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[IDML Implemented] How can I open Indesign (indd and idml) Files in Publisher?


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17 minutes ago, Peter Jackson said:

Ah, sorry but I'm in the majority Windows world (and before that it was CP/M, TRSDOS and finally QDOS/MS-DOS in those far-off days before the Xerox Alto introduced the idea of a mouse-driven GUI in the '70s).  Actually, I only use the cataloguing function of ACDSee not photo-editing (I didn't use Lightroom's editing either).

Peter.

Though Lightroom started on the Mac, it, and, I presume, ACDSee work the same on Windows as they do on the Mac. ACDSee appears to be much like Adobe bridge with editing tools. Long ago Bridge was part of Photoshop but it slowed down the app so much that Adobe turned it into a separate unit. The catalog function in Lightroom does not seem to slow that app down much; it saves thumbnails so you can view things easily.

ACDSee is on sale again at $34.95, though that appears to be for the old version, 3.7.2, the demo download. Then there's upgrade pricing at $24.95 for version 4. Which, surprise, totals the same as Affinity Photo, at $50. Though this is off topic in a Publisher forum, it seems tangentially relevant.

The fact that you have to create an account to register the product before you can unlock it bothers some people. But it's in line with many professional apps, including those from Adobe. I simply opted out of their e-mail alerts program.

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On 9/22/2018 at 10:46 AM, Petar Petrenko said:

Are there any Acts of Standardisation, some other Laws or similar, where it is said that everyone must use Adobe products otherwise they will be prosecuted? I don't think so. Everyone can use the software he is used to and deliver the customer PDF, not source.

Right. Leaving Quark for InDesign was quite a challenge for over a year… Now, to my opinion, Publisher is pretty easy to switch to.
Personally, I already left Adobe behind and even used Publisher to print two of my last books. Working right from scratch makes it easier to forget about InDesign.
Of course, I don’t need to work with older Adobe files (and even then, there’s still Adobe on my older Mac).

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Interoperability with INDD files would be a MASSIVE feature and benefit for Publisher, not only in terms of wooing InDesign users but also with making it as painless as possible to incorporate Publisher into workflows. I'm sure there are a billion fixes that need to be done, but having that ready for launch would be a nuclear bomb!

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On 10/18/2018 at 4:22 PM, Medical Officer Bones said:

For anyone doubting the usefulness of IDML import versus PDF import, let's create a list of advantages and drawbacks. I am comparing Affinity Publisher with the (free) open source DTP software Scribus, which indeed DOES import InDesign IDML files.

Affinity PDF Import Advantages:

  • keeps the exact (99%) of visual fidelity, including visual effects.
  • text lines are grouped as paragraphs.

Affinity PDF Import Disadvantages:

  • original source file's layer structure is not maintained. This leads to almost unmanageable layer situations (try importing a PDF with a table).
    Layers are a complete mess, completely unstructured.
  • paragraph and character styles are lost, which makes it impossible to quickly adjust text formatting for complex documents, and even for simple documents such as flyers the user will have to manually recreate all the paragraph and character styles.
  • tables are lost and converted to graphical objects consisting of hundreds, if not thousands of elements for more complex tables.
  • images running over page folds in a spread are cut into separate elements. This means it is almost impossible to adjust a crop, for example.
  • external links to images are lost.
  • master pages are lost, and have to be recreated: an impossible task for more complex jobs, like magazines.
  • guides are lost
  • text threading is lost. This means a text edit in an article will not adjust the text flow across all pages for any given threaded article or story.
  • images are cut to crop size. Originals are lost.

Scribus IDML import Advantages:

  • Master pages are maintained (the name of each master page is not).
  • Paragraph and character styles are maintained.
  • Layer structure is maintained across the entire file.
  • Tables are maintained (see caveats below).
  • external image links are maintained.
  • Images crossing the fold are kept intact as singular objects.
  • Text threading is maintained.
  • Named colour swatches are maintained.
  • Anchored objects are maintained (with some caveats due to Scribus' method of anchored objects).
  • Original images are maintained. Cropped content is accessible.

Scribus IDML import Disadvantages:

  • Visual fidelity is more or less maintained, but it depends heavily on the complexity of the original InDesign document.
    Some documents require heavy editing to restore the original's visual appearance.
  • Table styles are not maintained, nor is the visual formatting.
  • Guides are not maintained.

