Quark & InDesign
 

Wow, now I really don't know what to do. One of my thoughts was to start learning InDesign. I know some print shops are using it now....many of the ones I use for jobs aren't even up and running with Quark 6. I feel ripped off with my new G5, OSX and all my fancy new software.

I'm having to use 4.1 to get work done. Also wondering if I made a huge expensive mistake by sticking with a Mac instead of switching over to the PC world.

Any designers out there who feel my pain?

Re: Quark & InDesign
 

I would stick with what you were using because it is dependable and it works! If you can do your work out of classic mode that's your best option, also getting a copy of Quark 5 would not hurt either as it's just as dependenble as version 4 but with more options.

Re: Quark & InDesign
 

What output devices are you using to produce the work and what kind is it? i.e., laser proofs, film, plates...

What I do
 

I do print design for a number of clients. End products are newsletters, brochures and other collateral pieces. I give a disk to a printer and they print it. All my work is 4-color.

"Also wondering if I made a huge expensive mistake by sticking with a Mac instead of switching over to the PC world."

As one who sees both worlds, I do not think so. When the crunch happens, you do not want to run into an OS or hardware hell that a PC tends to produce. If I have a problem with my PC at work, I can call our IT department and have it fixed in a half day. If I have a problem with my Mac, I can post in MacOSXHints and Apple Discussions and have a solution in an hour or two--by myself.

We have a very large Graphics department where I work. Our two large custom magazines are created completely via inDesign (on Macs). I talked to the layout artist and she says it is far easier and far more stable than anything else out there.

Quick question. When submitting 4-color documents for printing, isn't it possible to use Acrobat for this? I do professional CD design, Graphics does the 4-color covers, so I do not know. I have submitted 4-color items before, but I used TIFF files for this.

I know you can use Acrobat for this now. That is another program that I need to learn well. I know how to create a quick PDF for previewing, but don't know how to do it to send the high res file to press. I'm not sure how you send all your fonts, images and info on-line, yet make the file small enough to go through.

Thanks for making me feel good about my Mac purchase decision. I'll keep plugging along.

What I have been trying to perfect is using Indesign for our film output. I don't don't like to create in Indesign because it is not as user freindly as Quark, so I have been exporting the files out of Quark 6 as CMYK PDF's and importing them into Indesign to take advantage of Indesign's trapping option which works great and you don't need to spend the extra $5000.00 on a trapping plug for your RIP, But we are using a XITRON Navigator RIP version 5.1.2 and the only way to get a file from Indesign to the RIP is save the file as postscript and drag it over the thr RIP and print it from the RIP software, but this only seems to work one time and the RIP becomes unuseable until it is restarted.

Wow. There is so much to know about RIP software and it is quite sensative to platform/printer/OS sensativities. I have a neighbor who tried to get his very large HP to print from his Mac and boy it was like pulling teeth for him. Yes, when it comes to printing through RIPs, PCs are still out in front.

What can Apple do? Seems like they need to come up with some RIP software that will adapt to a slew of the popular printers. Otherwise they may lose their print market.

Again, ranting from a somewhat ignorant POV.

I posted this in another post for you to look through--perhaps it will help you?
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/sh...b=7&o=&fpart=1

I've used both Mac and PC RIPs for ages, and don't necessarily agree that PC RIPs are out in front. Both platforms can crash if flaky Postscript gets sent, and you can get good and awful RIPs on both platforms (Agfa Viper, anyone? Yecccch).

As for the original post, I'm in the same boat. I do design work for clients using Mac and PC, and have found that the easiest solution is to save the finished layout as an EPS. Then open it in Illustrator (which parses the Postscript so it's a check that the code is ok), convert fonts to outlines & then save as PDF. It's as failsafe as it can get, and Illustrator will let you save it in high enough res for output.

Gaving said all that it's a real nuisance to have to do, and it adds time to the job - hardly ideal......

Dave

I can see doing that, but I often have clients ask to make last minute edits on press...in which fonts are needed instead of outlines. I guess I'll have to figure out my own system. Thanks

Sad but so true, there are no "easy one solutions" fixes all when dealing with print production.

<trying to look on the bright side> Yeah, but if your clients have signed the job off (and I make damn sure mine do) then surely any alterations are chargeable - so at least you're earning, even though it's a nuisance....

Dave

Seems to me that Adobe has addressed these issues via Acrobat 6. Have you folk tried to hash this out via the Adobe forums?

http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html

I personally would not be satisfied until Acrobat exported a CMYK file as pure postscript that even the most finicky RIP will handle.

User friendly?
 

There are as many opinions on InDesign and Quark as there are ways to screw up color printing. Since this seems to be a pretty broad thread, here's my two cents on this thought:

I'd be interested to hear what other have to say, but my experience has been the complete opposite. I find InDesign to be much more user friendly than Quark. This is especially true for people who have extensive experience with Photoshop and Illustrator because so many of the interface elements are carried over. (For example the Align elements palette is basically the same in Illustrator and InDesign). As far as creating PDFs from InDesign, File > Export provides a simple option.

Other thoughts?

InDesign vs Quark 6
 

I work for a magazine publisher and we're currently in OS 9 but making the move to OS X. We were all set with one of our magazines as a test. It would be built entirely in Quark 6 to test our proposed set up. What a nightmare!

Quark 6 failed every test we gave it. It crashed converting Quark 4.11 documents. It crashed placing new EPS files. It crashed trying to move objects around (particularly painful was having an EPS with a clipping path - say a logo - on top of a picture box.). Four machines were set up with Panther and Quark 6 (yes, we did the update to 6.1 - no improvement) and the ONLY thing in the CrashReporter log was Quark 6 - 27 crashes on one Mac alone!

Eventually we limped to the end of our schedule and got the magazine out - but not without some serious problems - all related to Quark 6 (as it's affectionately known here, 'Quark Sucks.1')

But because we've always been Quark users, we were reluctantly determined to go ahead with the full migration of our other 45 Macs to Quark 6. Then something happened - a demo by Adobe. We'd already put in to purchase the Professional Creative Suite and Adobe agreed to come down and give our company a personal demo of all the new features. And the last thing he showed was InDesign. Imagine our surprise when we walked out of that demo competely in awe of InDesign. It did everything we wanted and more - and not once during the demo did the program crash!

So now we have our work cut out for us. We have to convince everyone else that moving to InDesign is the best move. There are a lot of feet draggers that don't want us to even move out of OS 9! But we're forging ahead and gathering as much ammo as possible. Luckily we RIP all of our pages internally and send imposed files to our printers.

Having been a Quark user since 1993 I've been disappointed by the moves Quark has made. Their customer service is non-existant. Quark 5 appealled to about 5% of the users - everyone else just stayed in 4. And 6 feels like a patch job, not a program worth $900. Unstable and unworthy of our upgrade money.

Re: InDesign vs Quark 6
 

I agree with as I am a loyal Quark user. I would love indesign IF it were as easy to move elements around as it is in quark. I hate the step and repeat feature, the way it does'nt snap to the guides, inability to move through layers without going to a sub menu or having move the layers out of the way to get to one you want, and last but the most important is that it is totally incompatible with our XITRON RIP. Fix these problems and I would switch over. I could think of some gripes if I sat and thought about it.

I love Sad05's "in-the-trenches" review of Quark and inDesign. And B&C reminded me of my experience with a new WYSIWYG HTML editor called CyberStudio. I wrote email after email of items and control that this new product needed and I was suprised to find that the company, GoLive adapted 70-80% of my ideas and suggestions. After about a year, they had a truly wonderful product called CyberStudio 2 that they eventually sold to Adobe (their editor attempt, PageMill was sadly lacking) and CyberStudio then took on the company name "GoLive".

