My company's design group is pushing to move from Quark to Indesign, starting with one of my projects, which is our largest (400 pages), highest profile document (it is currently in Quark, and the plan is to pour the text and graphics into InDesign). Our schedule is very lean--leaving little room for surprises. None of the compositors in the design group have used InDesign. They are expected to recieve some formal training--but only about 1 week's worth total over a period of several weeks. I am all for making the transition to InDesign, but feel that the wiser path to take is to start on smaller and less high-profile documents that have more time in the schedule for the learning curve. However the design manager is adament that the transition will be problem-free. My experience is that any transition like this has bumps, and most are unexpected, and create havoc and panic. This document has only gone to print on time once (in 10+ years)--with me managing the project and with much sweat and tears. My hope that this year we could go to print on time AND do it with less wear and tear on all who work on it. I just don't think this will happen making this tranisiton now. Can anyone share their experiences when they made the transition?
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Converting from Quark to InDesign
- Thread starter amonde
- Start date
eugenetyson
Technical User
You open Quark 4 documents in InDesign, so you'd have to save later versions of Quark Docs down to 4.
There is a plugin from markzware called Quark to InDesign too.
It's really not that hard to convert from Quark to InDesign, it is intense though.
Your best bet is to extract all the text as RTF or something similar and then recompose it in InDesign.
This Xtension from CopyFlowGold will convert Quark to RTF
The good thing about RTF is that it keeps the style names. So when you import the text into InDesign, it should come in just fine.
Other Scripts you would need for InDesign are
Preserve Local Formatting, and
Smart Title Case
Preserve Local Formatting is great because it will find any formatting in text like bold, italic, superscript etc, and apply the appropriate character style. Meaning that once the text is placed, you run the Preserve Local Formatting and then you can hit the Paragraph Style Override button without losing the character styling.
There is a plugin from markzware called Quark to InDesign too.
It's really not that hard to convert from Quark to InDesign, it is intense though.
Your best bet is to extract all the text as RTF or something similar and then recompose it in InDesign.
This Xtension from CopyFlowGold will convert Quark to RTF
The good thing about RTF is that it keeps the style names. So when you import the text into InDesign, it should come in just fine.
Other Scripts you would need for InDesign are
Preserve Local Formatting, and
Smart Title Case
Preserve Local Formatting is great because it will find any formatting in text like bold, italic, superscript etc, and apply the appropriate character style. Meaning that once the text is placed, you run the Preserve Local Formatting and then you can hit the Paragraph Style Override button without losing the character styling.
My first Indesign project (years ago when CS first came out) was about 120 pages with a 2 week turn around. I found it surprisingly simple and got it done in 2 days. If you're familiar with Illustrator, it's pretty simple. The biggest thing is to NOT go looking for problems and complaining that ID does not behave like Q. Just go with the flow, check the Help when necessary, and keep calm.
I've found it best to export all the stuff from Q and redo in ID. I have opened Q4 docs in ID, had them look fine on screen and then go loopy when generating postscript or pdf - things like some letters coming out cyrillic, etc. If you have a long doc with those problems, it can be a PITA finding and correcting the cause. Same thing with Word docs. I've given up the preserve formatting option when placing in ID. I just save as text, bring that in and reformat. You never know what the original person did in that Word doc.
Hopefully, your project is fairly simple. Straight text and graphics without all sorts of fancy stuff. Like everything else, the fancier you get, using all the newest gadgets and doohickeys, the greater chance for problems down the road. It's usually best to play with the newer and "cooler" stuff on practice docs rather than deadline, "must be perfect" stuff.
Using OSX 10.3.9 & 10.4.11 on a G4, G5 & Intel Macbook
I've found it best to export all the stuff from Q and redo in ID. I have opened Q4 docs in ID, had them look fine on screen and then go loopy when generating postscript or pdf - things like some letters coming out cyrillic, etc. If you have a long doc with those problems, it can be a PITA finding and correcting the cause. Same thing with Word docs. I've given up the preserve formatting option when placing in ID. I just save as text, bring that in and reformat. You never know what the original person did in that Word doc.
Hopefully, your project is fairly simple. Straight text and graphics without all sorts of fancy stuff. Like everything else, the fancier you get, using all the newest gadgets and doohickeys, the greater chance for problems down the road. It's usually best to play with the newer and "cooler" stuff on practice docs rather than deadline, "must be perfect" stuff.
Using OSX 10.3.9 & 10.4.11 on a G4, G5 & Intel Macbook
...with such a tight deadline and so called high profile 400 page document being converted to indesign i think your design manager needs to re-assess, sounds a bit daft to me...
...sure you can try it out, but if i were the manager i would ultimately be responsible for the decision of making such a conversion, possibly snowballing to worse...
...i wouldn't do it on large document live work if it were me, and if this one hasn't been around for 10+ years, then you likely have time between now and the next to try it out, leaving more time to check it over...
...for now, i would save creating a good deal of ill feeling amongst the troops and keep it in quark...
Andrew
MarcusStringer
IS-IT--Management
Markzware have a great convertor which works fine...
although you have to check it carefully as with all conversion programs some things just won't convert properly...
Marcus
although you have to check it carefully as with all conversion programs some things just won't convert properly...
Marcus
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