QuarkXPress 6 = Dogshit

Calling 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!”