Moving to InDesign?

Here's what designers are saying about InDesign versus Quark:

When we got our hands on InDesign we realized that it was easier to use and had more typographical control than Quark. The nested styles and other type tools made it really easy and quick to create the magazine's template. Then add Version Cue and Bridge and you have a package that really helps workflow for such a small shop like ours.
Aldo Parise
Publisher, Tidings magazine

The switch from Quark to InDesign on explore has been awesome but I also went from a 533mhz G4 to a Dual 1.8 G5 so things are way smoother. I would never go back to Quark. We never had Q5 so my reference point is Q 3.3. Quark was OK, simple, fast but since using InDesign—a very robust app—it would be like using a dog sled rather than a snowmobile.
Gary Davidson
Art director, explore magazine

We're still Quark fans here, although we use every other CS product. Not switching anytime soon. Why not? Too busy to look into it further...
Tom Graham
Principal, TD Graham + Associates Marketing Communications

What made me jump in [to InDesign] was a project that I just couldn't handle in Quark or Illustrator. (The width of the document was more than Quark could handle, but the depth was very small. With InDesign I could work on the entire document at full size.) I still use Quark. I'm not ready to give it up because of the familiarity and ease of use. Designers hate learning curves! So I'll integrate InDesign into my software toolbox gradually.
Peggy Cady
National president, Society of Graphic Designers of Canada

[InDesign] is not as intuitive as Quark. The programs do not mesh as well as we'd thought (no drag and drop of Illustrator files for instance. But from Entourage email, no problem!) We had problems with master pages. They are not utilized the same way they are in Quark, rendering them useless to us page layout pros! (They lock when they’re brought into the layouts). InDesign clipping paths and grouped objects are clumsy. But most noticeable and frustrating is that everything takes two or three clicks back and forth from palette to page, rather than the one that it took in Quark!
But the savings were noticeable. We would have had to buy both Quark and the package if we stuck with them. And now we don’t have to deal with the Quark quagmire. They were always so unhelpful!
Anna Belluz
Creative director, OP Publishing

As an independent editorial design studio I'm somewhat caught in the middle. I have to react to my clients’ whims about technology. I'm finding most new start-ups are using InDesign and a lot of established magazines are opting for the OSX with system 9 option in order to continue running Quark 4.11. That means that I have to be ready to accommodate both camps. So although I'm primarily still a Quark-based designer, I see that Quark has just left us all high and dry (running OS9 on a studio full of Macs that are built for OSX in order to accommodate an out of date program seems rather ridiculous and all my contacts within the magazine industry urged me to stay clear of the "horrific" version 5 of Quark and 6 -6.5 are just as buggy and incompetent, not to mention that it costs nearly three times as much as a CS2 bundle) and that sadly I too will have to begin to produce with InDesign.
Tom Brown
Principal, Tom Brown Art + Design

I haven't made the switch yet. I haven’t worked with InDesign so I'm not familiar with what I'm missing, if anything. Quark has been good to me but who knows, maybe some day... What would make me switch? Necessity I guess or if Quark ceased.
Bill Douglas
Publisher, Coupe magazine

I like the way images look in InDesign — not as bitmapped, smoother, higher quality. Many of the InDesign features are similar to other Adobe programs: the tool bars are more organized as are the info boxes and it is smarter, it does some of the thinking for the user…
On the down side, I don’t like the text box drag to open. I don’t like the tracking or kerning pre-sets; it’s not as good of a type program. Also when I try to catch the corners to make the boxes bigger it often doesn’t catch and makes a new box, which I then have to delete. Finally, it seems slower than Quark in its response time.
Overall I like InDesign, it feels slicker but I will still use Quark when I need to handle concepts with a rough approach — I like the ease at which Quark makes mistakes, which can then be exploited. But InDesign will become my main design program simply because everyone is making the change and I don’t want to get left behind.
Malcolm Brown
Principal, SuperCrasher.ca

Before making any "switch," I would thoroughly review the costs and benefits (for both design and production) of both options. I prefer, however, not to fully commit to one over the other, but to use whichever one most seamlessly allows me to solve any specific design problem or production challenge. These programs are, after all, merely tools — neither is a religion.
Steve Manley
Co-principal, Overleaf Communications

It takes time to learn a new program and become proficient but now that I have had to work in Quark again and can compare, InDesign is clearly a superior program. I know that production is much smoother as well.
Kim Zagar
Former art director at Cottage Life and Chatelaine

Why did we choose InDesign? Mainly because we are all comfortable with the Adobe toolset and interface.
Warren Wilansky
Principal and creative director, Plank Multimedia

Our decision to move to InDesign was made easier through the increasing difficulty in working with Quark (the company not the program). With the introduction of the QLA (Quark licensing agreement) system, the program became even more challenging to work with as it led to such things as the program freezing for several seconds every couple of minutes when it looks for other users across your LAN, to having the program go corrupt if you are a laptop user and you use it away from your LAN with your Airport on. The other leading decision is that students are not learning Quark anymore in school. Adobe has managed to position themselves as the preferred software choice with the next generation of designers. Those issues and the ever-escalating cost of Quark made it a fairly easy business decision of not "if" but "when".
John Furneaux
Managing director, Karacters Design Group