthwhile features. It’s a much better beast than version 2.
Quark is now paying for their arrogance and stupidity (a tabs window that covers your entire document and isn’t re-sizeable, and then three years later, they upgrade and don’t fix it…even stooopid ol’ microsoft word uses a palette for tabs instead of a window. What a no-brainer!)
The only feature I miss is jabberwocky, a short-lived way to create your own placeholder text in several flavors.
Glad so many others share my total fed-upness with Q
August 14th, 2004 at 5:23 pm
As a tech in a the Worlds largest commercial printing firm let me say this….Quark 4 is solid, dependable, and works well…..soooooo now we have Quark 6 and yes indeed it truly blows….2004: the year Quark died!
August 24th, 2004 at 10:54 am
I work at a printshop that refuses to spend any money. Therefor, i’m still running OS8 on some of these computers. I have only Quark and Pagemaker to choose from, and will choose quark each and every time. I have never had any problems with quark, and can make pdfs with no problem and have never had it crash on me or mangle a job. Perhaps it’s my soothing trackball skills.. i do not know. Because my boss refuses to put any money into this department, we have to either turn away Indesign jobs, have them redo it it pagemaker or quark or send us a hi res pdf in color seps. My problem, since I started, has been with the stupid blue and white G3’s that are as old as I am and sometime resemble stephen king’s christine… I need an old priest and a young priest… I hve indesign at home, and do prefer it, but unfortunately, i dont’ work at home, i work here… in hell.
(:3