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http://www.macnn.com/articles/02/01/23/quark.xpress/

Quark XPress 5.0 now shipping

updated 04:30 pm EST, Wed January 23, 2002

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Quark today released Quark XPress 5.0, a new version of the industry-standard layout software. Version 5.0 includes new Tables functionality, new Layers enhanacments, an enhanced print user interface, improved PDF support, contextual menus, and better color management. It also adds new tools Web design and improved license management. Upgrades to the $1000 application are $300 for v4.x owners and $400 for v3.x owners.

by MacNN Staff

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01/23, 04:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not OS X native

Of course, it's not Carbonized to run native on OS X, and won't be until 5.5. IMHO, we'll be lucky to see that in a year.

Also, if you think Windows Product Activation is a pain, wait 'til volume-license folks see the Quark License Administrator (with the fields for the email address of your accounting department, so that Quark can automagically email an invoice if you go over your license)...

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01/23, 04:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
OS 9 Only

I can't believe Quark has the nerve to release 5.0 without supporting OSX. They say that an OSX native version will come out "later this year." Yeah, right. How long did it take for them to come out with 5? Good lord. Adobe InDesign is getting a good leg-up right now.

jeremedia
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01/23, 04:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
hmmmm

There is something seriously wrong with Quark the company... what other company breeds such disdain and distrust from its seemingly reluctant customers?

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01/23, 04:51pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: hmmmm

I agree there. I'm still angry that they bought mTropolis and killed mFactory. That was the best multimedia development system I've ever seen.

Quark will never see any of my money.

batguano2000
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Joined: Sep 2000

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01/23, 04:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Big deal

Another reason to go with Adobe. These people can't even keep on top of current technology in Mac OS.

Quark 4.1 doesn't support Appearence Manager, what kind of c*** is that?

Oh, and about the anti-piracy garbage, Passport 4.1 required a hardware dongle, which was shipped as ADB (you could ask for iMate adapters, which didn't work on newer G4's properly). The alternative was a USB dongle which came with drivers not suited for 9.1, but the latest drivers weren't tested by Quark! Isn't punching in a code that you have to pack a lunch for enough?

I had to set up a whole printing division with this garbage, and now I am officially fed up with Quark. If I want software that looks like it was written by hairless, sexless monkeys, I will use Windows again...

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01/23, 04:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
look on the bright side..

At least with 5.0 out, they can start pushing for an OS X version. They always said 5.0 would be Classic only.
They've misjudged badly, but if they can get an update out by the end of the year I don't think they'll lose too many to InDesign - remember Photoshop is also stopping designers moving anyway

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01/23, 04:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: OS 9 Only

Quark has stated several times over the last two years that QuarkXPress 5.0 would be a Classic app and QuarkXPress 5.5 would be Carbonized.

At least they're telling their customers their plans for the app unlike some other companies. coughMacromediacough

As for why QuarkXPress is Classic and not Carbon, there is a reason. QuarkXPress's code is big and old. This is why even minor updates take a long time. Doing something as major as Carbonization is almost impossible. Quark is getting a lot of help from Apple in doing just this.

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01/23, 04:57pm | report spam | close Reply |
Per an Account Rep...

The version slated to be X compatible is 6 and they expect that out in 2003.

Looks like I will spend my $400 on a copy of InDesign instead of upgrading Quark.

Serious misstep on their part.

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01/23, 05:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
mTrpolis

WOW! Somone else out there knows of and liked mTropolis!??? COOL! I miss that program, too!

Any who, my acctual job (I'm contracted) is to switch a fairly big publishing company here in MN to InDesign because of this Quark c***.

If that doesn't speak volumes......

(P.S. We even tried to call Quark and let them know; see if we can get a discount on v.5 or something. You know? To keep us on the Quark platform? Well, they didn't give a S*** and only offered to consolidate the new license if I got one!!!! We're all ready consolidated, so in other words, they were initially going to charge us for consolidation AGAIN if we upgraded.

Goodness that was a long "ps"!)

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01/23, 05:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
Large Installations

Large installations (mostly daily newspapers and magazines) are what's keeping Quark alive. Quark couldn't care less about the little guy here and there who bought only one measley license.

And those large installations will buy. Buying a PDF-based editorial workflow system is a much bigger deal than just upgrading to Quark 5. So you can bet that newspaper art departments around the country will be placing their orders within a week.

As for the rest of us, Quark has clearly shown that they don't care about the smaller user (bad dongles, poor tech support, no appearance manager support) because the smaller user doesn't bring home the bacon for them.

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01/23, 05:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
Company attitude

The CEO of Quark was once quoted as saying "customers are a*******". What more can you expect? It's too bad most of my print vendors don't support InDesign. I'd be switching in a second if they did.

joeldberry

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01/23, 05:34pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
The truly silly thing is

although they had the "Feature Request for QuarkXPress 5.0" section of their website up for a good two years now (at least), they obviously didn't pay much attention to it.

Very few things from their "Top 20 Requests for QuarkXPress 5.0" are included in this release... in fact, it listed several feature requests that are blatantly omitted from this release... it's like Quark thinks "aw, they'll just forget about those..."

