New.Journalism.Review

Quark 8: AKA "InDesign killer"?

"Quark Strikes Back" reads the dramatic headline on the cover of  MacUser magazine (6 June 2008) It says: "We didn't expect to feel like this, XPress 8 seems like a product that will get people excited about DTP once more."

A few years ago the canteen at Quark HQ in Denver had one dish on its menu -  humble pie. The bar around the corner served two cocktails - 'Total Screw Up' and the rather sickly-tasting 'Zero Market Share'.

But fed up with its poor diet, Quark admitted that the release of versions 6 to 6.5 were, frankly, pants and that it had become more than a little arrogant in its dealings with customers.

But now the world has changed. Quark 8 has got a makeover and actually looks and feels like a 21st century bit of software. Indeed, it has more than a little passing resemblance to its great rival, InDesign CS3. This may prove rather handy for those of us who teach both.

Will this be enough? Only time will tell. But it will have a job in winning the hearts of many newspaper and magazine publishers in the UK.

More reviews and opinions:

CreativePro: First Look Quark  8
Random Quote: "For many established designers, it’s probably too late to generate much excitement. But it seems as if this version of XPress is targeted at new users as much as old ones, and there is a steady flow of new designers entering the market who are taking a fresh look at the tools available to them.

PlanetQuark: Quark 8 (and 7) features
This links through to comprehensive rundown of new features in X-Ray Magazine. The boss of Quark says that version 8 is the best ever - [well, it should be!].

Tuaw.com: Quark 8 interface and typography
The feedback makes particularly interesting reading. StreetStealth says that Quark will "only win on price". [I agree,  so  the message to Quark is keep those education discounts!!!!!]

QuarkXPress 5 is free again...on your marks, get set...

QuarkXPress 5.01 is on the free DVD that comes with the current issue of Computer Shopper, available in most newsagents in the UK in December for around £4.99. It has on the cover: "Perfect PCs". You normally have to get a registration code by visiting the website mentioned in the mag. and you often need to apply for the code within a limited timeframe, so you'll need to hurry.

Quark 5 was released in 2002. Quark 7, which is the latest edition, will set you back around £900. If you have that kind of money, be sure to compare it to the cheaper (some say, better) Adobe InDesign CS3

But this free version would be  brilliant for any small businesses on a budget or charities that need to produce a magazine or newsletter using a powerful bit of software. It's also great for any students who want to begin learning Quark. Some local newspapers are using even older versions than 5. 

There isn't much difference between Quark 5 and Quark 6. Although Quark 7 is a significant upgrade.

InDesign CS3 or Quark 7 - which is biggest and best?

It's time to update the post: InDesign or Quark - which has largest market share in UK newspaper / magazine publishing? 

What's the most widely used DTP software in UK magazine publishing? As part of an analysis of modern magazine production methods, I asked a group of 20 students to each interview a magazine editor (or another senior member of staff). The verdict came back loud and clear - we found (based on a survey of around 18 magazines) that 80 per cent used InDesign.

So should new journalists forget about Quark?
No. It is still common to find Quark used in the newsrooms of local newspapers and in book publishing etc. Students who already have a good grasp of Quark learn InDesign very easily. It's just a case of finding out how you access the various tools, using the ridiculous number of palettes. My students have found that InDesign generally offers more functionality than Quark 6.5. On the downside, like a lot of Adobe products, InDesign is totally bloated. I've also come across a lot of compatibility issues, particularly when moving files between various versions of InDesign. These need to be patched.

What DTP skills do employers want?

Guardian Media Job adverts  (based on a non-scientific survey conducted 11th May 2007. Note: This is not just job adverts in journalism, but includes areas such as marketing, book publishing, PR and telecoms etc)

• InDesign mentioned in 58 adverts (publishers looking for these skills include:HACHETTE FILIPACCHI (Art Director), Future Publishing (Designer)
• Quark mentioned in 66 adverts (publishers looking for these skills include Centaur (sub-editor) and Informa Professional (middleweight designer)

What DTP package gets the best reviews?

Random review quotes on Quark 7:

MacWorld:
"Quark has added some good features to XPress 7, including Unicode, transparency, drop shadows, improved palette handling, synchronizing objects, composition zones, job jackets, as well as a multitude of smaller but very useful features such as PDF/X support and Font Fallback. And users who stick with Quark XPress will be happy that the company is adopting some of the InDesign features that began turning heads four years ago. But the new territories Quark is staking out—especially composition zones and job jackets—will hardly excite the broad design community, and they’re difficult to learn."

PC Pro

"Throw in a major reduction in the standalone price and a good-value upgrade, and it's clear Quark has not only heard all the criticisms but acted on them. QuarkXPress certainly isn't going down without a fight. It isn't enough to cause a return mass migration, but it's an essential upgrade."