My advice to you B&C is to stick with what works, but assume you are going to go OSX and inDesign in the future. Do some heavy communication with Adobe. Write them a snail mail, go to a show, talk with reps, call their number and talk with the techs on the Adobe forums and tell them what inDesign needs. They designed it to be a Quark killer, and to do that, they need to know what it is missing.

Actually, I am really suprised by some of your critiques of inDesign. Are you sure the latest version cannot do these simple items?

I'll throw in one more vote for using InDesign. I've used everying from Ready, Set, Go on a Mac Plus to Frame, to Pagemaker (Aldus & Adobe) to Quark on a G4, and several others in-between, and now that InDesign has matured, I'm not having any regrets at all in sticking with it.

I'm firmly in the camp of those who render a PDF and ship that off to the Printer that the client has chosen. No surplus files to lose or coordinate... They work great for mailing proofs to clients too.

But does anyone else here who uses a RIPPING device have problems with Indesign CS? I don't here much from the print industry out there just the designers who don't have to deal with printing their work.

We have run Indesign CS through our in-house RIP without problems, it is a Brisque RIP. Our current workflow is supplying PS files to the Brisque which processes the files and generates either PDFs or PS files (depending on which printer the files are going to) which are then imposed in Preps.

B&C, I've honestly never heard of your RIP before, XITRON. My experience is limited to Brisque and RAMpage.

I've been to a demo show and saw the rampage setup and really liked it. but our company felt it was too pricey to even consider buying it. The XITRON is a harlequin based RIP thier web site www.xitron.com. I have never seen a Brisque or even heard of it before, maybe a you could give me thier web address to check it out? Let me know.:D

The Brisque is from CREO and you can check it out here!
http://www.creo.com/global/products/...ue/default.htm

Great information
 

Please keep us posted once you are in production with your magazine. I wonder if Adobe would come give my company a demo. (I work for Continental Airlines). We only have a handful of mac users, but many adobe product users on the PC side. No where near as many machines as you.

How did you go about getting them to come?

Try calling them. Tell them you want to switch but are hesitant unless you can see it in action. Who knows, you might get lucky. I'm sure they would want to put Continental on their user list.

feel chipped
 

I just received my new computer (g5). Happy as all hell I got it all set-up in a matter of min.s.
Now it stands there right in front of me. I receive **** loads of work (in quark 4) and have to make changes for canada... I have my old version of quark 5, but I can not instal it on this machine, I need os9... which does not come with this machine.

I want to get my work done, and having a speedster of a computer is great. but Quark 6 sucks for not letting me safe as quark 4 files!

If anyone has a solution.
fire away
J

Well it's true you don't have OS 9 bootable, but you have Classic mode, right?

I haven't tried this but it should be possible to launch Classic (from System Preferences) and install/run Quark 4 or 5.

Also, a co-worker of mine reported an Xtention to save back down to 4 from 6. I'll ask him where he saw it.

Newbie Questions
 

I'm keen for my client to upgrade to Mac OS X from OS 9 however, QuarkXpress appears to be the standard in the UK, London. Until we find a replacement or buy-in to a stable OS X Quark - which appears not to exist! : (

Would they be able to *reliably* convert InDesign files to QuarkXpress 4 for print jobs (printers all appear to use Quark 4/5) without any data loss?

Would they able to import their previously created QuarkXpress files into InDesign without any data loss?

Cheers for any help you can provide!

Phil

You can open Quark Files, work with them, save them as InDesign without losing data.

If you want to convert your client to using InDesign, OSX would work for them. However, any new files they create should be done in InDesign or Quark 6. There are a lot of font problems with Quark 6. InDesign handles font issues better. I don't have any real life experience with it, though...

Unless your client has to switch over to OSX, Quark 6 does not offer anything worth the hassle than what the previous versions do.

I'm going to learn InDesign so I no longer have to use Quark 4. I wasted a lot of money on Quark 6, since font problems are numerous and not worth my client's time for me to fix them.

The other problem with InDesign is that not all printers and service bureaus are using it, yet.

I run OSX for other applications (Photoshop, Illustrator) and create in native when using Quark.

Biggest problem is with font management.

Save As.. .
 

Cheers for your reply! Do you know if you can 'Save As...' Quark 4/5 from InDesign?

Cheers,

Phil

I don't know that. I work on OS9 at work (Which is where I am now). I can check for you if you want later and respond. I think you can save as....I'll check for you later if no one else responds to you.

Re: feel chipped
 

I can speak from experience that XPress 6 sucks bad, and Quark Co. hates its customers as much as it loves money. That said, I have to express surprise when you say that your G5 doesn't come with Classic. I install about one G5 a fortnight and each one comes with Classic installed. If you delete it for some reason, you should be able to reinstall it from your Software Restore CD. This link may help.

Someone earlier mentioned that their Xitron RIP (effectively a Harlequin ScriptWorks RIP) doesn't like InDesign files. This also surprises me, since I have installed Xitrons into mixed InDesign/XPress environments with ease. I should also point out that dropping a Postscript file into a hotfolder is the preferred input method for the Harlequin RIP. Printing directly to an AppleTalk printer does not fully support all the RIP's options, and is deprecated. It's no shocker that the Xitron insists on PS files from InDesign, rather than PS streamed over AppleTalk.

And no, you cannot export Quark files from InDesign CS.

My $.02.
 

I switched to InDesign 2.0 over a year ago, and I have never looked back. Quark Express is a joke. Unfortunately A LOT of printers still use it. I'm getting around it by using Acrobat 5.0 to save everything as a PDF. So far I haven't had any problems (knock wood), but I don't regret dumping Quark... EVER.

Re: Re: feel chipped
 

That someone was me and dropping the postscript files from Indesign CS into a hotfolder is the only way I can get them to print, however after the file is printed the Xitron RIP will not accept any other files until it has been restarted. Any ideas on why? In fact ever since I sent the very first file from Indesign the Xitron rip has not acted correctly from then on. We know get into where the Xitron will work fine from one CPU printing to it, but when another one prints to it the Xitron errors out and the program has to restarted for it to function again. I don't know the extent of your experience with the Xitron Rips but we are using Navigator 5.1 rev2 running on a Pentium 3 600mHz running NT Server. If you could help us out or make some suggestions we would certainly like to hear from you.

I won't pretend to know what the problem is, but I can tell you that the Harlequin v5.1 is the first version to support Postscript Level 3, which is all InDesign uses. The ScriptWorks RIP is not an Adobe RIP, so it's possible there's a latent incompatibility in 5.1 which is revealed with InDesign.

Although I have spoken to a couple of trade houses using older versions of the HQ RIP with InDesign, I've never heard of the problems you describe. So sorry, but no help here. The exact error message from the RIP monitor might help.

Error Message
 

I know that one one of messages that we get alot when printing from Quark is the "No process at the end of pipeline". I have to get back to you on the other message when I see it come up again.

Re: Re: InDesign vs Quark 6
 

B&C,

In InDesign, to select objects in a layer beneath the top layer, you hit the command key when selecting the object, then click down through the layers with the command key selected.

I'm not sure what you mean by objects not snapping to guides. InDesign has had that feature since version 1.

