InDesign is a page layout application which can be used to design any type of printed publication. It is the biggest competitor for the long-time market leader, QuarkXPress. InDesign is from Adobe, the creators of Photoshop and the PDF file format.

How widespread is the use of InDesign in preference to QuarkXPress?

QuarkXPress dominated the layout market for several years, but InDesign has steadily gained ground.

Exact market share is difficult to assess, because Quark is sold as a stand-alone product while InDesign is usually bought as part of the Adobe Creative Suite along with Photoshop and other applications. How many Creative Suite buyers actually use their copy of InDesign?

Many of the biggest publishing companies are now switching to InDesign. However, smaller publishers which have already invested in QuarkXPress may stick with it for some time to come.

Why is InDesign challenging QuarkXPress in the publishing industry?

Price is a major factor. A single-user copy of the complete InDesign package costs around £600 and there are many discount deals. The equivalent QuarkXPress 7 package costs £880. Education licences for both products range from £160 to as low as £50.

InDesign also offers extra functionality (see below).

Recent versions of QuarkXPress have proved unstable and many Quark users still prefer Quark 4 because it is more reliable. InDesign appears to be more robust.

What are InDesign’s biggest advantages over QuarkXPress for users?

Integration with other Adobe applications, such as Photoshop and Illustrator (using similar concepts and keyboard shortcuts). InDesign can easily work with Photoshop files and PDFs, QuarkXPress cannot.

InDesign has built-in drop shadows, feathering and transparency effects, and Photoshop-style layers, all of which QuarkXPress lacks.

InDesign can work with Microsoft Word tables, which are not supported by QuarkXPress. InDesign analyses text flow to produce neat hyphenation and line breaks. QuarkXPress has a much less sophisticated hyphenation system.

InDesign incorporates a story editor which allows easy editing even on complex layouts.

InDesign allows ‘nested styles’ which automate such features as bold or capitalized first words or drop capitals in a contrasting colour, which have to be applied manually in QuarkXPress.

InDesign offers multi-coloured gradients, and gradients can be applied to editable text.

InDesign’s Eyedropper tool allows text or image formatting to be copied and pasted.

InDesign makes exporting to PDF for printing or web use very simple.

InDesign can open QuarkXPress documents.

What are the drawbacks to using InDesign?

The biggest problem is that designers produce 'me-too' designs. Because it's so easy to add drop shadows and use transparency, designers jump at the chance. The extra facilities offered by InDesign are great - but they need to be used with care.

What should a student learn - InDesign or Quark?

I'd say InDesign, because it's likely to be even more widely used by the time a student gets a job in publishing. But if you get the chance, try to get some experience of both.