In short, PDFs lose the original source file's structure - completely. This can't be helped, because PDF is meant as a final publication format, and not really meant for any serious editing, although nowadays many users tend to view PDF as a type of intermediate format (which is rather a bad idea). Which explains why the Affinity Devs decided to focus on PDF import, rather than a solid IDML importer. That, and the fact that PDF being what it is, it retains the exact visual quality in most cases when imported through an existing PDF framework. Just less work. And initially a nicer workflow, because it retains the visual affinity (no pun intended). Probing a bit deeper, and we find that the PDF import workflow yields an utterly unstructured mess.

For structured long documentation and publications it goes without saying that PDF import is pretty much entirely useless for anything beyond slight and superficial editing work or simple brochures, flyers, and such. But we could do that work in Affinity Designer. Publisher is meant for more structured and complex jobs - at least I hope that is what the developers are striving for.

Even with its drawbacks and limitations in regards to keeping the visual fidelity, if I was asked to edit and heavily modify an existing technical manual of 100 pages and was given the choice between a PDF and an IDML file for import and conversion, I'd never even consider importing the PDF. I would open the IDML in Scribus (or another DTP app with IDML import like Quark), and keep the PDF as a visual reference. Because fixing visual effects and other outliers is FAR less work than attempting to do work with an unstructured and messy PDF conversion with no master pages, text styles, external links, tables, and the broken text threading. It would be an impossible job, and I would have to start from scratch. It is just not a feasible proposition.

Even for simple work, such as formatting a table, or a booklet with ~30 pages and lots of text, an IDML file will at the very least keep the structure and text threading. Yes, it may take extra work to fix the visual formatting, but a PDF imported in Affinity Publisher will have lost any clue as to its former structure: both text as well as images.

For any serious editing work IDML import is a must.

Now, the thing is that IDML is a reasonably simple to understand and interpretable open file format, and I was somewhat surprised (understatement) to discover that Publisher can't import them. If Publisher had had scripting integrated, I am sure someone in the community would have taken up the challenge to write an IDML importer, just as what happened with Scribus.

To me the lack of scripting in Publisher is a far greater issue and its main Achilles' heel. I am pretty sure, had scripting been available from the beginning, we would have already seen a first alpha version of an IDML importer. Yet the reality is sombering, and I do hope the lack of scripting will be fixed by version 2. The devs well and truly shot themselves in the feet when they decided to exclude a scripting API.

Great points Bones.  So is AP dead Jim? 

Kidding aside. One problem with importing IDML or PDF files is you if you have thousands of files and I mean THOUSANDS, you will have to converts. So keep your Adobe rental account open and sit there and export all your INDD (InDesign) files to IDML or PDF.  Everyone has different problems.  InDesign opened Quark files. As simple as that. That is the true Adobe InDesign killer. It's what killed quark. I am not sure what extra work or if it is even possible to open or convert a straight INDD file.  Is it a case of law or technically impossible? Adobe did it to Quark so I can't seeing it being just the law.  NOTE: My Mac will open a VEIW of an Adobe CC file on my computer without having CC. I do have CS4.  I remember downloading an app that made this possible but do not remember what it was. Or does the newer mac os (10.11 El Capitan in my case) show these views?  In my case one of our employees (my son in law) just needs to have the latest thing. I warned him not to upgrade to CC.  Well now I cannot open them in CS4.  But I can 'view' them and take a screen shot then redo the file for another use. (Get the info etc) 

So my point is are we that far away from reading straight INDD files? This would truly be the GREATEST !! 

Also note I open Quark files every week with InDesign.  Problem being, I"m sure APublisher will surely not open Quark files. Not the biggest worry, just more time formatting. 

Truly everyone has different uses here.  Opening PDF files in APublisher will not be a huge deal for my use. They open pretty good for me.  Once I have my main publications converted all there is, is my thousands of ads to convert and open, then tiddle up.  

One hint (in my case) was when I switched from Ready,Set,Go to InDesign I made PDFs of all the ads in Ready,Set,Go. Then placed them into my new InDesign publication. Any ads that needed changing I re-did at the time in InDesign.  So I had several publications to make the complete switch.  Anyone in the same circumstance here can try the same.  As with your huge document (Bones) you could use a PDF on the pages that did not change. Just an idea. I know this would be painful and perhaps impossible in your case. 