CreativePro.com

"Quark has eliminated enough of XPress' glaring omissions to stop people from migrating to InDesign. It may even bring some of the bigger publishers back to the Quark fold."

..and random review quotes about InDesign CS3

MacWorld
"Despite a few wrinkles and omissions, InDesign remains the most capable page layout software available. The more I use this new version, the more I appreciate the subtle retooling throughout, not just the obvious new features."

PC Pro
"At times, the advanced power it offers leads to complexity, and those QuarkXPress fans who are happy within their comfort zone will accuse it of bloat - and rightly so, if they wouldn't use the additional power. Ultimately, though, InDesign CS3 is capable of tackling harder jobs and producing better end results, and doing so even more efficiently than its rival. It fully deserves its professional publishing crown."

InDesign or Quark - which is cheaper?

The old advice still applies. If you need things like Photoshop or even Dreamweaver, you'll want to buy the entire Adobe Creative Suite. But there are numerous versions these days. Adobe has created a flash based product selector and it's torturous to use!

The basic advice is that if you work predominantly in print, you'll need Adobe CS3 Design Standard - £944.98 on Amazon. These products are always cheaper if you're upgrading. If you're lucky enough to be a student (lecturers are excluded from the deal) you get Adobe Design Standard CS3 Student for £161.99. But the "bargain" for students (if software is ever a "bargain") is the feature packed CS3 Masters Collection for PC - you get the entire Adobe collection including all the web stuff for £400. The standard price is over £2,000!

Looking to buy InDesign CS3 alone? It's £668 (no student discount).

Thank God purchasing Quark is easier. You just buy the DTP software and that's it! Students and teachers can get Quark 7 Education for £98.99. Standard price Quark 7 Full Edition is £869.

So, what does this all mean?

Quark is certainly fighting back and is attempting to win over the education market. But that InDesign / Photoshop combo is pretty compelling in publishing. But I can't stand the fact that Adobe has so many versions of CS3. You also have to check that the product you buy work with your OS - be careful Vista users! Adobe needs to make its student deals available to lecturers as well!

Free fully working Quark 5 for the PC - what a deal!

PC Pro magazine (available in the UK) is offering a staggering deal. Get a free (ok, so the magazine costs £3.99) fully working version of QuarkXPress 5 for the PC. It's on the free disc with the March issue of PC Pro available now. This could prove really useful for journalism students. Quark is currently on version 7, but many local newspapers still use much older editions. It also runs far quicker than InDesign on an old PC. 

Terms: You must register your free copy by 23rd March 2007. It's also offering an upgrade to Quark 7 for £293. That is a major discount on the commercial price of £800. However, students and tutors can get it for around £100 at the Solent Uni Education Store.

BBC Journalism College embraces e-learning and it's all free (for now)

The BBC Journalism Training College is set to launch a new site, boosting the amount of journalism training material it makes available for free online.

According to an article in Press Gazette and blogged at The Editors Weblog yesterday: "The site launches with 500 pages and over 40 video clips with both practical exercises, how-to guides helping journalists of all levels to improve their skills, and theoretical discussions on the practice of journalism aimed to stimulate debate."

It adds:  "The BBC says the greatest amount of interest in the site is coming from outside the UK and the site could be of use to journalism schools as well."

The project is being headed by Kevin Marsh (pictured at NewsWatch 06 /  Bournemouth Uni)

Here are a few old links on the BBC Training site that may prove useful for journalism students. I didn't find this amazingly exciting.... hopefully they'll add some better material soon.

1) Interviewing for radio - 4 modules - a useful free interactive how-to guide.
2) BBC News Style Guide - 92 page guide in PDF format. It covers everything you would expect - reporting speech, jargon, troublesome words etc. There is also an interesting discussion in the forum about BBC Style and  you can find links to other style guides from newspapers such as The Times and The Guardian. 
3) Interviews with journalists - like this one by Danny O'Brian about online journalism.

CoolEdit Pro users will find a lot of free training at the BBC site.

InDesign or Quark - which has largest market share in UK newspaper / magazine publishing?

I get asked this question a lot. The Uni won't be upgrading from Quark 6.5 to 7and  tutors are being encouraged to switch to teaching InDesign CS2.

So which DTP software has the largest market share in UK publishing? Unfortunately, I don't yet have a definitive answer....I'll update this article if I do!

Here's what we know...

A few points:

• Quark says it retains "80% of the layout market" (it doesn't state whether this is UK, Europe or global).Its been touting this figure around for a few years now and it doesn't seem to ring true to me. The figure could be correct if it includes usage of any Quark version. For example there are some publishers in the UK still stuck using Quark 4.
  

