Quarkxpress mac#

I have to admit that Deke makes some good points here. But the ability to undo up to 300 consecutive operations makes up for that. On a sour note, some shortcuts break down in text editing.

Quarkxpress mac#

You can select tools from the keyboard, navigate by using techniques common to all Adobe applications, and rest assured that the shortcuts you learn on the Mac will transfer key-for-key when you have to do something on a PC.

If not interface perfection, InDesign is certainly an improvement. Sometimes the option key corresponds to the PCвЂ™s Alt key, other times to its control keyВ–you just never know. Meanwhile, cross-platform designers have to contend with some perplexing keyboard mismaps: on the Mac, command-L checks spelling on the PC, control-W does. (Is it too much to ask for command-I or the ability to simply press the I key to select the Item tool?) There are also few context-sensitive pop-up menus, andВ–most disgracefullyВ–youвЂ™re limited to a single undo. ThereвЂ™s nothing inherently difficult in switching to InDesign, but given all these factors, I would certainly not call the processДЄmong my complaints, XPressвЂ™s odd-size palettes block your view of the page, and you have limited means for selecting tools from the keyboard. Perhaps more important, however, is companiesвЂ™ investment of so much time and energy into building their infrastructure around XPress: finding reliable consultants, buying QuarkXTensions, training staff, writing AppleScripts, building a workflow. Similarly, character styles and text wrap work significantly differently in InDesign, which will trip up unsuspecting QuarkXPress users. And although InDesign does sport an XPress-like pasteboard, many other aspects will drive XPress users battyВ–from the creation and application of color to the fact that leading is a character attribute instead of a paragraph-wide setting. Even though Adobe claims that InDesign opens QuarkXPress documents, the program rarely does so without requiring significant cleanup afterward. ItвЂ™s easy to switch from QuarkXPress to InDesign.ДЄs much as my InDesign-loving friend Deke would like you to believe this one, it unfortunately just ainвЂ™t true. These are subtle, sometimes obscure enhancements, but they can make a big difference in the quality of your text. Its drop-cap controls are precise and easy to access. It splits out all designer styles for a typeface family to a separate pop-up menu, so you canвЂ™t accidentally choose a font style that doesnвЂ™t exist. InDesign automatically inserts the proper ligatures and small caps when a separate small-cap font is available. (How quickly David has snared me into a tangential discussion! Clever boy, that oneВ–I shall not underestimate him again.) And there are a couple of points we have missed so far. (Quark recommends that XPress users have 10MB of RAM.) I would be a bald-faced liar if I didnвЂ™t admit that XPress fares better on slower systems.Д«ut the topic is typesetting, not performance. Still, IвЂ™m the first to admit that InDesignвЂ™s recommended system requirementsВ–the list includes a G3 processor, OS 8.5 or later, and 128MB of RAMВ–are excessive. With long documentsВ–on G3 or better machines.

I canвЂ™t vouch for the experience of others, but my personal experience with InDesign is that it runs relatively briskly В– WhatвЂ™s more, InDesignвЂ™s hard-core typography algorithms can require a lot of processing power, causing slower performance on older machines.

For instance, thereвЂ™s no way to justify text vertically inside a text frame (an easy task in QuarkXPress). InDesignвЂ™s text handling isnвЂ™t all rosy, however. ItвЂ™s not that you canвЂ™t create most of these effects by hand in XPress itвЂ™s just that InDesign makes it easy. Factor in the ability to insert вЂњhiddenвЂќ charactersВ–frequently available in fonts but not accessible through the normal Mac keyboardВ–and support for the new OpenType fonts, and you have an extraordinary opportunity to set great type with less effort. (For in-depth information about this topic, see вЂњвЂќSetting Type in InDesignвЂќ,вЂќ Lines to get better-looking justified type) are very impressive. Features such as optical kerning (which better calculates optimal character spacing) and Multi-line Composer (which calculates line breaks across ThereвЂ™s no doubt that InDesignвЂ™s greatest strength is in its typesetting.