Dropbox will be my killer. Using CS4 with El Capitan is probably the last Mac OS that will run CS4. Dropbox dropped support for Snow Leopard and I had to upgrade to Mavericks, then Yosemite and now El Capitan. In my case I could use CS4 for many years if not for this and the fact its nice to keep up with the latest.  Coming from a Macintosh 512k and MacPublisher 1 to what it is now, I know how you just can't stay back there.  This is why Affinity Publisher is so exciting.  I hope it ends up better than InDesign.  So far it seems pretty prettyyyy, pretty good. 

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On 10/19/2018 at 10:11 PM, Whitedog said:

Though Lightroom started on the Mac, it, and, I presume, ACDSee work the same on Windows as they do on the Mac. ACDSee appears to be much like Adobe bridge with editing tools. Long ago Bridge was part of Photoshop but it slowed down the app so much that Adobe turned it into a separate unit. The catalog function in Lightroom does not seem to slow that app down much; it saves thumbnails so you can view things easily.

ACDSee is on sale again at $34.95, though that appears to be for the old version, 3.7.2, the demo download. Then there's upgrade pricing at $24.95 for version 4. Which, surprise, totals the same as Affinity Photo, at $50. Though this is off topic in a Publisher forum, it seems tangentially relevant.

The fact that you have to create an account to register the product before you can unlock it bothers some people. But it's in line with many professional apps, including those from Adobe. I simply opted out of their e-mail alerts program.

It looks as though the Mac numbering is out of kilter with Windows. Mine is 11.2 !  My only beef with Lightroom (apart from the fact that it's Adobe), was that the catalogue created thousands and thousands of small files which enormously slowed down file-synchronising. 

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19 minutes ago, BLKay said:

...

Also note I open Quark files every week with InDesign.  Problem being, I"m sure APublisher will surely not open Quark files. Not the biggest worry, just more time formatting. 

...

The last version of QXP files that ID can open directly is QXP version 4 files (might be v.3 files). That is circa 2000 Q files. There's been a few versions of Q since then and ID cannot open Q version 4/5 without a couple hundred dollar plug-in. Even if Serif opened up for plug-ins, I sincerely doubt Markzware will make a version for APub.

ID being able to open Q files wasn't what caused mass migration. Mostly it was due to Quark being slow to admit Apple was still going to be a thing and their arrogance throughout and following that period. Quark today is a completely different company.

Anyway, If someone using ID is contemplating moving to APub, they should begin packaging their files and include IDML. And there are scripts to do entire folders of ID files to IDML. That way once Serif adds in IDML import and that it meets a particular person's needs, they can at that time cut the cord. I cannot imagine IDML import will be complete when it does first arrive. The same advice applies for people desiring to move from ID to Viva Designer Pro, Scribus or QXP, too. It's never too early to start.

Being able to open INDD directly is a moving target, but isn't illegal per se (depends on how one ferrets out the spec). Adobe changes the file spec frequently, though. This is fine for a plug-in maker even though there is a bit of a lag time between an Adobe release and the widget maker's plug-in release. But it would take dedication for a company like Serif to keep on top of changes.

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41 minutes ago, BLKay said:

 

Also note I open Quark files every week with InDesign.  Problem being, I"m sure APublisher will surely not open Quark files. Not the biggest worry, just more time formatting. 

 

I sure hope that APublisher will open Quark files too. I, and a lot of other people, need that functionality.   Quark (2017) converts CS/CC Id, Ai, Ps MS Office and PDF's into native Quark documents. The only shortcoming that I've encountered is that the conversion will only do one pg/sprd at a time—no multi-page files. I'm told that multi-page functionality is coming.

lettergothic

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8 minutes ago, lettergothic said:

I sure hope that APublisher will open Quark files too. I, and a lot of other people, need that functionality. Quark (2017) converts CS/CC Id, Ai, Ps MS Office and PDF's into native Quark documents. The only shortcoming that I've encountered is that the conversion will only do one pg/spread at a time—no multi-page files. I'm told that multi-page functionality is coming.

lettergothic

Q can open IDML and isn't limited to a single page/spread. Using an incredibly inexpensive XTension, one can import hundreds of pages from a PDF (contiguous or separate ranges)and convert to native objects all at once as well...I did that for a manual where there weren't original files any longer.