Re: Re: InDesign vs Quark 6
 

B&C,

In InDesign, to select objects in a layer beneath the top layer, you hit the command key when selecting the object, then click down through the layers with the command key selected.

I'm not sure what you mean by objects not snapping to guides. InDesign has had that feature since version 1.

B&C Printing is missing so much by refusing to try and learn to use InDesign. Like so many others, we were also Quark users who tried ID just to find out what it had to offer. We never went back to Quark, especially when it inexplicably shut down its user forum. If B&C is into printing, he/she could always get help from the InDesign User to User Forum. The folks out there are very helpful and friendly. They know what they're saying because they are also (or used to be) Quark users.

I do use IndesignCS, I'm not knocking it, It has been improved allot from the previous version and from Pagemaker, However we cannot abandon Quark as we must have and use all the major type & design programs on the market as we can't dictate what kind of files our customers send us. If your a designer you can be one demensional, if your a printer you have to multi-demensional and right now my problem is that IndesignCS is a major pain in the @#$ when it comes to getting a file to our Xitron RIP. So far have yet to hear from anyone using a Xitron on this forum (except one, and they would not answer any of my questions). So that's my 2 cents worth, I did'nt want to get into who's program is better than anothers. I just wanted to get some solutions to the problems I'm having with Quark6 and fonts and IndesignCS and Rips. Please post a link to the forum you spoke of. Thanks

B&C, have you tried posting your questions in Adobe's InDesign forum? Or your RIPs forum?

We're attempting a test of InDesign with one of our titles next month. I'm hoping all will go smoothly enough to justify leaving Quark behind. Maybe we'll use it in Classic mode if we *have* to....

Do you know Quark had the audacity to tell me that they didn't 'support' having both 4 and 6 on the same machine?!?! What? They acknowledge the problem we had trying to have 4 for OS 9 and 6 for OS X on the same machine and dual boot when needed. (And for the record, they were different serial numbers - not even the same serial number to violate their copyright.) So it's not like you can dual boot if you wanted to ... it's all or nothing with them.

OK, B&C Printing. Here's the link URL that will lead you directly to the ID Users Forum.

<b>http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.ee6b330</b>

Many of those in that forum are also from the printing press community and I'm sure some of them may have an answer/suggestion to your question. You will be surprised that the folks there are even willing to answer your queries about Quark Xpress out of sympathy for those who have been orphaned.

Be forewarned, though, to avoid whining or flaming InDesign. Present your problems clearly and you will get solutions.

BTW, your complaint about selecting objects in a layer beneath the top layer, etc. are not accurate, as Ancient Designer had noted.

Good luck.

I presume you mean me.

Which questions did I not answer?

Did you check your private messages?
 

Did you check your private messages?

No I did not. I don't follow this board closely enough to keep up with private messages. Nor did I see any specific questions for me to answer nor any error messages. Feel free to post information in this forum. I'll answer to the best of my ability as time allows. No promises, though.

whoops
 

So I guess I shouldn't of got our finance department to stump up too much money to go from Quark 5 - 6?!?

I guess I should get a demo of indesign and try it out,
Is it easy to pick up how to use it, I'm in the middle of a huge project at the moment involving loads of handbooks and related leaflets and posters... maybe I should try and lay one out in indesign
is it hugely expensive like quark or is there good deals for small users (4 seats)
also my usual printers are quarkers, but I guess I can send them pdfs
Cheers all
Joe

upgrade
 

After a year or so of contemplating, my company is making the leap to the adobe cs suite. We are relatively small 25 employees, but will be doing the upgrade from 9 to OSX and the adobe CS suite over a weekend.

I have been working on Indesign for a couple of weeks and couldn't be happier. Although there are little things like importing layers from quark that I would like to see, it is very nice! One other thing, making fractions could be a little easier too! Although this might be able to be worked around with a simple character style. Not sure yet have to get into a big book with it to test!

Let me know if you guys have any small tricks!!!


Jeff

If you are in the middle of a big project, stick with Quark until it is completed. Use this time to get used to inDesign (basically-don't let your customer suffer for your learning time). Use one of the project items as your test bed to see how it works and outputs. Stay very close to that Adobe forum!

http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html

trouble!
 

Well being that I am the entire IT department, the powers that be want it done all at once! So what we are doing is meeting next week to schedule all jobs that may have to go out the week following the update. Hopefull we can punch out all time sensative jobs next week, and have a full week for any problems that may come up.

I have a major question though. One of our remote artist said she had problem installing Panther on a G4? Said she had to basically do a low level format, not sure why you wouldn't start with a low level format, but any suggestions out there?

We will be installing panther on all G4's and a few blue and white G3's

Jeff

Because of the new format structure, I would anticipate some reformatting. In the long run, it may be better to start from scratch. However, the Panther installer should be smart enough to know what it needs to do. Stay close to this forum as well. Get some advice in advance on how to proceed...

http://discussions.info.apple.com/We...Bk.0@.599b3149

Whew, big job ahead. I hope it goes smoothly. However, Panther is a very mature build, all should go well.

thanks
 

Thanks for all the advice guys and gals, this forum is pretty quick with responses! I have alotted 20-24 hours next weekend to get the upgrade on 20 machines along with the install of the CS suite! Hopefully all with go well!!

Jeff

Let us know Monday how things turned out. I always find this process fascinating. What was the good and what was the bad. Much information can be gleaned from such projects.

update
 

I will definately post the monday following the install, (will be the first monday in april). Next week will be spent scheduling jobs and getting all software in and ready!!!!

Jeff

Re: trouble!
 

I highly recommend you buy new video cards for your G3s. You *can* install Panther on them (I still have a B/W G3 at home and it's running 10.3.3 beautifully) but you'll get much better performance, particularly in a graphics heavy environment, with more video RAM. Panther would like at least 16 MB and your G3 has 8, if I'm not mistaken.

And PLEASE don't forget to update your Firmware before you move from OS 9 to Panther. Apple tech knowledge article #86117 http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86117

Good luck!

thanks
 

yeah will definately be updating the firmware before we do the switch! Thanks for the heads up on the video cards though, will look into doing that also!!

Jeff

Ok, I just checked on www.everymac.com and your B/Ws should have 16 MB of video RAM which is the minimum for Panther. So you shouldn't have to get new video cards, but it might be helpful!

useful info
 

wow I am going to have to put a favorite link to this thread with all the helpful links! Thanks for checking on that for me. I did get up and look around, we are only putting panther on one blue and white, and the guy's a meathead:D so he will be fine for now! Great being IT manager!! I have been glued to the Apple discussions all day. It's amazing that so many people are having problems with the 10.3 install? They aren't very clear as to whether they are ugrading from Jaguar or doing a clean install (which I will be doing, doing low level reformat, then installing Panther).

Jeff

One of the ways mentioned to get around InDesign incompatibilities at the printer is to send in a PDF. Does this mean a designer can just save his/her project as a PDF (using OS X's built-in capabilities), send it to the printer, and expect good quality output? Or will Acrobat be needed to "massage" the PDF to produce the best printed output?

printers
 

I have been working very closely with our service bureaus and our larger web printers and all but one are very happy that we are switching from Quark to Indesign. So far I have gotten feedback saying to use the default Indesign settings for press output on the PDF from one bureau and the others have just said to send a test file and they will specify settings from there. So it's just going to take a few mock ups before we get it close to perfection.

We have been using a third party PDF generator for the past 4 years that has become outdated and is no longer supported due to the mfg. going out of business. So a change is definately welcomed in my eyes!!

