word processing

Paranoia is the key word here. QuarkXPress' software writers are so intent on focusing on security that they have ignored functionality. QuarkXPress clashes and crashes with some of our other software programs. Worse yet, I have had two instances when the software has refused to open after we have finished huge student publications. Can you imagine the frustration that resulted from having to re-do entire publications on deadline from scratch? The QuarkXPress service representatives were of no help. They seem not to understand their own product. We still use the software because the publication industry does, but we are now looking at some emerging alternatives. Some of my fellow teachers have had it with the software and want to get rid of it. The unexplainable crashes in publications and student productions are routine. I keep hoping Quark's software writers will wake up, but they don't seem to get it. Too bad. QuarkXPress used to be the industry standard.

After working with Quark 6.0 every day for the last few months at an educational publishing company, I would definitely recommend that corporate users wait for the promised 6.1 upgrade which Quark has promised to release in the coming weeks. The 6.0 release seems like it was rushed out to the masses way too soon...there are far too many bugs...bugs that are not only minor nuisances, but that are cable of potentially causing some major problems that can take some time to fix. Quark themselves have admitted that they are aware of problems saving Quark 6 files. Sometimes instead of saving them, they actually get deleted. PDF exports are built in, but with some larger files, it just plain doesn't work. It crashes during the process. There have also been problems when collecting files. Sometimes not all fonts and images get collected. We have to switch to Quark 5 just to get everything collected properly.

Quark has promised to fix these bugs in 6.1, but until then, I would strongly caution against upgrading.

Those complaining about using layered photoshop files try this...Save the file as a tiff and include layers. This file will import into Quark 6. I also just tested Quark 5 and it works too! So quit whining and learn the program. Also Those who use Macs...If you owned a company would you waste your time and money on a small group of people or would you try to capture the market which includes the most people? You aren't that important to Quark. It's not their fault you still use the obsolete Mac system. I hear so many of you going on and on about not being able to use transparency in Quark... Well did you ever think for a minute that the transparency in InDesign doesn't work properly half the time anyways? What good is a feature if it only creates problems in the end when it comes time to print the job? The transparency in Adobe's products have caused more printing problems than any other feature in the last 10 years. I can't tell you how many times an InDesign moron has sent me a file with transparency that I have to re-work/flatten or the type prints all different weights, etc. One more thing, you can blame the font issues on Apple as they are the ones forcing everyone to upgrade to their lame OSX and the font issue is their fault.