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1 hour ago, MikeW said:

Q can open IDML and isn't limited to a single page/spread. Using an incredibly inexpensive XTension, one can import hundreds of pages from a PDF (contiguous or separate ranges)and convert to native objects all at once as well...I did that for a manual where there weren't original files any longer.

WOW! Good to know! What's the xtension?

Thanks,

lettergothic

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5 hours ago, Peter Jackson said:

It looks as though the Mac numbering is out of kilter with Windows. Mine is 11.2 !  My only beef with Lightroom (apart from the fact that it's Adobe), was that the catalogue created thousands and thousands of small files which enormously slowed down file-synchronising. 

No doubt that's because you have thousands and thousands of images in the catalog.

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4 hours ago, MikeW said:

The last version of QXP files that ID can open directly is QXP version 4 files (might be v.3 files). That is circa 2000 Q files. There's been a few versions of Q since then and ID cannot open Q version 4/5 without a couple hundred dollar plug-in. Even if Serif opened up for plug-ins, I sincerely doubt Markzware will make a version for APub.

ID being able to open Q files wasn't what caused mass migration. Mostly it was due to Quark being slow to admit Apple was still going to be a thing and their arrogance throughout and following that period. Quark today is a completely different company.

Anyway, If someone using ID is contemplating moving to APub, they should begin packaging their files and include IDML. And there are scripts to do entire folders of ID files to IDML. That way once Serif adds in IDML import and that it meets a particular person's needs, they can at that time cut the cord. I cannot imagine IDML import will be complete when it does first arrive. The same advice applies for people desiring to move from ID to Viva Designer Pro, Scribus or QXP, too. It's never too early to start.

Being able to open INDD directly is a moving target, but isn't illegal per se (depends on how one ferrets out the spec). Adobe changes the file spec frequently, though. This is fine for a plug-in maker even though there is a bit of a lag time between an Adobe release and the widget maker's plug-in release. But it would take dedication for a company like Serif to keep on top of changes.

Wow. Great reply. Good discussion.  Yes it is old Quark versions I am opening every week. 3 or 4. They still use it for that reason. So more people can open them. Time flys. 2000 wow. 

Its so much more difficult I’m sure to keep up with InDesign file transfer than photoshop. People here wondering why affinity photo does a great job of PS files.  

quark stares after Ready set go and was very similar.  Pagemajer was quite different. I hated it. Bombs. I was lucky to miss out on the quark.  InDesign was pretty good right from the start and got better quickly.  

$69 for affinity Publisher will make a big difference to me   An iPad version also very nice   Perfect timing   Every other page layout app I’ve tried is just Micky Duck  they just don’t get what Adobe gets   Affinty seems to get it,  this is not swift publisher or scribus   

 

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Q v. 3 was early 1990s. 4 hung around for a while. I used everything back then, too. I started with Ventura Publisher in 1989 doing technical manuals. 

No one I knew, from independent shops, ad agencies to publishers really used ID until the first CS versions. It was a joke at first.

Anyway, I have every confidence that Serif can do very well in the layout space.

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5 hours ago, BLKay said:

Great points Bones.  So is AP dead Jim? 

Kidding aside. One problem with importing IDML or PDF files is you if you have thousands of files and I mean THOUSANDS, you will have to converts. So keep your Adobe rental account open and sit there and export all your INDD (InDesign) files to IDML or PDF.  Everyone has different problems.  InDesign opened Quark files. As simple as that. That is the true Adobe InDesign killer. It's what killed quark. I am not sure what extra work or if it is even possible to open or convert a straight INDD file.  Is it a case of law or technically impossible? Adobe did it to Quark so I can't seeing it being just the law.  NOTE: My Mac will open a VEIW of an Adobe CC file on my computer without having CC. I do have CS4.  I remember downloading an app that made this possible but do not remember what it was. Or does the newer mac os (10.11 El Capitan in my case) show these views?  In my case one of our employees (my son in law) just needs to have the latest thing. I warned him not to upgrade to CC.  Well now I cannot open them in CS4.  But I can 'view' them and take a screen shot then redo the file for another use. (Get the info etc) 

So my point is are we that far away from reading straight INDD files? This would truly be the GREATEST !! 

Also note I open Quark files every week with InDesign.  Problem being, I"m sure APublisher will surely not open Quark files. Not the biggest worry, just more time formatting. 

