In general, you’ll be more efficient in InDesign when creating design- and type-rich documents and more efficient in XPress when you need to knock out basic documents with a lot of pages.Īnother advantage QuarkXPress has traditionally held over InDesign was its firm infrastructure: the many XTensions available, the AppleScripts people use, and the printers and service bureaus that want native XPress files. More importantly, the fact that InDesign can build drop shadows and read transparency in Photoshop images (with or without a clipping path) means that designers spend much less time in Photoshop, which results in huge time savings overall. However, some XPress features now run significantly more slowly than InDesign, such as exporting PDF files and formatting tables. To be sure, many features in XPress still run faster than InDesign on any given computer - for instance, navigating from page to page or importing MS Word documents. (XPress 6 cannot run in Mac OS 9, though InDesign 2 works in either OS 9 or OS X.) Unfortunately, XPress’s advantage expires with version 6, which requires a machine capable of running the very hefty Mac OS X or Windows 2000 or XP. As much as Apple and Microsoft would love us all to have the newest, fastest machines, much of the world relies on older systems. One of the best reasons to use XPress has always been its ability to run efficiently on a slow, RAM-deprived computer. We could discuss ad nauseam details such as the relative merits of how QuarkXPress and InDesign each handle character styles or layers, but for this particular article, my goal is simply to provide an overview and share my opinions. For the more complex answer, read on.īy the way, please note that I make no pretense that this article is The Definitive Comparison of these two programs. However, that doesn’t mean you should immediately switch to InDesign. It incorporates superior technology, is written using a superior programming methodology, the features it has in common with XPress are implemented in a superior way, and while XPress has a few important features that InDesign does not, InDesign clearly has the superior feature set in toto. That said, I will make one (more or less) definitive statement: Comparing the two programs in a vacuum, all things being equal, it is quite clear that Adobe InDesign is the superior program. The question I hear most often these days is “Which is better: QuarkXPress 6 or InDesign 2?” Of course, while everyone wants a definitive answer, any honest reviewer must respond: “It depends.” It depends on who you are, what your workflow is, and what you need to accomplish in your work. If you’ve been wanting to know what David Blatner thinks about QuarkXPress and InDesign, here’s your answer. He co-authored “ Real World Adobe InDesign 2” and, most recently, “ InDesign for QuarkXPress Users.” He also speaks at conferences and user groups - including seminars sponsored by Adobe - on his assessment of the two programs. Author of “ Real World QuarkXPress,” long considered the definitive book on QuarkXPress, Blatner has lately turned his attention to Adobe InDesign. Editor’s note: There is perhaps no one more knowledgeable about page-layout applications than David Blatner.
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