Jeff

<One of the ways mentioned to get around InDesign incompatibilities at the printer is to send in a PDF. Does this mean a designer can just save his/her project as a PDF (using OS X's built-in capabilities), send it to the printer, and expect good quality output? Or will Acrobat be needed to "massage" the PDF to produce the best printed output?>


There is no single answer these questions. It depends on what you want to do. There are many variables.

E.g., if you are having trouble printing an ID document in your laser printer, a PDF done by exporting your document to PDF format could be a workaround, although you may not really get what you want. It's better to find out what's wrong that your laserjet wont print an ID doc. For instance, our Xerox 5400 and HP 5000 used to spew out blanks with some gibberish and it turned out that the culprit were images processed in Photoshop and saved as EPS with the binary encoding, which were used with many of our logos. This had stumped us for some time because the HP 5000 used to print all logos when it was connected to our server via Appletalk. The problem arose when we linked the printer to our network (XServe) via Rendezvous. The solution was to open the offending images in Photoshop and resave them either as EPS with the ASCII encoding, and better still as TIFF or PSD. If you have Acrobat 6, you can even use it's Distiller component to save everything in PDF.

If you are sending to a printing press, you have to ask them first if they are ready with a PDF file exported directly from InDesign. There are still many printers (printing shops) who ain't ready for the PDFs done by exporting from ID. But they can take those made in Apogee or distilled using Acrobat Distiller.

tips and tricks
 

Thanks for the heads up! We will be definately be using acrobat 6 here in conjuction with the ID PDF's. I know 2 of our presses here in Florida like the ID pdf's, they say it's easier on their RIPS, not certain as to which RIPS they are using, (I know that would be of great importance, but it escapes me at this time).

Jeff

Jeff,

If you want more professional help in using InDesign, make it a point to visit the ID User to User forum — http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.ee6b330

You will find plenty of friendly guys there who are most willing to help new users of ID. You will find that most of them are (or used to be) Quark and Pagemaker users, and they also represent the Designer, Pre-press and Printing Press communities. Just make a search first before asking any question because most likely, you would find it already asked and answered. And give details when you ask a question.

Good luck.

rendezvous and the network
 

So you are saying that when you switched from appletalk to using rendezvous you started having printing problems. Which system was this on and did they fix it and why did you switch? (speed gains maybe?)

Jeff

WOW! This forum looks nicer than ever.

jrogers,

All I'm saying is that Photoshop-processed images saved in the EPS format (binary encoding) refuse to print in our laser printers linked to our network via XServe. I may be wrong in saying this has something to do with Rendezvous. What I'm sure is that our client Macs access these printers that dislike the EPS - binary images via Rendezvous. On the other hand, when these printers are connected to the network via Appletalk (that is, client Macs access them via Appletalk), they have no problem with the EPS-binary pictures.

No it has nothing to do with speed. I'm not techically savvy enough to explain this but as a workaround, I found that if I reprocess the problem pictures in Photoshop and save them as TIFF, PSD, PDF or EPS in ASCII encoding, they print well.

gotcha
 

ok just trying to find out what the actual issue is.

fractions not using opentype
 

trying to create fractions with a font other than opentype. I can get 1/4,1/3, and 1/2 using glyphs, but doing advertising for the foodservice industry, I need a whole lot more? Is there somewhere I can buy Opentype font if there is no other workaround. Using the 4-6 Opentype fonts is not going to be fun!!!!

update complete
 

Just an update on the system conversion to 10.3. The update took roughly 24 hours to complete over a two day period. I will touch on some of the high points and some of the things that helped save time.

First 12 hour day consisted of getting roughly 6 machines on OSX and getting the updates going. We then just concentrated on getting the rest of the machines (14) to OSX and installed desktop remote on my admin machine. Second day was bouncing around via remote installing, updating and restarting machines! Very good call on the apple desktop remote!

Very happy this whole thing is behind, now I am having to get everyone fluent and running with the Adobe suite. Transition from Quark to Indesign so far has been pretty good!

Oh and by the way QUARK customer service is horrible, one of our admin people is still on quark. Well after the 10.3.3 update quark 6 now will not run, says the installer file is corrupted and to reinstall, 6 installs later and 1 hour 47 minutes on the phone with Quark service in India, still doesn't work.

I have to open the Quark file in BBedit and copy and paste the text into Indesign!!! Oh did I say how much I didn't like Quark!!!!!

InDesign & Quark
 

Hi jrogers,

Glad to know you like InDesign. You're not alone in finding that Quark stinks. Visit http://www.adobeforums.com and check the forums for InDesign or Adobe Creative Suite and find out what many disgruntled Quark users are saying. InDesign has its own pain but at least Adobe has a place for you to ask questions, or to vent your bad feelings. Quark yanked off its forum because it didn't want users to complain.

growing pains
 

Yeah we are running into small "issues" with indesign, but I have yet to not find a solution or workaround, just takes some time and a little creativity!

Quark is Hemoraging
 

Want a lesson on how NOT to run a software business? Look no further than Quark. It's days are numbered, so good thing you went inDesign now!

Mac to PC InDesign File transfer
 

I urgently need to open a Mac InDesign CS document on a PC.

All I get is the following message:

"Cannot open file.

___________________________

DOCUMENT FRAMEWORK.RPLN

___________________________

Cannot open "***". please upgrade your plug-ins to their latest versions, or upgrade to the latest version of Adobe InDesign"


I ran the latest updater from Adobe's site but still get the same message. It appears to be having problems with the plug-ins. Anybody seen this before?

indesign files
 

have you tried adding the Indesign .indd extension to the file? I know it sound trivial, but could be the issue?

Jeff

Quark may have support issues, but I can set any job faster in quark than I could in indesign cs, IF abobe could make indesign as user friendly as quark I would have no trouble backing you on this one, but for now I do all my typesetting in quark and only use indesign cs for it's ability to trap files for our film imagesetter. :eek:

The extensions are correct.

That is an odd statement... one of the things that QuarkXPress has always been known for is not being user friendly. It got away with it because of expandability and becoming the standard for industry.

Now, if you are saying that you want InDesign to be exactly like QuarkXPress so you don't have to spend any time learning anything different, that is at least understandable. Of course you can do something faster in something you know verses something you don't.

As far as the user friendliness issue, it is faster to learn InDesign than QuarkXPress for someone starting out. That is the guide by which most people (including me) rate an application as user friendly. On the other hand I know very few people (if anyone) who uses the idea of "teaching an old dog new tricks" as a standard by which to judge user friendliness.

Rubaiyat, you might want to check here:

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/w...4142@.3bb568f8


I agree with RacerX. InDesign is much easier to learn than Quark. Apparently B&C Printing has not fully explored IDCS' myriad features. All over the Internet, there are many of those who had been advocating Quark for years who are now singing hallelujahs for InDesign. There are those who just wouldn't want to explore because they just feel more comfortable with what they'd been using. In my not-so-humble opinion, when we talk about user-friendliness, ID is to Mac as Quark is to Windows. ;)

I don't mean to give the impression that I'm incapable of learning new software, that's not the issue here. The issue is querky way of item manipulation in indesign, an example with quark you can almost blindly snap an object to a guide were as in indesign you snap to it, but upon zooming in on to see that it only got close to the guide line. The manipulation of text is another are where quark exceeds indesign.
I don't know what your job entails, but mine often is creating an exact duplication of a provided sample and this is far eaiser to do in quark.