Truly everyone has different uses here.  Opening PDF files in APublisher will not be a huge deal for my use. They open pretty good for me.  Once I have my main publications converted all there is, is my thousands of ads to convert and open, then tiddle up.  

One hint (in my case) was when I switched from Ready,Set,Go to InDesign I made PDFs of all the ads in Ready,Set,Go. Then placed them into my new InDesign publication. Any ads that needed changing I re-did at the time in InDesign.  So I had several publications to make the complete switch.  Anyone in the same circumstance here can try the same.  As with your huge document (Bones) you could use a PDF on the pages that did not change. Just an idea. I know this would be painful and perhaps impossible in your case. 

Dropbox will be my killer. Using CS4 with El Capitan is probably the last Mac OS that will run CS4. Dropbox dropped support for Snow Leopard and I had to upgrade to Mavericks, then Yosemite and now El Capitan. In my case I could use CS4 for many years if not for this and the fact its nice to keep up with the latest.  Coming from a Macintosh 512k and MacPublisher 1 to what it is now, I know how you just can't stay back there.  This is why Affinity Publisher is so exciting.  I hope it ends up better than InDesign.  So far it seems pretty prettyyyy, pretty good. 

I'm running macOS 10.12.6 Sierra and Photoshop CS4 appears to work just fine. I keep it around in order to use my old Epson scanning software, which is 32 bit. VueScan, which is 64 bit now has a plugin for Photoshop CC, but I've had issues with it from time to time. For simple scanning Epson Scan is sufficient. I haven't yet tested it in High Sierra or Mojave. I imagine I will eventually. In any case, for CS4 you don't have to stick to El Capitan, which is now out from under the Apple security umbrella. If that doesn't bother you, El Cap is a perfectly good version of OS 10. As for InDesign, the oldest version I still have on my Mac is CS5. But I use IDCS6. CS5 still works, though. High Sierra is said to have some issues with InDesign, but as I said, I haven't tested it yet. YMMV. The real cut-off for 32 bit apps will come with macOS 10.15 next year, which will be 64 bit only. But no one has to upgrade. 

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My main use is InDesign. I use photoshop but could do just as well with photoshop elements at $100 or affinty photo.  

Adobe us quirky with what works now with certain MAC OS.  Especially InDesign.  If there was and Indesgn Elements it would probably do fir what I need. Now that Affinity is here to save the day who cares about adobe. 

Adobe  kilked Superpaint which was the best drawing app ever. So :p ~~~~~ adobe 

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As for why people left Quark, I'm not sure why that happened. I tried InDesign back in the day because it was the newest thing on the block, before Adobe had lost so much of its own luster. But InDesign wasn't originally a Quark killer. It took years for it to come up to Quark's capabilities. The main issue with Quark XPress for me was that you needed expensive extensions to do things that should have been built into the program. There may have been reasons for that, to avoid application bloat for one thing; people could get just the extensions they needed and avoid the rest. And, well, Photoshop used extensions as well, so it wasn't as if that was a new concept. In any case, my quibbles probably weren't determinative. Having learned PageMaker and Quark XPress in school, it was relatively easy to teach myself InDesign. And I bought a few books for reference, as any good student would.

Perhaps the main reason that Quark XPress faded was the ever-expanding Adobe ecosystem. Many a competitor was subsumed to that ecosystem. Subsumed and then killed off. The only app I remember that Adobe invested any real capital in was Dreamweaver. Meantime, WordPress is rapidly taking over web design jobs.

If I remember correctly, the trouble Quark had was with corporate leadership, which may have caused more trouble in the market than new leadership could come back from. Quark was always an expensive application, though inflation has cut into that substantially. Unlike with Adobe CC, though, if you are in school you can still get a student version of Quark (for under $100) and continue to use it after you move on. The question is, of course, how widely Quark is still taught in schools.

I guess the moral is that bad leadership can ruin even a successful business. Still, Quark is hanging in there and remains competitive, in capability at least. The last version of Quark I have on my Mac is 8.5, which is way old. But since I no longer use it, upgrading has not seemed necessary.

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1 hour ago, BLKay said:

My main use is InDesign. I use photoshop but could do just as well with photoshop elements at $100 or affinty photo.  

Adobe us quirky with what works now with certain MAC OS.  Especially InDesign.  If there was and Indesgn Elements it would probably do fir what I need. Now that Affinity is here to save the day who cares about adobe. 

