Tomorrow is going to be a very, very long day

February 14, 2005 · Comments

So [Aquent](http://www.aquent.com) calls me today. I’ve been registered with them for a while, and they know that I’m extremely proficient in InDesign but they keep calling me for Quark jobs that are weeks at at time and start the next day. A, I haven’t touched QuarkXPress in almost 4 years. B, I have clients and commitments and can’t clear my schedule that quickly, C, I hate the idea of working in QuarkXPress and last but not least D, I really hate QuarkXPress.

As soon as the woman identifies herself, I say, “I’ll be honest, unless you have a one-day job I’m probably not going to be able to do it because my life is a little nuts right now and we’re in the process of selling our house.” She answers, “It’s a one-day job.” “Oh.”

It’s a production job in Westport. One day, producing a magazine supplement that already has a cover and template designed. There’s some charts in Illustrator and it’s in, you guessed it, Quark. I must have been drunk or just stupid, because I agreed to do it. Even though the money isn’t fantastic, it’s only one day and I’m trying to get income where I can.

I downloaded the Quark 6 demo to get myself familiar with the application again. The last time I touched Quark was version 4something back in 2001.

Oh. My. Goodness. **It’s horrible!** Why oh why do people still use this disgusting beast? The interface looks like a shareware application that a high school kid slapped together. I spent about 3-4 hours today putting together an 8-page, text-intensive newsletter in InDesign for a client. I thought it would be good practice to try and redo the newsletter in Quark. It involves graphics, style sheets, pull quotes, linked text, folios, etc. I’m trying to remember all the Quark keyboard shortcuts. I’m trying to get used to using one tool to drag out a container box and another tool to fill it. I’m trying to get used to the fact that I can’t just click on the arrow keys in a dialog box to adjust values. I’m trying to get used to the fact that I can’t simply select “Redefine Style” to change all the body copy at once. It’s ain’t easy.

And it’s buggy! At version 6.5! Still! I drew out a text box in a master page to create a folio. I changed the font, but it didn’t appear to change. I changed the zoom, and the new font appeared. Come on, *this* is the industry standard?!? Do I care that I can take my newsletter and change it into a record album, website or whathaveyou with the new “Project” menu? No, not in the least.

Here’s a good one…I like working in the font Minion so I have a complete font set. This is how it looks when I select the menu in InDesign:

Indesign-Font

Purdy. Notice how the name of the font is completely spelled out so I know exactly what I’m looking at. Notice how it’s grouped by style so generally, I know if I want to pick the lighter faces I look towards the top, heavier towards the bottom. Nice, huh?

Now, see the exact same menu in QuarkWe’reBigAndExpensiveSoWeDon’tHaveToBeUserFriendlyXPress:

Quark-Font

InDesign is smart enough to recognize the true name of the font. So my “Adobe Jenson Pro” is alphabetical by “J” for “Jenson”, while Quark has it up under “A” for “Adobe.” In InDesign, “ITC Menodza Roman” is grouped with the “M” fonts, not the other “ITC” fonts. When I’m looking for Garamond, I don’t care if it’s ITC or Adobe or whatever. I want to look for Garamond so I want to look under “G” not the Foundry name. And while we’re ragging…Do I really need the word “Minion” repeated in the submenu? It’s in the “Minion” submenu for goodness sake. And I’m supposed to remember that “BoldOsF” is really “Bold Oldstyle Figures”? And where are all my black styles? Who knows.

Adobe, do whatever you have to do to put this dog out of its misery once and for all so poor, desperate designers don’t have to stoop as low as to take one-day jobs working in this nightmare. I just hope that when I sit down tomorrow with the actual work that I’ll be able to get around with minimum cursing and they won’t throw me out by lunch time.

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