Quark for web design?

[sle2002]

A new version of Quark is coming out and in the description it says the following:
"For the web, QuarkXPress offers more control over designing cascading menus, specifying font families for style sheets and creating rollovers."

I rarely use Quark because my assumption was that it was to be used to design for print.

Does anyone use Quark for web? And if so why would you use it versus Dreamweaver, FrontPage. Is it also compatible with Flash?

S-

 

[Genimuse]

Quark is for print, even with the new stuff. I can guarantee that it will generate lousy code, be very restricted in what it can do, and will cost way, way more than it's worth for helping with web design.

Don't misunderstand me: QuarkXPress is a very, very good graphic design application. I made my living using it all day for years. But it's not a web design application, and Quark is only adding these features in to encourage unknowledgeable users to purchase an upgrade or stop buying Adobe's InDesign (which does everything Quark does, but better).

In addition if you aren't already a QuarkXPress user then you're in for a pretty steep learning curve (I also taught Quark classes for years) in exchange for what will be a poor web design application.

Its only virtue will be for people who want to convert the print designs they've done/are doing into web pages quickly. Since the principles of print design and the principles of web design are considerably different, that's a failed concept anyway. If you really need your users to have an online version of the exact print document you created, Adobe Acrobat works perfectly.

 

[sle2002]

That is what i have thought. I just wanted someone else's opinion. The design team that i am on is ALL print(except me) so i could see "Hey lets just use Quark for everything" coming up.

 

[blueark]

The only real use the web features in Quark have is for repurposing existing content. Even then it shouldn't be used for creating finished web pages, but for exporting legacy documents, usually into XML. It's also handy for quickly copying and pasting into a Quark web document saving you the effort of having to convert every image and style sheet. However, it's more a 'first step' for people who want to create html versions of their documents rather than a fully fledged web editor.

I think the new version of Quark that's due out 'soon' (version 6) is trying to be a complete publishing solution. In other words, you don't create a document, but a project, and the same content can be reused over a variety of media. So, if you see a spelling mistake on your printed poster, correcting it will also correct your brochure, web page and PDF. That's the theory anyway, and it sounds interesting, but after the disappointment of Quark 5, it's a case of wait and see. If it doesn't live up to the hype, there will be an even greater exodus to InDesign.

 

[sle2002]

Interesting.

How does that work though with the size of the graphic files? I know that the print designers here work with HUGE resolution graphic files. Does Quark 6 automatically size and optimize the graphics and resave them in a new folder? Or is that something that is manually done.

The whole thing seems a bit suspect. A lot of projects that you create in Quark are a different size (8 1/2 X 11)and it seems that it wouldn't automatically change(in a pleasing way)that to fix the 800X600 ratio that a lot of websites use.

It seems that you would have to go back to do a lot of tweaking? And in the end it would have been just easier to design for the web using the products that are made for it?

 

[blueark]

I presume it will resave and resize the images, at least it does in Quark 5. As for how projects would work, I've no idea. I would imagine that all the various elements are tagged in some way, and that when you create a web page, you might drag and drop the individual elements in a way that suits the different orientation, probably omitting items that you don't need, such as page numbers. But until it's released, it's hard to say how good it's going to be.