Adobe  kilked Superpaint which was the best drawing app ever. So :p ~~~~~ adobe 

Recently upgraded to High Sierra and both InDesign and PS CS5 work fine. Only quirk is that they both do an unexpected quit after you quit the app (as in Sierra). Everything works fine, everything is saved, but it does throw the dialog. Everyone using it just ignores the notification. 

Some people are reporting that CS5 is also working on Mojave, but we're not brave enough to try that yet! 

That said, we look forward to migrating to Affinity products in order to enjoy newer technology, better interface, and decent pricing. But like many, we do need to import our massive catalog of client InDesign work since much of what we do is based on previous client work. And in many cases, opening a pdf doesn't bring in things properly for a more complex document (as discussed in numerous threads). But we're hoping that one way or another Affinity will figure this thing out and figure out a way to allow us to do our work using APub. But besides ID importing, we also require web links for our pdf exports since so much "printed" work today is distributed electronically as a pdf, thus requiring web links. But we're again hoping that issue gets resolved as well.

--------------------

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020 i7 72GB) • AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB • macOS Ventura
MacBook Pro, 13", M1 2020 • 16 GB • macOS Ventura
iPad Air 2022

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3 hours ago, Whitedog said:

As for why people left Quark, I'm not sure why that happened.[..]

Perhaps the main reason that Quark XPress faded was the ever-expanding Adobe ecosystem. Many a competitor was subsumed to that ecosystem. Subsumed and then killed off. The only app I remember that Adobe invested any real capital in was Dreamweaver. Meantime, WordPress is rapidly taking over web design jobs.

If I remember correctly, the trouble Quark had was with corporate leadership, which may have caused more trouble in the market than new leadership could come back from. Quark was always an expensive application, though inflation has cut into that substantially. Unlike with Adobe CC, though, if you are in school you can still get a student version of Quark (for under $100) and continue to use it after you move on. The question is, of course, how widely Quark is still taught in schools.

I guess the moral is that bad leadership can ruin even a successful business. Still, Quark is hanging in there and remains competitive, in capability at least. The last version of Quark I have on my Mac is 8.5, which is way old. But since I no longer use it, upgrading has not seemed necessary.

There were a couple of  very simple reasons why Quark lost its pole position. Remember that Quark ruled the world of DTP at the time, but lost it in only a couple of years. A good article on this can be read here: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/quarkxpress-the-demise-of-a-design-desk-darling/

From a personal point of view: Quark was an absolutely horrible company to deal with. I taught the program at the time, and EVERYONE, EVERY SINGLE student and company I spoke and worked with complained bitterly about their experiences with that company. They were haughty as heck as a company. "Memento Mori": a fundamental truth which was entirely lost on Quark back then. Not anymore, though: they seem to have learned a very harsh lesson.

 

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4 hours ago, Whitedog said:

As for why people left Quark, I'm not sure why that happened. I tried InDesign back in the day because it was the newest thing on the block, before Adobe had lost so much of its own luster. But InDesign wasn't originally a Quark killer. It took years for it to come up to Quark's capabilities. The main issue with Quark XPress for me was that you needed expensive extensions to do things that should have been built into the program. There may have been reasons for that, to avoid application bloat for one thing; people could get just the extensions they needed and avoid the rest. And, well, Photoshop used extensions as well, so it wasn't as if that was a new concept. In any case, my quibbles probably weren't determinative. Having learned PageMaker and Quark XPress in school, it was relatively easy to teach myself InDesign. And I bought a few books for reference, as any good student would.

Perhaps the main reason that Quark XPress faded was the ever-expanding Adobe ecosystem. Many a competitor was subsumed to that ecosystem. Subsumed and then killed off. The only app I remember that Adobe invested any real capital in was Dreamweaver. Meantime, WordPress is rapidly taking over web design jobs.

If I remember correctly, the trouble Quark had was with corporate leadership, which may have caused more trouble in the market than new leadership could come back from. Quark was always an expensive application, though inflation has cut into that substantially. Unlike with Adobe CC, though, if you are in school you can still get a student version of Quark (for under $100) and continue to use it after you move on. The question is, of course, how widely Quark is still taught in schools.

I guess the moral is that bad leadership can ruin even a successful business. Still, Quark is hanging in there and remains competitive, in capability at least. The last version of Quark I have on my Mac is 8.5, which is way old. But since I no longer use it, upgrading has not seemed necessary.

