but not recommended.

For a little 8.5x11 flyer: Illustrator

for a document with more than one page: InDesign

"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda

I prefer to use Freehand, but I'm forcing myself to use InDesign. Clearly it is superior to everything including Quark out there.

Jim! Any thoughts on this?

Have you asked the boss to detail the reasons WHY s/he prefers you to use QuackXPense on a small document? Do you hand these small documents off to others to work on? Seems to me that even if you do, I really couldn't understand why the next person in line is unable to deal with or work in Illustrator.

I use Illustrator almost exclusively for small (no bigger than 1 page/2 sided) documents. Of course, I'm the only person who edits them so I have no worries about apps or skill sets of others. When edits are done, I export as PDF, so the question is moot for me.

I use Quark exclusively. The commercial printers I use aren't satisfied with how InDesign manages color, and I find it a needlessly complicated, counter-intuitive, and does nothing I can't easily make Quark do for me without the headaches. Funnily enough, I was a big fan of InDesign's parent application, PageMaker, especially for text-intensive projects, but I just never felt enough pressure to make the switch. I know a lot of magazines and other publishers use InDesign, though, and love it. I guess it's just a matter of what suits your situation and personal preferences best.

I would never use Illustrator for layouts, but only for vector designs which, even when stand-alone (like for tee-shirts), I import into Quark for output. Illustrator just doesn't give me the overall control I need for the kind of work I do, and there's the same color management issue.

Mara

It seems that it is a preference among some people to just use Quark. Other work colleagues prefer Quark. I myself don't see Quark as a program where you can really think creatively when it comes to a layout. Also, the way Illustrator and Photoshop are so integrated, workflow is smoother.

In my experience, the last great version of Quark was 5, and hardly anybody bought it. I relied on Quark for many years but have switched to InDesign completely since CS, mostly out of disappointment with Quark 6 and 6.5, but also from disgust with the arrogant attitude from Quark's executives in the past few years.

Also, I never understood the point of bloating up Quark with terrible web capabilities. It seems more like a marketing ploy rather than the elegant and reliable tool that Quark used to be. I sat through a meeting with Quark before 7 came out and they were actually talking about adding Director-like capabilities to 7, and were all excited about it. They seemed out of touch with their users and with the product itself.

Granted, Adobe's management has really lost it too lately ($2500 for CS3 in the UK?).

But as far as work flow, I use Illustrator for vector illustrations or complicated typography, but even single-page flyers are done in InDesign. I know intelligent people who use Quark every day, but I don't see myself going back any time soon.

I was a Quark user for almost 10 years and swtiched over exclusively to the Adobe Creative Suite. I find the combination of Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop a perfect synergy. Indesign I would always use for multi page documents and Illustrator for things such as advertising, signage or branding work. My reason for swapping to Indesign was, I must admit primarily cost driven as it was hugely different to Quark when I bought the original CS Suite but with the new pricing for the new Creative Suite 3 - it has made me wince - the costs seem to have shot up.

I'm in Guatemala, and here the most popular app is FreeHand. I've switched to Illustrator and InDesign back in CS1, so I'm familiar with the apps. Depending on the job, Creative Suite all the way... When the printer getting the job is small, I prefer to use Freehand. And, using CS3 the compatibility with Illustrator is overwhelming now...

I'm sorry to word this so strongly, but anyone who says InDesign is too complicated has not used it and doesn't know what they are talking about. I use both and they each have strength and weaknesses, but I would say that it's generally a little easier and faster in InDesign, only because it has additional styles tools (table styles, object styles, etc.) for additional automation. The claim that printers don't like how InDesign manages color is beyond bogus, unless the printer is dedicated to poor quality...

Second, if you value your time, use InDesign or Quark for anything that is layout related, whether it's 1 page or 5000. Illustrator can do it, but there is no way it can do it faster once you master InDesign. I think of Illustrator as something to create supporting design elements, but not the layout itself. Just the way it deals with placed images, for example, is a kludge compared to InDesign.

Rene

If it can't be done in InDesign, I don't accept the job.

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Visit Creative Guy for graphics and Mac OS tips, tricks, tutorials and commentary

But i use Flash for almost everything. Since i'm using flash so much i became better and faster in using this then other (probably better) programs. Not that i do layouts for print. But for my needs it's perfect. Even more since it supports photoshops files on the fly...

Good Night!
http://www.designight.com/

I'll import art from Illustrator if I need too. InDesign's text handling is far superiour to anything out there - I love the optical kerning and I can let go of it.

It's what I cut my teeth on and what I tend to end up in.
I'm slowly weaning myself off it and in to InDesign and have become much more partial to Illustrator for small jobs.

i used quark from 1996 until 2005. i tried indesign to learn the new program and have never looked back. i did have to use quark at a clients site a couple of weeks ago, and it was really quite painful and i felt quite limited. given i did learn some shortcuts, but the overall experience wasn't pleasant.

I use Indesign.
Illustrator gets handy (a lot!) for creative purposes of course.. =)

Well I would rather use Illustrator than Quark any day of the week. I use Illustrator for, well illustrations, graphic elements and the like. Indesign is the application from which I do the final export to print ready pdf whether it's a postage stamp sized ad or a 140 page brochure.