I think we sometime lose sight of the fact quark is a typesetting program, while indesign is a combination of an illustration, photo editor, and typesetting programs and I would rather have 3 separate programs that did their specific function well than one that did all 3 so-so.

There is one feature of indesign that I love and that is the ability to zoom in more than 800%. Beyond that it's like setting type in Illustrator.
Now I may be an old dog, but I like things that work on a daily basis and quark has never given me any problems for over 8 years now.

Also I am self taught on all the programs I use so you educated people will want to flame on in me now.

I have yet to ever hear anyone who has used quark on a daily basis say that indesign was a better program, the ONLY reason they switched to it was because it was cheaper (or so they thought with updates every 6 months or yearly the cost can add up), or they didn't have anyone who could tech support the program for them.

If you don't think that is true you should see all jobs that get sent to us in those "I'm a printer now" programs".

Bottom line is you get what you pay for. Quark has recently had people leave the company that where key in quality control of the product and this has indeed caused them to be slower than usual with software upgrades and tech support, wether they will get that straightened depends on their management and their willingness to bring in people who can fix the problems.

We use many programs: Illustrator, photoshop, indesign, quark, acrobat, freehand, pagemaker, but most reliable one has alway been quark xp.

But I can tell you that when apple swithched to Unix it was a total screwing over of the printing industry and it's taken a long time to get programs caught up to the new software and their still not there yet in IMHO.

The system worked fine before all it needed was faster processors, but they had to change it to compete with MS and pretty up the look of the OS which is fine I love new system, it just created nightmares for printers who had tons of fonts and programs that they paid alot of money for in some cases, which were suddenly no good for OSX.

Ok, now you may flame away, but I will still see things the same way no matter how much you say otherwise :D

Hi B & C,

Apologies if I said anything offensive. It's not meant to be that way. I also was never trained as a designer. My job is to edit copies but I taught myself Quark XPress and later InDesign because our civic organization has a regular newsletter. That said, what Racer X and I are not saying you should stop using Quark. Rather, we're saying you have to explore ID more in order to benefit from its many advantages that you won't find in Quark. You can use both to suit your needs.

It's obvious that you aren't tapping ID's full potential when you said "Quark is a typesetting program, while ID is combination of an illustration, photo editor, and typesetting programs..." Both programs are not for typesetting, and ID is neither considered an illustration (done by Adobe Illustrator) nor a photo editor (done by Adobe Photoshop). Both Quark and ID are page layout programs, although they could in some limited extent all three functions that you mentioned. The older versions of InDesign did not have a story editor that Quark sported, but IDCS, the latest version of InDesign, has it.

>
I have yet to ever hear anyone who has used quark on a daily basis say that indesign was a better program, the ONLY reason they switched to it was because it was cheaper (or so they thought with updates every 6 months or yearly the cost can add up), or they didn't have anyone who could tech support the program for them.

I was telling you that the Internet is awash with remarks from Quark advocates who have shifted to InDesign because they found it to be really superior than Quark. To name some, there's David Blatner, Sandee Cohen, or Olav Kvern, who have all written books on Quark and other programs. Search their names in the Web and find out what they have said and are still saying.

Once again, apologies if you felt offended. We didn't mean to flame you. Stick with Quark if you're comfortable but don't deprive yourself of the advantages of InDesign. Cheers!

That might be possible if we upgrade to the Rampage RIPing system, but till then Indesign is just about useless with out Xitron RIP, casing more crashes and restarts than I care or want to deal with, thus my negative stance on a program with no backwards compatability built into it. Like I said it's not a question of learning the program. it's question of why shoot yourself in the head with a product that causes more problems than it fixes? Designer's are the printers worst enemy, just ask someone who works in the pre-press industry, but that's another whole different flame session.

I do use ID, but still find it totally frustrating. As long as my quark works I see no reason to switch over, just forced to use it because others have given up on quark!

Just to add my two cents (and a little perspective). I learnt (self-taught) design/typesetting in Pagemaker 4 on the PC and remember when I had to switch to Quark on a Mac thinking to myself "this program sucks...it's so restrictive". But eventually, once I learnt the program, and more importantly how to manage it's workflow (re: printing, separating, ripping etc) I began to love it more than I ever did Pagemaker.

Now Indesign came along and I heard many collegues, say very similar things to what i said years ago. But thought I'd give it a go. Now I'm probably 15% into the learning curve, but already I think it far surpasses Quark 6 in reliability, usability, and flexibility, and I can't wait to use it more and more.

Also I have heard from multiple printers that they can't stand Quark since version 6 as they have had so many problems with it and hope that more people switch to IDCS!

I have to agree with B&C Printing. I too am moving to InDesign as I am attracted by its features and I think Quark has dropped the ball since OSX came out.

Having said that there are a lot of frustrations with InDesign beyond that of having to relearn a new application.

I think those who were happy with other Adobe products and hadn't learnt Quark in depth do like InDesign a great deal. Especially PageMaker users and those who didn't know Quarks (IMHO) superior method of keyboard shortcuts. I'd gladly elaborate on that if anyone is interested.

Particularly annoying in ID is its extreme slowness on anything but a pumped up computer. This is why I am having to move onto my recent model PC, ID is intolerable on my 400MHz G4.

Major annoyances are Master template items remain locked on pages by default. I have always worked extensively building documents using a basic design on the template and fleshing it out and changing it on the page. ID is almost like PM with its uneditable MPs. I wish Adobe would give me a preference to change this. Also I don't know if this is fixed in ID3 but in ID2 there is a bug where wrap arounds on MPs don't wrap around on the page when you add new text (this was akiller last time I used ID).

The method of adding, flowing and linking text I think is much slower and less obvious than Quark's 2 tools for this task and ID used not to add pages in correctly for overflow text whilst Quark does. ID3 is a magnificent typesetting engine and does save time on fixing setting problems but is considerable slower (probably for those reasons) than Quark on getting the type in. The Story Editor is the same cludgy solution that Adobe came up with to patch PageMaker's failings here.

Things are better now that ID3 has given us a Measurements pallette but ID still has a complicated sprawling convoluted interface that requires more steps to achieve simple tasks than Quark does. I suppose that the excuse is that complicated tasks save time in ID but I still don't excuse the bad basic interface that Adobe has plastered on all its latest products, and fiddled with repeatedly.

I'm tired of having to constantly relearn keyboard shortcuts for each Adobe product everytime they "upgrade". Particularly as a contractor when I have to use multiple versions and remember them all in the middle of tight deadlines. Quark had a lovely mix of very predictable pnemonic and positional keyboard shortcuts.

Sigh! Guess I am crying over spilt milk. This is all part of a trend to complicate and fiddle with what was simple in the pursuit of featuritis and forced upgrades.

Unfortunately Quark 4 is wed to Mac OS 9 and appears to be going nowhere (the subsequent upgrades are not worth having) and ID does have a host of good features (if you can get them to print) and is clearly the future. I am unhappily caught between the two. As a contractor having to work on both screws up my productivity enormously.

You do know that you can assign your own keyboard shortcuts in ID?
You clearly haven't tried Quark 6...my lord, talk about slow!
See above...Quark 6 has changed a few, most annoyingly for me the Document Setup dialogue.
You may be quite right on that, it does seem to apply to most software these days. Sadly, not eveyone subscribes to the Apple-like idea of simple useability.

I think it's like any new program. The first time (or first hundred times) you look at something like Dreamweaver after using things like Quark and Illustrator, you don't understand why it's so hard to lay a couple of little things out...but everything has a learning curve that makes it look inefficient and unweildy. Try driving on the other side of the road in another country, very hard to get used to the rules for turning etc, but really no better or worse one way or the other.

