Uh.... how hard is Quark Xpress to use?
lambert
1,166 Posts
Does it have a high learning curve?I haven't worked in print design, but I may have a job offer and wondered if this is possibly conquered through usage or am I gonna have to get some additional training?I think i will mainly be using templates, but I'm not 100% about that.
Comments
ask them to use indesign please.
DAMNNIT!!!!
Thanks for the candid answer.
http://www.quark.com/
I dont know, I havent used it in years. But back then I thought it was hard (around the time of OS9) I switched to Indesign and found it MUCH easier. Maybe nowadays it is easy.
use InDesign if you can...
I'm literally sitting in a Quark Xpress training class at this very moment for my publishing company.
Shit is actually pretty easy to use as far as I'm concerned. It takes a little bit of fucking around with and it's not particularly intuitive, but if you're relatively computer-literate and are familiar with photoshop and shit, you'll be fine. Just lie and say you haven't used it for a year or two so you might need some brushing up and then teach yourself in the mean time. It really aint that hard.
-e
50% paralyzed.
That's probably a good thing, though.
thanks for all the replies, dudes.
InDesign is much more intuitive and compatible with other graphics programs. Most publishers, vendors and printers seem to be using it now.
Indesign is so nice and fun, I've seen newbies learn it in a day. If you know Illustrator and Photoshop, you're set. So much convergence and flexibitliy. Adobe finally got their act together (Indesign is Pagemaker on steroids).
Fuk Quark, Indesign has already cornered a part of the market in the past few years.
Once I got Indesign I knew I would NEVER use Quark again.
More and more printers are converting and if they have newer equipment, they can usually handle Indesign.
Disclosure: I USE INDESIGN ALMOST EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE!
fuk you and your Illustrator fetish
I keed I keed
If I could pimp my vectors more, I'd be a 100% Illustrator man, too.
Vectaz for dayz.
-e
thanksNadvance
InDesign:
I keep forgetting to get one. All the pro's use them though.
It's a must if you want to do any kind of hand illustration on the computer
Just remember, you do everything in boxes, either text boxes or picture boxes, and once you really grasp the difference between the detail/content tool (what I always like to call the "hand" tool) and the object tool, the hardest part is behind you.
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=24
If you have used a lot of Adobe products before, you will have to unlearn the Adobe way to make sense of Quarks inner workings. This will make things more frustrating. If you don't use Adobe products much, and get pretty good at using Quark, using an Adobe product afterward will seem incredibly unintuitive. Lots of fun.
Really it just takes a lot of practice. Quark's strength in its day was its text manipulation, speed and its printing capabilities, but these days it is far outclassed by Adobe InDesign, and to a lesser extent, Illustrator, which is probably good enough for most smaller design projects. InDesign is very comprehensive and knocks Quark out the fucking water and off the face of the planet, but the printing industry is a bit entrenched in their ways and they like to do things the hard way.
In my experience, Quark was frustrating for the first month or so that I used it, then it became ridiculously easy once I got familiar with the tools and how to use them, then it seemed like the best program in the universe for design and I felt like I learned exponentially fast, then InDesign emerged, and Quark became an archaic, limited, frustrating program again, and I soon never wanted to use it for anything ever again.
That said, I'm sad to report there are many WORSE applications than Quark, including the system I use now at work, which makes me pine for the simple and efficient days of Quark, and believe me, I hate Quark now.
Boxes. Hand tool. Object tool. Play around. That's your best bet. It's actually a pretty simple program, so the difficulty you face early is an issue of Quark's style/method, and not an issue of having to know some deep or advanced shit to get through it. That makes a huge difference, because once you get past that, Quark is cake.
It's a great job skill to have, tho, r??sum??-wise if you want some options in the printing field. Hopefully your company isn't using a recent version of Quark, tho. That program should've never seen life past version 4, and version 3 still does the job better than most of the recent versions.
Anyway, don't be intimidated, and if you need some pointers, PM. I feel like I used to live inside that program's private mindgarden.
personally i do almost everythign in illustrator, with photoshop for imaging... WTF do you use indesign for that can't be done in illustrator?
curious as ive never used it...
Wacom makes a tablet that comes with a wireless mouse...the small tablet runs at about $100...shit is all you would need. It will put your computer on full blast.
Dubious-
I think folks that do newsletters, brochures and other multipage layout stuff use indesign...it would be a headache trying to do it in illustrator.
ASP, you hit it on the head
and I'mma get a check out to you ASAP
-M
ahhh multipage docs... now it all makes sense..
i started using it at the beginning of the year, and my "boss" has labeled me "the quark hommay" as of now (hes white and a huge dork), so the lurning curve isnt too great if you are comfortable manouvering around programs to begin with. if you can fuck with adobe products, the short cut keys are a little different in quark, but its easy enough to pick up if you are a computer head of some sort.