Mainly indesign now, but sometimes I use Quark just for old times sake. I use Illustrator for logos or other illustrative work but generally not page layouts. Photoshop is useful to create a template if there are lots of photographic elements or effects needed but then I would use indesign to do the main artwork and especially typography.

Illustrator isn't a page layout program, it's for illustration. However, at work, with the type of business I'm in (mostly just doing illustrations), we use illustrator for everything. A huge pet peeve of mine. :)

I'm not sure how you would do more than one page in Illustrator anyway?

For page layouts, I use InDesign.

but I have InDesign at home that I prefer for anything beyond that. I love the user friendly interface of InDesign comparatively to Quark. We use Quark at work (a local magazine) and I HATE it. I just got this job about a month or so ago, and I haven't used Quark in over 5 years, so needless to say, I was a little out of practice. I loathe the very core of Quark. I am so used to (and spoiled) with the shortcuts and ease of InDesign, that anything else is inferior.

Not to mention, InDesign is MUCH cheaper than Quark, so if it's a money issue with your boss, InDesign is a lot cheaper (I believe).

I create all of my ads with Illustrator, and am very surprised that the other deisgners at work continually use Quark to design an ad. I think that's silly. It's just so much easier to create the ad in Illustrator and place it (or import it into Quark) into InDesign, and then voila—you have an excellent ad placed into your page layout.

Quark is not for designing, it's for layout (as well as ID), so for small stuff like ads or a single paged flyer, I use Illustrator.

suzanne maestri-walters :: graphic designer

I know quite a few designers like doing their layouts in Illustrator, but to me that's using the app for more than it was designed for.

Even though you don't need multiple pages for most of your design work, if you set your page size as your crop/trim size in ID then you can output full crops without using Illustrator's crop tools. That's a time saver right there.

Use InDesign for your layouts and let Illustrator do the vector 'heavy lifting'. That way, if someone asks you to output a PDF/X-1a you just 'export' from ID rather than saving your AI file as eps and distilling than then hope it works. ;)

Quark sucks major rear end when it comes to exporting pdfs. The same pdf ID exports at 5MB, ready to print, exports from Quark at 25MB. FIVE TIMES AS LARGE. You do the math.

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Client: "can you guys make it more like a power-point presentation, you know, with the sliding text stuff and all?" (http://clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=7)

I didn't think I'd get so many responses. For the most part it looks like Quark is dead as dead. So InDesign is the way to go for sure. As for myself, I'll stick with Illustrator. Unless I begin to layout a book which I doubt will happen. Would love to hear more, but for the most part I got the gist of what people are using.

This is an old debate. There's even a site on it: http://www.quarkvsindesign.com

I still wonder why you'd want to work with text in illustrator? It's such a pain!
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Client: "can you guys make it more like a power-point presentation, you know, with the sliding text stuff and all?" (http://clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=7)

I use Xara Extreme Pro, I Have done book covers, posters, invitation cards, you name it. It is powerful with ton of features. Price is very affordable and you can do all your exports too into other apps.

I like Quark for dtp, Freehand for vector illustration and Photoshop for everything else. If I went to work somewhere where I had to change to illustrator and indesign I'd expect them to train me well enough to better my abilities in Freehand and Quark; anything less would be pointless. And I prefer OS9 but know I'll have to adapt to OSX fairly soon mainly because of the web side of things.

In 1976 I was amazing at paste-up with an x-acto blade but our business doesn't stand still and if you do, you'll be left behind. Continuous education is a must. As Natobasso said, you must train yourself, all day every day, learn something new. It's not enough to love design, you must have a love for technology and see the new programs as inspiration to take your work to places unimagined.

So dump Quark, learn InDesign, use Illustrator for vector art and never stop playing with Photoshop.

PS rocks, and I use it on PC. ("Apples" are not allowed in our studio! why using a machine that can't run 75% of today's available software/applications? )

You Can’t Reach The Top By Sitting On Your Bottom!

well i use a pc at work that i have to restart 10 times before 9am & at home i've got my wonderful mac - which i have just bought recently. i've always used a pc & yeah it's a pc is compatible with everything. but so far i've had no trouble getting stuff to work on my mac! ;)

You should get AVG Anti Virus and Spybot Search and Destroy on your pc asap! go to http://www.majorgeeks.com to download.

Also, run Windows Defender every week to catch and stop viruses.

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Client: "can you guys make it more like a power-point presentation, you know, with the sliding text stuff and all?" (http://clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=7)

I also vote vir Mac OS X!! :)
here at work the IT dude hates mac & he does not care about the graphics department... Our PC's are 2 years old & when trying to make posters for a exibition stand...OBVIOUSLY it will hang...we don't have enough RAM. I have anti-virus & the windows firewall running. but ja...URGH
thanx for the help everyone!

I am from Zimbabwe where Freehand and wait for it... Corel draw are standard. Hardly anyone uses illustrator there. Most are still using Freehand for publications, I use Indesign for multipage and have started using Illustrator for one pagers.

+++ do you have xeal? +++