A lot of places I work at, still use Quark 4 even though they are in OSX. After they work out the little annoyances between the two, like screen redraw, everything works fine and they see no need to spend thousands on an upgrade (6) to an upgrade (5) that really adds very little in the way of new functionality or options. However ID, on the other hand costs less and adds loads and loads in terms of new functionality. Try transparency in Quark!

InDesign vs. Quark
 

Hot Rod vs. Horse and buggie. Both will get you there, but only one will get you there quickly and in style: InDesign.

InDesign is the present and future of real layout. Quark is the past trying to catch up. Ultimately you have to pick the path of least resistence when you are under the gun, but from my experiences, InDesign has never let me down. Quark on the other hand has been nothing but trouble.

Transparency, superior type handling, nested styles and PDF creation alone should convince anyone that this is a superior layout program.

[QUOTE] You do know that you can assign your own keyboard shortcuts in ID?

Oh indeedie I do!

Does it work? Is it a good idea? NO WAY. Just another tick in ID3's "feature" list. Can't get a match for Quark's better and simpler shortcuts.

I didn't mention ID3's halfbaked keyboard shortcuts for styles. Quark lets you just use the fast numeric keypad one handed and then embelish it with cmd/ctrl/opt/shift which I do systematically. One handed styling is such a good idea. Select with mouse, style with other hand.

Compare this to Adobe's really bad idea for single character Tool shortcuts which drop characters into your text in moments of mental aberation. If you don't immediately notice them at the time, they end up in print.

I make no excuses for Quark 5/6. Seems Quark is trying to discourage diehard users. It has certainly discouraged me.

Kurious: "Hot Rod vs. Horse and buggie."

How ironic! InDesign reminds me of my old Mitsubishi Executive. Someone forgot to fit an engine capable of getting it uphill without strapping booster rockets on the side.

B&C, since you are in the printing business, you might as well convince your boss to upgrade. Those in the printing industry are themselves saying that they who don't upgrade will perish. We are now in the 21st century and OS X era. As to backward compatibility, IDCS (or InDesign 3+) was not made backward-compatible, so the Adobe engineers say, because it has plenty of functions (nested style, to name one) that the older versions could not understand. If ID2 were allowed to open an ID 3 document that's loaded with the advanced features, it would only cause frustrations. But because of popular demand, Adobe may allow future upgrades to become backward-compatible.

If you think Quark is better in this case, you might not have known that Quark 4 can't open a Quark 6 doc. You have to save that Quark doc to Quark 5 format first before opening the file in Quark 4. What this means is that if you have Quark 4 and skipped Quark 5 (which most Quark users have reportedly done), you're in deep s_ it if you have trouble printing Quark 6 documents.

Designers have a mutual dislike for Printers, but I believe the gap could be bridged. I belong to a company which has its own publications and printing press departments; people from both sides like to blame each other whenever a page doesn't print. In my personal capacity, I was able to help solve some problems by noting what the problems were and searching answers in the forums. My favorite, when it comes to using InDesign, is the Adobe Forums. For those who have frustrations with ID, visit this once in a while and meet users from the Design, Pre-press and Print communities. The secret is to keep an open mind and avoid whining. It's useless trying to learn something half-heartedly. :rolleyes: ;)

"Major annoyances are Master template items remain locked on pages by default. I have always worked extensively building documents using a basic design on the template and fleshing it out and changing it on the page. ID is almost like PM with its uneditable MPs."

Let's be fair, it's a lot more flexible than PM in this respect. BTW what's a major annoyance to you is one of the reasons I prefer ID to Quark. I have never liked the way Quark master pages work. I guess it depends on what you're doing.

I was not holding PM up as a good example, far from it.

Nothing wrong with you prefering one working method over another. I think pluralism is great. So why does Adobe lock those of us who have extremely efficient work methods out of using them. Let us choose. I have good reasons for believing I know better how to do my work than Adobe.

A common quarterly project for me was having to do 19 versions of a 4 page A3 newsletter with about 16 stories, maybe 5 graphics/photos along with 1 large and maybe 2 small tables of rate changes. When I was hitting my stride I could knock off each in under 10-15mins in Quark, depending on styling complexities.

I've tried similar material in InDesign and there are so many obstacles to organised productivity, compounded by slow typeflow and refresh that I am lucky if I can do each in under an hour.

I will give credit to ID's ability to produce one off complex work, but not for simpler jobs, where it is positively a hinderance.

If Adobe rectified a few annoyances and stole a few more ideas from Quark (they've already done the measurements palette), there would be no competition.

Quark issues
 

I also work in a Design agency and we are all running on OSX and on Quark 6, the problems we have encountered are up saving files from Quark 5 or older and all the text disappears for the document. This is extremely annoying while working on 30+ page document. Our company is eventually going to make the move to InDesign and the crossover from Quark to InDesign is apparently easy (I have tried it once). Plus Adobe is alot cheaper.

I think we are all headed towards InDesign. Its shortcomings will be propped up by faster hardware and an acquiescent Design community.

Doesn't mean we can't appreciate what we are losing as well as gaining.

The faults of one program or system are not excused by its merits.

We should expect the best and press for it in all things.

Just as Quark had no competition and abused it, I am worried that InDesign will abuse its ultimate position of dominance without having fully earned it. Then where will the deep pockets come from to challenge a future Adobe monopoly that controls design as Microsoft controls the desktop?

Whats wrong with 6.1?
 

I have been using 6 since its launch, it worked well in OS 10.1 and still works great in 10.3.
It is compatable with imposition software, handles fonts with ease, file sizes are small, images and text are editable with ease.
I have created 32 page die cut presentations with full colour on all pages. I have set up huge displays, in store POS displays... it has never let me down. Be sure you are manageing your fonts correctly (ie get rid of all truetype and non essential system fonts, use Suitcase 11 ( not fontbook) and update all print drivers.
Hint: Before importing your photoshop images into 6 , save them as (CMYK) DCS files with JPEG preview, Quark will then import and display only the LoRes 5th plate, this may keep your redraw and file sizes manageable. When the file is sent to a laser printer, fiery rip or even desktop inkjet printer, only the lo-res will print, this makes outputting proofs and mockups at the studio level much quicker, and does not tie up the printer or the network. Then when the file is sent for film output, either quark will automatically send the 4 high res plates to our RIP.
In Design as well as Illustrator are not Typography friendly. Kerning is most difficult in these vector based programs. If Quark goes under, we will have really lost out in the typesetting dept. Body copy will not be viwed as an artistic component of the design. Rivers, widows, leading, kerning, all left to the imagination of a machine!
In reply to sending large files to service bureaus for output, try saving the Photoshop files as DCS - eps, with JPG preview AND maximum quality compression. I have never had any image loss with DCS jpged EPS files, they transfer via FTP quickly and all of my suppliers love it!
Qxd 6 collect feature also works great, with the exception of images linked to Illustrator files (why anyone put images in Illustrator is beyond me) Qxd 6 collects all fonts etc.
And having all of your layouts in one file, makes setting up, proofing, collecting, multiple pieces really easy.
Thanks for letting me have my say
PS I dont work for Quark - and I am honing my InDesign skills as I assume that Quark will eventually be phased out everywhere.
Adobe fonts, Adobe RIPS, Adobe applications - do we fear the monoploly?
Dr G

Hi Rubaiyat,

Your request seem reasonable so why not visit the Adobe ID forum and add your request to the wish list. The people at Adobe are remarkably receptive to suggestions, one reason why many Quark lovers have or are migrating. Those things about Adobe's getting greedy if Quark continues with its plunge is also being discussed in the Adobe forums, so the Adobe people are being given ample warning not to follow Quark's way.

