I don't use Quark XPress very often. It's not that I don't think it's a great product, because it really is a great product for outputting files. I just don't think it's a great application for those wanting to do page layout and design in one app at the same time. InDesign is just plain better, in my opinion.

But that doesn't stop me from trying to stay up on things regarding Quark XPress. So when I came across a link on Quark's Web site for a PDF titled QuarkXPress 7 Integration with Creative Suite 3 (direct link to PDF file here), I was naturally a bit curious.

After reading a few pages of each section, I was left wondering just what exactly was the purpose of the document.

Obviously, Quark wants you to use XPress over InDesign. I get that. But they must understand that they simply aren't going to pull people away from Illustrator or Photoshop. Yet it almost appeared as though they were trying to not only point-out the flaws with Quark when dealing with Photoshop and Illustrator files, but then went out of their way to somehow convince you that some inferior feature built-in to Quark was the better route to go anyway.

For instance, in the Illustrator section, they start out by saying that basically Quark XPress can't deal with transparency in Illustrator files so you're better off saving files as a PDF and placing those instead. Then they go on to try and convince you that since transparency objects from Illustrator don't work very well in XPress, you should use XPress' Drop Shadow feature, rather than Illustrator's.

Well, I haven't gone into enough detail to explain myself there, but if you're a Quark XPress user, you may find something of value in this document. However, I wouldn't hold your breath, as it seems Quark has served to do nothing with this document other than point out all of Quark's shortcomings.