• Quark is very much a "one product pony". If you pay the full commercial price for Quark 7 (around £800) - you'll probably use it!

• Unfortunately, the same logic can't be applied to InDesign. Lots of people will have InDesign on their machines. It comes bundled as part of Adobe's Creative Suite (CS). For around £400, you get InDesign, Photoshop, ImageReady and GoLive - not a bad deal! But it still doesn't answer the question - how many people are really buying CS to use InDesign?
  

• Newspapers and magazines are very different. According to people I chatted with at a recent NCTJ meeting, it's clear that many local newspapers use early editions of Quark. For example, Quark 4 is still popular because it's very stable. Some local newspapers simply can't afford to upgrade.

• It's not just about new toys. Designers tend to appraise software in terms of new features. Editors of newspapers and magazines look at it in terms of "automation and collaboration".

An article on the rather brilliant Quark Versus InDesign site states: "Indeed, while most designers look for ways to expand their creative choices in the next version of QuarkXPress or InDesign, newspapers fret over how much they will be required to change their procedures while addressing long-standing needs.

• Quark is getting more competitive (at last). During recent interviews with the press, Quark  admitted to mistakes in the past which annoyed a lot of customers. Quark 5/6 were lazy upgrades. The buzz around 7 is more interesting.

• According to a survey of 700 readers carried out by MacWorld UK (May 2006) The majority of  InDesign using readers would not move to Quark 7 when it shipped.

• But Quark is improving customer service. "Quark are nicer than Adobe these days - which is a big change," one reader wrote in the MacWorld survey.  "Quark blew it, but it's now doing an amazingly good impression of a company that has learned some massive lessons, while Adobe seems to have gone downhill in a big way," said another reader.
  

• Currently Quark 7 is retailing at the Uni Education Store for £100 (a bargain when compared to the commercial price). Although for what you get, CS2 is may well be a better deal at £180-200 According to an article in US mag Business 2 last year:

"Quark has started offering discounts for educators--a key market, since the tools used by design students strongly influence purchasing preferences later in their careers. But is it too late? At schools like Massachusetts College of Art and UCLA, QuarkXPress has faded from the curriculum"

None of this really answers the main question. One way to look at this is to total up the number of job adverts in Media Guardian which mention Quark or InDesign. I also plan to conduct a small survey among magazine production editors in the new year - the results of which will be published here.

It could be the case that both products have approx equal market share overall - which is good news in terms of competition. However, it's tough for us people trying to work out what we should be teaching.

Some more links:
InDesign's market share (discussion on Google Groups)
Blatner: InDesign is the future of DTP 

Researching Internet law

Web journalists need to be aware of the law and how it is applied on the Internet. Consider areas that general books on media law discuss such as: defamation, copyright, privacy and obscenity. Of course the Internet is different to traditional print publishing due to its

A) global nature (countries vary according to how strict their laws are, although there is a degree of agreement amongst the countries of the EU).

B) anonymity of much of the information online.

C) speed of communication and transmission of information.

Some of the issues you could consider: the MP3 debate (music piracy), 'deep linking', domain name theft, libel (e.g. on message boards, in chat rooms and MySpace etc), spam and use of cookies. 

When researching the topic you can begin with general books on media law such as Media Law by Peter Carey or The Internet Law and Society by Yaman Akdeniz of http://www.cyber-rights.org/. These are in the the library.

links:
QuickLinks - news items about legal and regulatory aspects of internet
Defamation and the Internet (weblaw.co.uk)
Godfrey v Demon Internet (BBC News)  - an early libel case
Cyber -Rights (website of Yaman Akdeniz)
BBC Webwise - guide to Internet law (very simple/basic guide)
Yahoo! - Technology law links
BUBL Links
Internet Freedom - civil liberty group

Playing around with InDesign CS

Just had a play around with InDesign CS (1, not 2) and I really like it. For us Quark people it takes a while to get used to the Adobe interface. The 'control' palette in InDesign (what Quark people call 'measurements') is docked at the top by default and I can't help but move it to the bottom of the screen, where it 'belongs'.

I really like the 'story editor' function and the ease in which 'runaround' can be applied (far superior to Quark). But I keep losing  the numerous different 'pallettes' on my small laptop screen - particularly the 'pargraphs' palette.  InDesign also takes an age to load on my, frankly under-powered, six year-old, should be dead, laptop. QuarkXPress seems much leaner and faster.

But InDesign seems to offer far more control than Quark - which  has got to be a good thing. Quark's days are certainly numbered.

Link: Adobe InDesign CS Reviews. Desktop publishing Reviews by CNET