QuarkXPress Reviews

Ever since it was released in 1987 QuarkXPress has dominated the Desktop Publishing.
I use Quarkexpress because when its come to page layout it is the best one out there because of its simplicity.its text tools are very user-friendly and lets you get the job done very quickly and efficiently.
Also, QuarkXPress supports more printers than any other desktop publishing software.

There is not much not to like about QuarkXpress.
Maybe PDF exports could be easier in the future

QuarkXPress is an easy to use interface with a variety of tools and options that enables the user to create well crafted designs for a wide variety of platforms. You have full control over elements of the design and can incorporate a plethora of different elements. With their conversion and simple importing you can work on a variety of filetypes and incorporate many elements into a piece.

Although the user interface is pretty intuitive and simple - it is very outdated. The design of the program doesn't hold up to the designs it can produce. This design of the program can be off putting and visually tiring/harsh. There's also the unfortunate fact that Adobe has more options and capabilities that QuarkXPress doesn't which leads me back to alternate programs.

I love everything about QuarkXPress. I've been using Quark since 1990 and also taught Quark for a few years. There is an elegance to the way Quark works that is missing in other page layout software. It was set up by graphic designers for graphic designers. Even though I own Adobe Creative Suite, I prefer to use Quark for print and web projects.

There is nothing that I dislike about Quark. Even if I run into a snag or problem I am able to find a solution easily with the Quark HELP feature or on their website.

User friendly!!! The software is like a desk and the many applications are similar to items on that desk. You can easily drag any item to the place you desire. Open boxes for pictures, text etc are so easy and functional. I love this software. Frequent updates which make the products even more so wonderful.

Need to upgrade my Apple computer as it is not compatible when the software is updated as frequent as it does. It becomes compatible with a new computer OS.

Nice abstraction features like paragraph and character styles so you can change a style once and QuarkXPress updates your whole document. Master pages are very useful for streamlining the creation of a large document (we used it to automatically show chapter headings on every page of a user manual). 60 days of free tech support is a nice perk.

Design flaws in software are a constant obstacle. Can't open multiple projects at once, makes transferring things to a new project a huge pain. Table of contents automation lacks customization. Scrolling on a page with 15-20 elements is slow on a modern computer. I call customer support asking for help to get Table styles to work, and they respond that Table styles just don't work on some tables and I have to live with it. User interface hides itself when window is out of focus for no reason, infuriating when trying to follow a tutorial in a web browser. Undo operations frequently crash the program. Anytime you click on one of the palettes in the side bar, the whole user interface goes into a mini-seizure and flashes light and dark. Exporting PDF has no progress bar, the software just goes "not responding" for 10-20 minutes so you have no idea how long you will have to wait. The support community is sparse and their help forum confirmation email didn't send even after requesting new ones, so I wasn't able to join and ask questions.

Massive offer of layouts, options and colour palettes to create and build a web or print magazine. I love the updated Java Script options, the typography menus for modifying and choose the right font and also the tools for publishing and saving a project for online purposes.

More Java Script layouts and themes should be available, apart from the standard ones. The modification is easy but still there is a need for an update with more modern themes.

Another reviewer Chadsey really nailed all the pros and cons of this software. It's great that it is subscription based and anytime you need help with something, their customer support is quick to help.

I think once a new update comes out, the owners of the previous version should get to upgrade for free or at the very least at a significant discount. Not knowing when the new version will come out can prevent you from buying the current version.

Love the many functions and features it has for our newsletter and magazine publishing. As well for our clients design projects.

Lots to learn with the many features it has. Must take time out for learning.

The best part of the QuarkXPress is the variety of different functions that will allow user to work on either small of big scale publishing project. I used it for 4 page marketing booklets and over hundred pages product catalogues. Love it.

You have to wait before it will run, the software is huge.

It was really easy to layout a design in Quark. The link system allows your files to be small & agile. And it's Packaging functionality allows you to esily

I use primarily Adobe products, so the tools are different, look different and/or are in different places, so it takes a little bit of time to get used to.

Quark is absolutely fantastic for multipage spread layouts or any multipage project that requires standard margins, guides, templates etc.

If you are a fan of Adobe for your art work and work as a graphic designer it's just much simpler to use Adobe's InDesign as it ties in with all the Adobe programs.

I use this to create a literary magazine for my job. It allows me to put original artwork and create each page differently every time.

Sometimes the pictures have been not saving or says they do not save.