Cheer up!

"FUTURE Adobe monopoly"? Are we forgetting Illustrator, Photoshop, PostScript, PDF, JDF & PS fonts? Seems to me that you can't get many jobs designed & printed today without that little red Adobe triangle....

Hi everybody

First I must apologize for my bad english: it's not my native language...

I use XPress DAILY since 1993, and I switch to ID in November 1999, with the 1.0 release because I was tired of XPress. Even with all the "youth" defects, I found ID better than XPress. Today I always work with ID (CS) and XPress (6.1) and I don't change my mind. I find ID as friendly as XPress, simply with a different way.
I didn't switch because of the price: I'm a print-shop, and I'm obliged to keep XPress (and keep it up-to-date), because all the jobs coming to me from "designers"* are still made with XPress. But all the jobs that I make are made with ID. So I spend much more money to keep TWO sofwares up-to-date, but the job is so easier with ID!!!

The biggest problem with switching from XPress to ID is that you don't find "at first sight" in ID exactly the same features as XPress, and you must spend some time to adapt to a different software. When most people say "It's not possible to do that with ID", the truth is often "I don't find/understand how to do that with ID".

Yes, the items of the master pages are locked, but simply click on the wished item while holding Shift and "Apple" key to un-lock this item...

Yes, ID is slow and need a powerful Mac: that's because ID constantly saves the actions to recover the document in case of a crash...

Yes, ID needs much memory, principally used for the infinite undo feature... XPress 3 to 5 has only one undo, and it doen't work for every action...

Yes, the shortcuts are differents, but I don't use them, as I use the XPress shortcuts set, with some modifications. In case of re-installation, I simply backup my modified XPress shortcuts set on a ZIP disk.

I confirm that ID as the same feature as XPress to snap an item to a guide and to a marging line (and even to the border of the page), but this feature, exactly as XPress, has to be activated.

Somebody said that XPress is better for text and ID is like Illustrator. I don't understand that point of view: I find that ID works basically like XPress (with some more advanced features), but without two major defects:
- with ID, changing the vertical line-spacing of one line doesn't modify the spacing of the other lines,
- with ID (and also Illustrator), it's possible to add bold and italic only to fonts that include bold and italic. It's a major problem with XPress, because the "bold" and "italic" button make artificial bold and italic that work well on screen and with non-postscript printers, but doesn't work with all fonts when printing on postscript imagesetters. That's a big problem for print-shops and pre-press, as many people simply click on the "Bold" and "Italic" button, as they would do with Word or Publisher.

I use XPress 6 since November 2003, and I found 8 bugs in this release...
- one was known (bad screen-view of horizontal scaled text) and corrected in the 6.1,
- the second is "registred to my name" and corrected in the 6.1,
- 3 remain till the 3.1 release (and perhaps before) and 3 are new, but Quark gives me no answer, and "put his head in the sand" (like ostriches).
Does somebody want to know this bugs and ask Quark about them?
And I don't list the stupid defaut-settings, like RVB colours (but perhaps that I'm stupid and I don't know anything about printing, and that Quark's developpers know how to print with RVB colours???!!! ;-))


I read something that "raise my hairs on my head": JPEG images in a job for a print-shop!!! Arrghhh... that piece of **** is only for internet!!!
Seriously, if you use EPS files with DCS, as the color-separation is made in the picture, it can probably work (I'll do the test).
But NEVER use a JPEG compression in a standard CMYK EPS picture (without knowing EXACTLY how the print-shop will separe the colors:
- if sending a composite file and using an In-RIP separation, there will be no problems.
- if using the internal color-separation of XPress or ID, the picture will always print only on the black plate... that kind of problem has happened to every print-shop: JPEG compression is one of the biggest trouble of print-shops!!! (and one of the biggest **** of computing). More that this separation problem, the compression irreparably destroys datas in the picture, and more the quality is low, more the damages are obvious.


About ripping: there is a major problem with all Harlequin (Xitron is Harlequin based) release 5.3 and prior: this RIPs, althought they are sold as fully Postsscript and PDF compatible, don't have really all the PDF features... They are unable to understand the CID fonts feature, which is part of the PDF, as this feature is simply not implemented...
As it is not use neither by XPress nor by the Acrobat distiller, the developpers probably didn't want to loose their time with this "unuseful" feature, and Harlequin RIPs (and all the based RIPs) are in fact not fully Postscript RIP.
And, as ID uses the CID fonts, the Harlequin RIP cannot process ID files or ID exported PDF, but some releases can process PDF distilled by Acrobat Distiller from ID PS files: try it.
See this link: http://www.nickhodge.com/mne.php?mcid=801

As I wanted to buy an ECRM imagesetter with Harlequin RIP, I asked the question to ECRM hot-line... here is the answer:

""Hello Claude,

Keeping up with changes in applications is a moving target, particularly with
PDF.
InDesign is based around a PDF workflow, and Adobe applications such as
Illustrator are now using PDF 1.4 commands (soon to be 1.5) such as
transparency.
The ECRM Harlequin rip version 5.3 will interpret PDF1.2 and some version 1.3
commands, but we are now up to rip version 6.2, which fully supports PDF 1.4,
the current release.
The short answer is that you will need the latest version of rip if you expect
to output files from the latest applications.""

No comment...: you need to upgrade your Xitron RIP to get the real compatibility (that you have soon paid).

I use a second-hand AGFA Viper 1.92 PS level 2 (REAL level 2) since 1998 and you know what? I'm happy...

Claude


* Why "designers", with quotation marks? Because today most of the designers are people who simply buy a Mac, XPress/Illustrator/Photoshop, a low-level scanner and ink-jet printer (non-postscript), and think that having the professional tools is enough to be a real designer... Almost all their jobs are simply not made to be printed in a print-shop.

Well said, Claude. Like I've said in some of my previous posts, you cannot appreciate what's in store for you in ID if you don't explore.

And the worse thing that could happen is if the product of clueless "designers" are handled by similarly clueless prepress or print-shop guys.

Hi Dr G

Just some answers to your post:

"try saving the Photoshop files as DCS - eps, with JPG preview AND maximum quality compression"

That's a common mistake made by Photoshop users to believe that the "Encoding" (hope I don't mistake in the translation: I use french softwares...) pop-up menu in the EPS (second menu) or DCS (third menu) save dialog box allows to choose the encoding of the preview... It's false, this pop-up is for the encoding of the PICTURE. By choosing "JPEG - xxx quality", you compress the picture with this awful destructive algorythm (OK, you're right, setting highest quality don't destroy the picture too much).
And as I said in my first post, these EPS JPEG encoded picture can't be separated by XPress or InDesign. Each time that somebody gives me EPS pictures, I am obliged to open EACH picture, then click "Save as" to check how is the encoding, and if they are JPEG encoded, change to binary encoding... I loose plenty of my time checking jobs of bad designers who don't know what is pre-press and printing job, and say me that "they work like that with 50 print-shop and have never had problem with them".



"I have never had any image loss with DCS jpged EPS files, they transfer via FTP quickly and all of my suppliers love it! "

Believe me, JPEG and jpged EPS files are one of the worst things for printers and most hated... but I will try to use DCS jpged EPS files and check their ability to separation. Which DCS do you use? 1.0 or 2.0?