Sad thing is, most of these features are in competitors' applications; for example: support of .AI and .PSD files (CorelDraw supports them, and of course, Adobe InDesign [2.0] supports them). What about the ability to save to PDF without having to have Distiller? CorelDraw will do it. As will other applications...

Two years, we've been asking for these... and we get... tables and layers... oh, and the ability to design websites... wow. uh. thanks.

I am not angry... I am not going to say "Quark is dead"... I am not going to say "I will never buy QuarkXPress"... but I am very disappointed...

What's up with Quark? I used to love Quark... but they don't seem to be listening to their customers... I mean, hey, I can understand (as much as I hate it) not moving to OS X until they have a stable OS-X-compatible applications, but, Photoshop and PDF support built-in? C'mon, it's common sense...

You want to be a part of the publishing world, you have to play nice with the software programs the publishing world uses...

I will probably upgrade to 5.0 eventually, but I will say this: MY INDESIGN 2.0 IS ON THE WAY...

My $.02.

d_arislan
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01/23, 05:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
Timing...

Anybody else find it odd that they release it so close to InDesign 2's shipping date? I wonder if they just scrubbed out the word beta for shipping sake...

bukk
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01/23, 05:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
InDesign printer support

Printer support for InDesign isn't the problem -- the problem is Adobe support for printing workflows. Adobe's own RIPs don't adequate support InDesign, the PDF workflow isn't up to snuff, and other critical software involved in getting files onto paper (imposing software for instance) doesn't adequately support InDesign.

If it was just about creating files on hard drives, then InDesign is great. But getting the files through the pre-press process to the point where you can put ink on paper is the hangup. Adobe is dropping the ball on the backend, whatever you may think of InDesign on your desktop.

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01/23, 05:49pm | report spam | close Reply |
OH MY GOD.

'Nuff said.

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01/23, 05:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
F these jerks--

Switching to inDesign today
Quark is great but this is a joke!

joeldberry

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01/23, 06:02pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Oh yeah...

speaking of mTropolis...

I read somewhere a few months ago that Quark was going to incorporate QuarkImmedia in the next release...

Well, the next release is here... No QuarkImmedia...

It seems to me they just bought mTropolis because they are paranoid. Hey, didn't it give them excellent competition to QuarkImmedia?

By the way, paranoia is just one symptom of schizophrenia. The other, delusion. Hmmm. Quark is paranoid... we've seen that... and by not giving the users what they ask for, could that be delusion? There's a third, too, but I forgot... maybe it's charging outrageous upgrade prices for a .5 update...

Hmmm... of course, this is all just speculation...

UmarOMC
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01/23, 06:18pm | report spam | close Reply |
InDesign 2

OpenType (awesome superset based on Type1 and TrueType supporting all types of languages natively and uses a grid system to ensure your type layout looks the same when opened on any other computer), billions-o-ligatures, H&Js default at 100% (not 110%- stupid), OS X native, Adobe app-like intuitive/approachable interface, better integration with the other Adobe apps we all use...blah blah blah... cheaper. As of InDesign 2.0 Quark is no longer a "DTP Utility Belt" necessity. Bye.

rok
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01/23, 06:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
wow...

i mean, i'm just amazed it's out now AT ALL. i mean, everyone in our studio was like "you're kidding... REALLY?!?!?" and i agree that quark is relying on those publications that invested tons of money in constrcust of QPS and installed base of hundreds of computers - they are sacrificing the small studio and freelancer market to adobe. interesting tact... we'll see how it works.

wiredfx
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01/23, 06:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
Contextual Menus

what a waste and of course they use the cntrl key and changed the zoom key to cntrl-shft instead of what the rest of the world uses. I've already told clients to now waste their money upgrading. Indesign 2.0 has already been ordered

benfsmith

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01/23, 06:40pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Prepress

I am amazed that so many prepress agencies are giving people a hard time with Indesign. We bought it at 1.0 and were outputting film and proofs from it from the beginning. 1.5 had huge improvements. After leaving prepress for design, I found it interesting that each time a service bureau had a problem with a file of mine, it wasn't hard to walk them through how to use their own equiptment to successfully output the file. It is user ignorance, not a lack of stability or features, that has limited the success of InDesign among pro designers.

unsquared
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01/23, 08:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Big newspapers biz

I agree with the comment of the big newspapers keeping Quark afloat. I am a designer for a VERY large paper. We NEVER get new apps though. Still on PS 5.5 and AI 7...so, I doubt we'll see quark 5 for some time. The IT peeps sit on stuff forever to make sure it will work 100% with the rip. And in all honesty, I despise Quark for not adopting industry standards with interface. I also don't really see much in the new version that makes me even want to score a copy for myself to learn the new features.
Quark Xpress will be around for a while...but its days are numbered.

mm2270
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01/23, 09:33pm | report spam | close Reply |
Quark's strategy

