10 Replies Latest reply: Dec 11, 2008 1:36 PM by (Dominic_Hurley) RSS

    Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .

    cgrscott Community Member
      In July I purchased the Quark Xpress 7 upgrade, for Macintosh, with the promise of receiving an upgrade to Xpress 8 and received shipment of Xpress 7. In late fall I called Quark customer service and asked them why I had not received shipment of my free Quark Xpress 8 upgrade and he said I cannot obtain my free Xpress 8 upgrade now because I did not go to Quark's web site to download it in the first 2 months of it's release.

      I contacted my friend who bought into the same promotion. He said he received an email from Quark on August 6 saying that due to overwhelming demand they were releasing it for download. They said that once he received the download email, he could at that point call them and ask for a disk copy. However, that download email never came. So he called them and told them he wanted the disk version, and he had it within a few days.

      I checked my emails from Quark and I never received an email notifying me of acquiring the free Xpress 8 upgrade by download.  I called Quark Xpress customer service and they said I could only claim my free upgrade during the two months following August 1.  He said I cannot obtain my free Xpress 8 upgrade now because I did not go to Quark's web site to download it in the first 2 months of it's release.

      Years back I purchased the Xpress 5 upgrade directly from Quark with a promise of getting version 6 free. I received shipment of Xpress 6 a couple of months later. Quark did not operate in the same fashion this last time.

      Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign.
        • 1. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
          Scott Falkner Community Member
          We're all choir here, dude.
          • 2. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
            cgrscott Community Member
            I'm wondering if Quark is in pour financial health if they have to duck fulfillment of legitimate customer purchases.
            • 3. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
              Eric @ MCA Community Member
              No offense intended here (and I wish you all good fortune in attempting to force Quark to make good on their promise!), but Adobe will do the exact same thing to you.

              Buy CS3 after the CS4 announcement and you have until mid-December to claim your post-announcement CS4 or you are no longer eligible to receive it. I got burned that way with a CS1 to CS2 purchase IIRC...
              • 4. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
                cgrscott Community Member
                Yes, but this was a promotion advertised by Quark since their initial announcement of the Xpress 8 upgrade in May of '08.

                Adobe did not advertise a free upgrade to IDSC4 as a special promotion to get people to make a buying decision with IDCS3 but offered it to people who inquire when they realize they just bought the InDesign CS3 upgrade shortly after IDCS4 was announced.

                So Quark's circumstance is different here.
                • 5. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
                  cgrscott Community Member
                  After I had a bad dialog with a Quark representative on the phone yesterday and after sending an email to Quark customer service later that day, I received a telephone call today from a very nice Quark Telesales Representative in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

                  She had an American dialect and was very nice and did what was nessicary to see that I am a happy customer. I paid for shipping (only) to get my Xpress 8 upgrade shipped, instead of opting for the free download.

                  I regret that I so quickly ran to this forum to publicly rip Quark without giving them a little time to make things right. This forum is not the place for it anyway, I guess.

                  I love using InDesign and 90% of all my jobs are are done with it but my very best regular customer requires that I support their use of Quark Xpress and that I acquire the upgrades when they upgrade.
                  • 6. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
                    [Jongware] Community Member
                    Since you are obviously happy using both, can you point out some advantages of either?

                    Most people we get "over here" are happy to leave QXP behind, or rather, after a short period of ranting about how
                    i different
                    InDesign is. But I s'pose this forum is biased, and on its hypothetical QXP counterpart things are the other way around.
                    • 7. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
                      Michael Gianino Community Member
                      I grew up eating with a fork. Sometimes when I eat Asian food, I use chop sticks. The reason I don't switch to chop sticks totally is that I'm used to a fork, and it does for me what I need. Asian people probably wonder why I would even consider using a fork, when chop sticks are so much better and easier to use, but I have a fork.

                      Whether you think Quark or InDesign is the fork, its pretty much the same argument if what you have works for you. Also, being able to use both is helpful.
                      • 8. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
                        cgrscott Community Member
                        I use Quark Xpress only as a pragmatic business decision and every-time I use it become more grateful for InDesign. I was looking at the new text features in Quark Xpress 8 and it looks like the program is catching up with InDesign CS (which came after InDesign 2).

                        I know a big plus with Quark is you can have old giant Quark documents full of text, from 8 years ago, and open them in the latest version of Quark Xpress and not have a single text reflow hitch.

                        InDesign does not seem to have that strength but the creative power and the ability to use shading and beveling on text and objects is a huge plus for me and InDesign's interface is very pleasant compared to Xpress 7 and 8. I enjoyed working in InDesign CS2 laying out a 600 page book last June. The process went smooth and Indesign was very reliable. Perhaps Xpress 6.5 would have done alright for that project but I do have a bias towards InDesign.

                        I own and use InDesign CS3 and also own, but have not yet deployed, InDesign CS4.
                        • 9. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
                          cgrscott Community Member
                          I feel unqualified to compare the latest versions of InDesign and Quark.

                          I use InDesign more than Quark and I have used the later versions of Quark Xpress in the same way I used Xpress 4.11.

                          I had only one customer left that was still needing completed jobs provided in Quark documents. I was confident they would eventually switch to InDesign so I did not invest time in looking at what might be new and good about QX7 & 8. Then, this summer, my only Quark compatible customer announced they were not going to migrate to InDesign and had purchased the "Buy Xpress 7 and Get 8 free" promotion. At that point I could see I would be having a possible long future working with latter versions of Quark Xpress. Now I really need to learn the new features in Xpress 7 & 8.

                          I really have appreciated the help I received from the InDesign CS2 Visual QuickStart Guide and it has received a high review score on Amazon's product listing. I'm going to buy the InDesign CS4 Visual QuickStart Guide in the near future.

                          The QuarkXpress 7 Visual QuickStart Guide has received mostly good reviews on Amazon's listing. When the The QuarkXpress 8 Visual QuickStart Guide is released, I'll buy a copy.

                          Rob
                          • 10. Re: Quark is galvanizing my loyalty to Adobe and InDesign . . .
                            Community Member
                            >can you point out some advantages of either?

                            I haven't used the latest version of QuarkXPress, but I'm impressed with what I've read of its micro-typography, which seems to me to be leaving ID's behind (ironic considering a lot of ID's early advertising highlighted its typographic abilities). I would love to be able to individually set left and right hang for each glyph in ID and to edit kerning pairs. The new grid features look pretty cool, too, for those who use grids (reading from fonts is a nice addition).