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Perhaps I was too vague? I was interested in knowing what
considerations guided your choice(s). Those of us who responded to
your inquiry invested our effort for the benefit of all list members,
and those non-members who find these conversations through Internet
searches. Your feedback on how you arrived at a decision would help
complete this valuable information cycle for all in the community.
Hi Peter,
I may have left out some, but following are the main considerations behind
my choice of software for the project:
1. Ease of use
2. Relatively shorter learning curve
3. No unnecessary frills (some of features that I call frills and are not
useful for my project may be a necessity for some other users such as a
Graphic designer. So the use of the term frills is related to kind of job
one wants to do.)
4. Basic image manipulation functionality
5. Quality documentation: User guide, tutorials, exceptional support
services.
6. Less cluttered the interface the better
7. Shadow
9. Transparency
10. Smooth PDF functionality
11. Ability to manipulate an image within the context of the application.
12. Anchored tables
13. Ability to experiment with tables (split, rotate, headers, footers etc
etc)
14. Create and synchronize style sheets
15. Import images and text directly. Import Excel files.
16. Layers and multiple layouts
17. Support for both Print and Web
18. XML (import/export) ability
19. Advanced typesetting features
20. Support for Open Type fonts
Also, the application needs to be stable and should be able to do the job
without any complications. I will be happy to share further information on
the list.
Best regards
Raj
On 6/14/07, Anne-Marie Concepcion <mylists -at- senecadesign -dot- com> wrote:
>
> My ears are ringing! ;-) Yes, I hope everyone finds my DesignGeek
> Resources page (for Quark, InDesign, etc.) at my senecadesign.com web
> site helpful. I maintain them for my training clients, mostly, but of
> course anyone can click over and browse around.
>
> I normally lurk on this list, but this thread pulled me in ... I've
> been using Quark for 16 years and InDesign for 4; currently I'm
> working on multiple projects in both apps (latest version of each).
> Though I think even the briefest visit to my site will tell you which
> program I prefer these days. If not, maybe my blog and podcast at
> indesignsecrets.com will clue you in ... heh.
>
> So I thought it best to stay out of the conversation, but couldn't
> resist replying to just a couple nuggets.
>
> At 10:24 AM -0500 6/11/07, Pinkham, Jim wrote:
> >Quark also does a decent job of bringing
> >in Word documents, including formatted tabular material, without a lot
> >of bumps.
>
> I find InDesign to be a LOT more powerful and flexible than XPress
> when it comes to working with Word files. I don't want to bore with
> details, but thought a visual demonstration might suffice; look at
> these 2 screenshots of each program's "Word import options," one from
> QXP 7.2, the other from InDesign CS2 (same in CS3):
>
>http://senecadesign.com/demo/wordoptions-quark7.gif
>http://senecadesign.com/demo/wordoptions-idcs2.gif
>
> At 12:39 PM +0530 6/12/07, Raj Machhan wrote:
> >This is very useful. I think Quark can handle documents having 500 pages
> or
> >more, because it is used extensively for book publishing. However, I
> cannot
> >say the same for InDesign
>
> Off the top of my head I know these book publishers have moved to
> InDesign in the past few years: Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Scott
> Foresman, O'Reilly ... I'm positive there's many more. Magazine
> publishers using ID include Conde Nast, Hearst, lots of others ...
> maybe it's my line of work but I seldom encounter Quark-using
> publishers. There are no published figures showing market share that
> I know of, but my sense as someone with deep experience in both
> camps, and in the front-end (end users) and back-end (printers,
> prepress), is that it's about 50/50 at this point.
>
> The problem with the Quark share of the market, as they well know, is
> that users are sticking to older versions. They're pushing hard to
> move people to v7, which offers a good number of useful features.
>
> The advice to download both program's tryouts and give them a spin
> was sound, imo. I would also suggest that you inquire at your
> client's, your freelancers, and your vendors to see which program
> would be most compatible with their workflow.
>
> These days, I think most successful industry professionals can use
> either program, when needed. And if you write a lot of technical
> documentation (which I don't), Framemaker as well, of course.
>
> AM
>
> --
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, Fearless Leader
> Seneca Design & Training | http://www.senecadesign.com/
>
> DesignGeek Central: Tips and Tricks for the Digital Designer
>http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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