"... with the exception of images linked to Illustrator files"

As far as I know, a picture cannot be linked "twice"... so it's normal that a linked picture of Illustrator is not found by XPress. If you want to link an Illustrator file with picture(s), this file must contain only embedded pictures.




"(why anyone put images in Illustrator is beyond me)"

- sometime it's easy to rebuilt a logo with Illustrator using some parts of the original TIFF or JPEG logo,
- some people never understand that Illustrator is not a text editing software and use it instead of XPress. That's called "incompetence"... Some other people have only Illustrator because XPress is too expensive (that's also a nightmare for pre-press workers). Once, a customer brought me such an Illustrator job: as I ask him to make a real XPress job, he brought me back an XPress file with a picture-block simply containing the Illustrator file... Another time, the "designer" answers me "I work like that with 50 print-shops and I never had troubles, if you are not able to print the job, we'll find another print-shop...".
Today, that's the new way for printing jobs (in France): the incompetent designers (who have often "never seen a printing press") decide how printers have to work. Sad job :-((

Claude

BTW, there are those who recommend the use of native photoshop (.psd) and native illustrator (.ai) in InDesign. Which is good because images saved in .eps format won't print in certain laser printers. Our Xerox 5400 and HP 5000 won't print .eps files saved with binary encoding. To avoid the hssle, save pictures either in .psd, tiff or pdf.

Claude
Bonjour.
We were taught a little French dans école!

With regards to the DCS JPG etc.

I worked in many service bureaus, print shops and now on the agency side as a designer.
Take any format RGB, LAB or CMYK image and save as an Photoshop DCS1.O file. Then in the next option window that appears choose JPG preview, Colour composite DCS (72 pixel/inch)
And JPEG maximum quality encoding.
Try this in comparison to your normal output!

1. No need to worry about RGB - they automatically are converted to CMYK, place the image in a QXD document and output to film
2. It is off your screen faster - much faster
3. Check the quality of the final film/proof - cannot tell the difference
4. Smaller file sizes for storage or delivering
5. Output the same QXD file to your laser printer as a proof, quark will only image the 72 dpi composite making faster laser proofing.

This is just a hint to speed up workflow, not to be taken as an "I told you so"
* Note : there are some rips that do not handle dcs files, but most will uncompress each high res plate at the rip before imaging.

I have not had the opportunity to try this with InDesign and I know that Illustrator will not pick up the 4 high res plates as it writes Postscript to the RIP. I have posted another ?? in this forum regarding placing DCS2 images in Illustrator - even embedded I cannot get the Spot Channels to image as separations. We have many Logos supplied as Illustartor EPS files, with DCS2 images placed in them and I cannot use them in other applications.
Any Ideas??

Thanks

Dr G

Experience with RIPs and InDesign vs Quark
 

I run both a harlequin and meta (hiedelberg) rip here. Both going to Eskofot DPX platesetters. Neither the harlequin (6 years old) or the meta (current) have any problems with any of the files InDesign pumps out.

Until about a month ago we were 100% Quark 4.11. However that meant going through Classic. Illustrator 10 works as an OS-X app. That meant we had feet in both halves of the OS and it was getting annoying.

We recently went to Creative Suite so we have InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop all using the same methodologies and shortcut keys etc.

Best decision I've made in a long while.

There's several things I miss from Quark, the main one is the modifier-click to select behind.

The other problem I have is nothing to do with Quark/InDesign in particular. It's just the naming of Pantone colors. Why do Illustrator's colors have 'CV ' at the end but when you bring them into Quark or InDesign, that's gone? If you already have the color defined in Q/ID you end up with both colors! Not earth shattering, just annoying :)

Cheers!
Rick

Hey Rick
Any issues with dropping a DCS2 file into InDesign? ...Can you output the spot plates?

Dr G

Hi everybody

I just made some tests with ID 3 (CS), XPress 6.1, XPress 4.1 and EPS/DCS/TIFF pictures. The original picture is a CMJN TIFF file, of 580 x 581 pixels (6,64 x 6,65 cm @ 222 dpi), his "weight" is 1.3 Mo.
I made 5 new files of this picture:
1) DCS 1.0, JPEG preview, encoding JPEG max quality: total of the 5 files (preview +C+M+Y+B) =1.56 Mo
2) DCS 2.0, JPEG preview, encoding JPEG max quality: 1.5 Mo
3) RVB picture, DCS 2.0, JPEG preview, encoding JPEG max quality: 2.9 Mo
4) EPS standard (Mac preview and binary encoding): 1.7 Mo
5) EPS, JPEG preview, encoding JPEG max quality: 1 Mo

As you can see, all the CMJN DCS files are
- bigger than the TIFF file,
- but lighter than the standard EPS file.
Quite surprising: the RVB DCS2 file is almost twice bigger (2.9 Mo) than the CMJN DCS2 file (1.5)???!!!


I made a document with 6 picture-boxes and I printed these 5 pictures and the original TIFF picture with my LaserWriter 8500 with color separation:
- from XP 4: TIFF, standard EPS, the three DCS picture are well separated, (including the RVB picture), but the EPS JPEG encoded is only printed on the black plate. No surprise.
- from ID CS: everything is good, including the EPS JPEG encoded and the DCS 2.0 files, I am very surprised that ID can separate the JPEG EPS file!!!
- from XP 6: everything is good, including the EPS JPEG encoded, and I am more than very surprised that ID can separate the JPEG EPS file!!!

I am really very surprised that the JPEG EPS file is separated with ID CS and XPress6... I'll make further tests with a real job with my imagesetter.

The picture I used for this test is a forest picture with two men in the foreground, but it avoid wide surface of the same colour (a sky for example), where the JPEG compression is very efficient: as you can see, the ratio between the standard binary encoded EPS file and the jpeged EPS file is only 1.7, while it is common to have 3 (of course, always with the maximum quality).
I tryed another picture, with a beautiful blue sky and an almost white floor: the TIFF file is 2.1 Mo, the EPS binary encoded is 2.7 Mo, but the DCS 2.0 file is only 1.7 Mo and the EPS jpged file is 1.1 Mo.

I'm glad to see that I mistaked about JPEG separation with the new softwares: that's a trouble less for printers and pre-press studios... but the JPEG format remains still a destructive compression format, that much damages the picture if the compression parameters aren't good understood and set by users...

Dr G, you're right: with "maximum quality" compression, there are only very few damages in the JPEG picture, and it is impossible after processing the film or printing the plates to see the difference with the original EPS or TIFF picture. Only an attentive examination with high zooming (more than 600%) in Photoshop can reveal the compression. That's why PDF for pre-press can be made with the maximum-quality JPEG setting.
The only trouble is: how to be sure that the original producer of the picture didn't any mistake with JPEG files??? Even a TIFF picture can be a bad JPEG file simply converted to TIFF file format... That's why I don't like JPEG!!!

Please elbimbo, can you say me what mean "BTW"?

Claude: BTW = "By The Way".
Your tests were thorough and interesting, many thanks for that.

The JPG format was designed around its compression algorithm and were intended to be a way of sharing pictures with the smallest file size - hence the adoption of the format onto the web (and therefore everywhere else). The crunching of the file size can be drastic - and is undoable.

So once you've saved as JPG there's no point in saving as a TIF. The damage will have been done. Anyone that does this in a repro environment should be shot through the lungs (or perhaps I'm over-reacting....)

:D

Dave