It was the summer of 2004 and we visited a large press corporation to see what our new publication would go through.  A tour of the transcon site in Vancouver.  The chief there gave me a training DVD for CS2.  He strongly suggested adobe over quark.  I bought CS 3 and got 4 A’s a free upgrade. 

For me what killed quark was the expense, the fact photoshop was adobe and would work closer with InDesign than quark. To this day I’m not sure that is true.  A lie. Not that I know what quark and photoshop would be like.  Just the wording adobe used (which I forget) an bout how the software worked much like each other. A lie. The three - InDesign - photoshop - illustrator are very different in my opinion. So different I knew instantly it doesn’t matter.  Perhaps CC is better.  Another reason to be excited about affinity. Hoping the shortcuts font need too much tinkering between the 3 and the tools and menus are in much of the same places.  I am looking forward to it.  It’s like the old days again. Finding a new tool for my job. 

In many ways some of the first software was better than today. Easier to learn.  Aldo’s Typetwister was a toy. Killed when adobe bought it. Much easier than warping text in illustrator.  there is nothing like good old superpaint for simple line drawings. Typestyler was and is awesome if you’ve never tried it. Like a secret weapon for design.  All genius software that needs no manual. (But of course helps) 

I’m hoping affinty is a company with the same genius.  I do own affinty design for iPad but haven’t had much of a chance to fiddle with it. The videos look amazing.

I tried the latest quark. In my opinion they are still behind. It still has that ‘cartoon l’ feel. Lacking some InDesign magic.  But they are on the right path. On sale for $399 right now. 

Ready set go was $199 when I bought it in 1989?  So I guess 399 is about right  

69 for APublisher is “buy one for everyone in the office”  it may take until version 2 as it did with InDesign 

End of ramble  :)

 

 

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8 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Not anymore, though: they seem to have learned a very harsh lesson.

But it's too late. The beneficiary was Adobe. But that didn't stop Adobe from repeating the same mistakes now. It's probably the fate of every major capitalist company:
Idealism ► Sympathy ► Success ► Greed ► Stagnation ► Rescue attempt ► Case

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8 minutes ago, Michail said:

But it's too late. The beneficiary was Adobe. But that didn't stop Adobe from repeating the same mistakes now. It's probably the fate of every major capitalist company:
Idealism ► Sympathy ► Success ► Greed ► Stagnation ► Rescue attempt ► Case

While it maybe is too late to recapture the 90% market share Quark once had, Quark is alive and well. Thriving is a good word.

Which is one of several reasons that Serif has a good opportunity in the marketplace. Competition is good for all the companies not at the top of the mountain. 

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On 10/28/2018 at 12:26 AM, BLKay said:

[...]

In many ways some of the first software was better than today. Easier to learn.  Aldo’s Typetwister was a toy. Killed when adobe bought it. Much easier than warping text in illustrator.  there is nothing like good old superpaint for simple line drawings. [...]

End of ramble  :)

I think our memories often deceive us into thinking that things were 'better' or 'easier' in the past. This seems to be part of the 'human condition' with vast swathes of the population pretending the world was preferable to live in only 50 years ago.

Software from the 80s and 90s was, let's agree, much more limited in regards to functionality, and thus easier to master. And hardware capabilities were quite limited as well at the time. I recall being limited to 32 colours from a palette of 4096 and working on a 320x256 screen resolution. I also remember feeling mightily impressed by the sheer graphical power of the Amiga. The first time my eyes feasted on Defender of the Crown? In my memory nothing tops that. From a nostalgic point of view the Amiga will always be my first true computing 'love', with the C64 and Amstrad CPC sharing the second spot.

One application I often see mentioned here and other forums is Freehand, and the assertion that Freehand is still better than current vector drawing software. I worked with and taught Freehand a long time ago. It was good at the time, but certainly not better than current software - the GUI alone is old-fashioned and clunky. Functionality is okay. But again nostalgia plays an important role. That, and animosity towards Adobe for killing the software.

When I compare drawing/painting software from back then (Deluxe Paint anyone? ;-) ) with the current Krita or ClipStudio... No competition, of course. Not even in terms of usability. Deluxe Paint or Superpaint didn't even have layers. I can't imagine working without layers nowadays.