QuarkXPRess can help you create newspaper and magazine layouts and make your work easier.

It has been outshone by Adobe InDesign and is no longer the industry standard.

I really like the software ease of use and even with updates that core elements stay the same. I find it easy to create the layout I need without all the extra tools and setting found in some other software.

I do find the software slow to load and I do have frequent crashes. I also find it does not use all the fonts and font weights that my system has, that I know work within Photoshop for example.

There are a variety of tools to accomplish exactly what you need. Options allow you to modify text and photos and to set up pages of all kinds of sizes.

Some of the shortcuts codes involve three or more buttons, which can be difficult to remember, thus nullifying their purpose.

I used this software regularly at my previous job, and really enjoyed it. I was able to create beautiful advertisements for print, fairly easily. I was able to teach myself how to use it also. When it comes to design software, this is user friendly.

It is kind of outdated. These days, people tend to look for Adobe software proficiency. It is a great stepping stone to Adobe.

powerful features. you can control layout of virtually anything you want to print or publish on paper/screen/web etc.

the features are so powerful they're hard to learn, the volume of features is hard to absorb. There are tutorials but where to start

I learned this software years ago, and it was great foundational, but overall not as powerful as Illustrator

I prefer how well Illustrator works with other software.

I don't really see any features that beat out InDesign. This used to be the industry standard, but less and less do my clients use Quark. Only in publishing and they are moving away from that.

It's not the standard and converting files to InDesign is not always seamless. Quark is outdated in my opinion.

Quark is great for print design, text-heavy layouts, and what used to be referred to as desktop publishing.

They dropped the ball years by being slow to release a compatible version with Mac OSX, and have been struggling to get back in the race ever since. Meanwhile, Adobe InDesign became the industry leader, and there's no going back to Quark. It just doesn't have the smooth cross-application compatibility you get staying in the Adobe Suite.

This program it is very precise, measurements can be exact and the dialog box for PDF output selection is also very detailed. Also outputting linked files and fonts into one location is easy.

The need to purchase 3rd party plugins to get many things done. Quark should address those needs in their next version.

I used it in college, and it was a great beginner tool for learning how to do page layouts, and is relatively cost efficient.

It doesn't integrate well with other software, and it falls short on the graphical layout side. Only ended up using it for text only event programs.

Very good for text formatting, easy to use, especially when formatting books and larger texts.

I wish there was a way to connect the app with software that works with vectors (Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Corel Draw..)

First, their customer support for this product is incredible. Hands down some of the best people working with this company, and knowledgable. There is also an online community behind this software that is wonderful and can usually get you where you want to go if you need help. Also the facebook group continues to grow and thrive and the company is pretty involved with keeping the quark world up to date on progress and resources.
Ok the software is pretty wonderful and through the years we continue to choose Quark for book/media publishing over other products that we use more frequently day to day with other media because Quark just has always gotten the job done and done well. That still is the case for a couple specific purposes, like brochure and booklet printing, we use Quark for because most of the tools throughout the years have remained the same. And they make simple what other products cause hair-loss over.
Quark not being a subscription based media creation software is the bee's knees!! And the ability and power of all the software can do for the price is pretty great!!

Over the years, they have tried to do too much in too little of time to compete but they have failed short. In the past Quark was an incredible software and the value was through the roof, but sadly that is not the case anymore. Focusing on becoming a software for producing cross-platform media and new media has taken away from their bread and butter of being the go to software for book and print media publishing over the years. The tools available, advancements and attention to their original staples of print publishing have lacked. PDFs are an area serious attention needs to be given, without having to purchase or use 3rd party integrations. Yearly updates should not have to be purchased or at least discounted much more significantly, especially considering the incompatibility of working between different years of Quark. Saving to a previous version is a must, that I which would come back, without expensive 3rd party software.

After Apple’s Pages application, it is the easiest and simplest major print design software out there that you can use fairly intuitively if you’ve used a computer graphics program before. Just watching some tutorials online you can easily edit other people’s work fairly easily without much training.

The second best feature of quark is the powerful xtentions that exist out there on the market. Other programs had this too but quark was the first to do this. Xtentions really streamlined and automated a lot of repetitive design tasks like updating prices and phone numbers (xcatalog).

It lacks full transparency gradients and doesn’t have adequate photo layering capabilities like opacities and layer modes. It also lacks a wysiwyg font menu so you can’t see they style of the font you’re using until you select it and enter some type. Quark is also a bit unstable at times. Prone to crashes.