If it's true that Quark is relying on all the big print houses to keep them afloat, I think they've seriously miscalculated. The problem with their thinking is that you have to give customers a compelling REASON to upgrade. If most big news pubs are happily using XPress 4.x, and 5.0 offers nothing truly useful to warrant the upgrade fees (especially with all the belt tightening happening now), then they won't buy it, at least not in significant enough numbers for Quark to turn a profit on it. 5.0 doesn't have any great enhancements! Let's see- tables, OK, nice but not a necessity. Layers, hmm, most smart publications have already bought licenses for Layers XT or the like, so this is no incentive. Web export- this one fails because Quark wrongly thinks publishers want to take the exact page they produced for print and plop it on a website-- WRONG!! Early on, many publishers experimented with this method of making a website, and found it just doesn't work. Print and web page formats are not compatible or interexchangable. Quark's thinking on this is dead wrong. Dynamic pages using db's are the way most big companies do things for their website. I played with the public beta of XPress 5.0 and was very underwhelmed. What I'm saying is that many companies may not jump ship to ID 2.0, but they may also not bother to pay Quark the outrageous upgrade fees they ask for a version that has no large return on investment.

And another thing-- any companies looking to switch to OS X, won't have to wait too much longer, since PS 7 will be out before midyear. Sorry Quark, this release is too little, too late. You made abig mistake, and may be your last!

vlad
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01/23, 10:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
OS X and Page Layout

Well, OS X is great and I enjoy it, BUT it will not be ready for "primetime", (read as desktop publishing), until PhotoShop and Quark join in. Apple seems to acknowledge this by assisting Quark in their migration and poking jabs at Adobe.

While I agree that Quark has had some unrealistic practices when it comes to licensing, (I still remember the $25 fee I had to pay to transfer a version 3.x licence), I have way too many vendors that do not support InDesign, they would actually prefer Acrobat files to InDesign. I, and my work own copies of InDesign, but it still hasn't killed Quark yet. For business applications, give OS X another year then we will see some major leaps in DTP!

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01/24, 04:04am | report spam | close Reply |
Still the tops

However many people say they are switching to InDesign, nobody has come to me with an id file. DTP is a fairly entrenched industry and I can't see that changing.
Quark *deserves* to fail, but it won't unless it fails to get an OSX native app out within 12 months

HeatherEcsedi
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01/24, 12:47pm | report spam | close Reply |
Quark price policy

QuarkXPress costs way too much but with InDesign 2 coming soon and so many users being ready to use it instead of XPress, we might see its price go down. Quark should be aware of one thing: no matter how big a standard your products are, you can always go out of business. Remember SyQuest ?
I really like QuarkXPress but we all agree Quark's policy sucks real bad. I don't like Adobe's products that much. Illustrator is great, so is Photoshop but what really tires me is the amount of floating palettes filling your screen. XPress specification palette is just (or nearly) perfect (even if the general interface is still pretty my System 7-like). It changes with every element you select. Lots of shortcuts not too hard to learn, at least for the basic ones. One thing you should keep in mind though is that if Quark went out of business, Adobe would be the only remaining player in DTP and that is a monopoly. Not a very good thing I believe.

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01/24, 11:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
IT'S Over...bye bye Quar

Every company's next big release AI 10, PS7, ID2, FH 10, Flash 6, Golive 6, Dreamweaver 5 ARE ALL OS X Native. Quark releases v5 which not only took them an eternity to release but they missed the carbon switchover. People are expecting to move to OS X this year and it seems that they will also move to Adobe's applications.

What OS X created was a chance for companies to rise to the top again...be the first out there with a new app or a old app converted for the new system...Quark blew it...I refuse to use OS 9 anymore and I won't have to once Photoshop is released this spring...looks like the next 12 months will be a big turn of events in DTP...not to mention with the bad economy who wants to spend $1000 on Quark 5 when they just FINALLY put in the ability to create web pages...thats so last year LOL

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Quark XPress 5.0 now shipping

updated 04:30 pm EST, Wed January 23, 2002

Not OS X native

OS 9 Only

hmmmm

Re: hmmmm

Big deal

look on the bright side..

Re: OS 9 Only

Per an Account Rep...

mTrpolis

Large Installations

Company attitude

The truly silly thing is

Timing...

InDesign printer support

OH MY GOD.

F these jerks--

Oh yeah...

InDesign 2

wow...

Contextual Menus

Prepress

Big newspapers biz

Quark's strategy

OS X and Page Layout

Still the tops

Quark price policy

IT'S Over...bye bye Quar

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Quark XPress 5.0 now shipping

updated 04:30 pm EST, Wed January 23, 2002

Related Articles

Recent Articles

Not OS X native

OS 9 Only

hmmmm

Re: hmmmm

Big deal

look on the bright side..

Re: OS 9 Only

Per an Account Rep...

mTrpolis

Large Installations

Company attitude

The truly silly thing is

Timing...

InDesign printer support

OH MY GOD.

F these jerks--

Oh yeah...

InDesign 2

wow...

Contextual Menus

Prepress

Big newspapers biz

Quark's strategy

OS X and Page Layout

Still the tops

Quark price policy

IT'S Over...bye bye Quar

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

Subscribe

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Follow us

on Twitter

Most Read

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