Some ancient tech never grows old, tough: I always carry pencils and a notepad around with me for a quick sketch on the road. I tried tablets for a while, but they're awkward, run out of battery, and break when dropped. The screens don't work well in a sunny environment. Drawing on glass felt completely wrong (I even wrap paper around my large Wacom). So after a couple of weeks I returned to ye old pencil and notepad. The 'screen' is always on, the memory never fails (drawings cannot fade away into digital oblivion). Works great even in sun light. Drop it from a ten storey building, and it still works. :D

 

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15 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

I think our memories often deceive us into thinking that things were 'better' or 'easier' in the past. This seems to be part of the 'human condition' with vast swathes of the population pretending the world was preferable to live in only 50 years ago.

Software from the 80s and 90s was, let's agree, much more limited in regards to functionality, and thus easier to master. And hardware capabilities were quite limited as well at the time. I recall being limited to 32 colours from a palette of 4096 and working on a 320x256 screen resolution. I also remember feeling mightily impressed by the sheer graphical power of the Amiga. The first time my eyes feasted on Defender of the Crown? In my memory nothing tops that. From a nostalgic point of view the Amiga will always be my first true computing 'love', with the C64 and Amstrad CPC sharing the second spot.

One application I often see mentioned here and other forums is Freehand, and the assertion that Freehand is still better than current vector drawing software. I worked with and taught Freehand a long time ago. It was good at the time, but certainly not better than current software - the GUI alone is old-fashioned and clunky. Functionality is okay. But again nostalgia plays an important role. That, and animosity towards Adobe for killing the software.

When I compare drawing/painting software from back then (Deluxe Paint anyone? ;-) ) with the current Krita or ClipStudio... No competition, of course. Not even in terms of usability. Deluxe Paint or Superpaint didn't even have layers. I can't imagine working without layers nowadays.

Some ancient tech never grows old, tough: I always carry pencils and a notepad around with me for a quick sketch on the road. I tried tablets for a while, but they're awkward, run out of battery, and break when dropped. The screens don't work well in a sunny environment. Drawing on glass felt completely wrong (I even wrap paper around my large Wacom). So after a couple of weeks I returned to ye old pencil and notepad. The 'screen' is always on, the memory never fails (drawings cannot fade away into digital oblivion). Works great even in sun light. Drop it from a ten storey building, and it still works. :D

 

Right on. Nostalgia is overrated. ;-)

I started with Photoshop 2.5 on a Mac. It was great because I'd never done graphics on a computer before. But it doesn't hold a candle to Photoshop today. And though Photoshop now is orders of magnitude more complex than Photoshop 2.5, it's just as easy to learn because I've been using Photoshop for 20 years. The learning curve is relative.

Which is why I was able to teach myself InDesign because I'd learned Pagemaker and Quark XPress first—in a school environment. Just so many people will find Publisher easy to learn because they've developed expertise in other layout programs.

Now, if you are starting out to learn any of these programs from scratch, they will be difficult to master. A class or two at your local junior collage is easily the best way to learn, in my opinion. Even though a how-to book might suffice, you can't ask it questions, or get inspiration and motivation as you can from fellow students. I have plenty of how-to books but I use them for reference once I've left the classroom. In a class, you learn from other student's mistakes as well as your own. By the way, avoid crash courses. They skip a lot to get the job done in a limited time frame. Unless you're super smart, like most people you can't absorb information fast enough. Which is why college quarters and semesters are as long as they are. It takes time and effort for most people to learn new stuff. Personally I prefer semesters. YMMV. If learning comes easy to you, that's cool, but you're not most people.

In practical terms, old software just can't cut it today. If you do layout and design for a living, you need something approaching the latest software. That's why people keep their nostalgia in the basement under the cobwebs.

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On 10/24/2018 at 3:14 AM, taizo said:

Interoperability with INDD files would be a MASSIVE feature and benefit for Publisher, not only in terms of wooing InDesign users but also with making it as painless as possible to incorporate Publisher into workflows. I'm sure there are a billion fixes that need to be done, but having that ready for launch would be a nuclear bomb!

InDesign integration is absolutely essential, otherwise Affinity might as well pack up and go home. InDesign is used by such a huge proportion of the market that it's inevitable that Publisher users are going to have to be able to read and write InDesign files to be able to work effectively in the wider design ecosystem. Integrate with InDesign and users will start to migrate from Adobe's very expensive subscription model. Fail to and no one will buy it 'cause they'll be isolated from the rest of the design community.

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