Markzware’s Q2ID Plugin Review

By LaurenMarie

Back when I wrote the Quark for InDesign Users articles, I was approached by Markzware, a company that makes several Quark and InDesign plugins. I know the folks over at InDesign Secrets love plugins, but I’ve never used any myself. Markzware kindly agreed to give me a copy of their plugin to try out and I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts!

Install and Activation

For reference, I tested the Q2ID plugin on Windows XP SP2 with QuarkXpress 7.3 (Passport) and InDesign CS3.

When I unzipped the product, there were 4 files, two PDFs and 2 .apln (Adobe extensions), one apln for CS2 and one for CS3. The PDFs were instructions for installing the plugin. I simply dragged and dropped the proper .apln file into my Plug-Ins folder as directed and launched InDesign.

I entered my activation code the when InDesign booted up. Installation was that easy!

Testing the Plugin

I tested a variety of Quark files, including an all-text manual created for digital output that contained links from the table of contents to specific text anchors and a simple one page flyer. I didn’t test any long documents or extremely complicated Master Page setups.

It’s quite simple to convert the documents. You just go to File>Open (Ctrl + O) and select your Quark file. Keep in mind that you will have to change File Type to All Files in order to see Quark files when you are in the Open dialog window.

So what works and what doesn’t with Q2ID?

What Works

Layers created in Quark seem to work perfectly well in InDesign, the colors and layer names are even maintained! I only did a very simple test (a layer with text and a layer with images), but layers are not complicated, anyway.

Items that were locked in my Quark documents stay locked in InDesign.

When I converted my QuarkXpress documents to InDesign, all the images were in their proper places. Very good! Text also transitioned well. If you’re missing fonts, you’ll get a pretty standard replace fonts dialog box and have a chance to fix them before getting into the document.

What Doesn’t Work

There are some significant things that are not supported by the Q2ID plugin at this time. However, bear in mind that if you are not using some of these features, it really won’t matter to you!

Hyperlinks and lists created in Quark won’t be ported over to InDesign. I used these as a significant basis for one of the projects that I tested, so this was a significant down side for me. As you can imagine, if you used lists in Quark to create hyperlinks, they will not transfer over to InDesign either.

Although Master Pages are maintained and their objects show up on the pages in InDesign, the objects on the layout pages are not the InDesign Master Page items, they are copies of them. To fix this, you’ll have to delete all the instances of items that are on the layout page only and reapply the Master Page to the layout page. In the picture above you can see the original Master Page object (which I edited) below the copied object on the layout page.

This rather a big hassle, but I confirmed with Markzware that it is the due to the way that Quark and InDesign handle Master Page items and not an inherent defect in Q2ID. Quark essentially creates a copy of a Master Page item on the layout page. If you were to accidentally move that item on the layout page you would be creating another copy of it on the layout page. Although the Master Page and its objects are intact in InDesign, the master is not applied to the layout page at first. I have tried converting both locked items and unlocked items and the same thing happens (though locked items do remain locked in InDesign).

It Works But…

Some text was extended so it overflowed the text boxes. I think this is a problem due to custom tracking and kerning not translating well into InDesign.

The All Caps function from Quark will highlight the text it was used on in yellow in InDesign, but the text is still capped and it doesn’t export to PDF with the yellow highlights. If you select the text in InDesign and go to Type>Change Case>Uppercase the yellow goes away.

Auto Page numbers transferred over well in my tests. The Sections I had set up in Quark transferred, as well, the only small problem I encountered was the prefix I created in Quark was lowercase roman numerals and those were translated into regular numbers in InDesign. This was an easy fix in InDesign. Layout>Numbering & Section Options, drop down menu and select proper numbering style, though this could take a significant amount of time if you had a lot of sections.

Paragraph Styles indicate that there are local overrides (the little + icon next to the name), but when I cleared local overrides on most text, nothing shifted.

Just for you readers I did confirm with Markzware customer support that some of these things that don’t work are actually a byproduct of the way Quark and InDesign inherently handle files.

Conclusion

At $200 the Q2ID plugin is a little expensive for my budget, but some searching revealed to me that it is actually quite reasonably priced when compared to other such complex plugins. It’s certainly less time consuming that rebuilding your Quark files in InDesign. If you have a lot of files to convert from Quark to InDesign, I think the $200 investment is well worth it.

Have you used the Q2ID plugin from Markzware? I would love to hear about your experience with it!

Design Talk Board also has a review of Q2ID.

Distinguish Quality Control

Wow — it has been over 15 years since I worked as a print production manager for a large advertising agency in California. Computer-To-Plate (CTP) was starting to garner industry buzz, and in my role, I had to best determine how to take digital creative files, produce them internally and ensure that once they were sent off to the printer or a publication, for example, they would work — meaning, they would render on press the way we expected them to and our clients, the advertisers, were pleased with the results.

Seemed like a simple enough challenge at the time, but what I soon discovered was that it was anything but.

It wasn’t as though the process was any more difficult than it was back in the “days of film.” At the agency, we had art directors who were mocking up layouts on boards that were turned over to me for recreation in QuarkXPress. After working with the art directors and others within the agency to make final tweaks to the ads, I then had to provide them with the assurance that what I was creating digitally would reproduce in the manner they expected.

The only real difference in the workflow of “those good old days” and today is that we are no longer shipping film — and that is a great thing.

However, even though a lot of the processes were the same, accountability for the success or failure of the final print result was shifting. While in the days of film, it may have been the primary responsibility of the prepress supplier or printer to make sure the final results were accurate and optimal, in the days of digital file exchange, it’s a whole new ballgame. And anyone who wants to be able to hit the home run out of the park has to realize that it’s no longer only prepress and print suppliers who have to accept accountability. These days, more than ever, the print buyer and digital file creator assume just as much responsibility as their manufacturing partners.

It’s one of the reasons why I got out of the ad production game and decided to create a software tool that would alleviate some of the headaches of digital file workflows and make it increasingly easier for print buyers and production professionals to ensure that the files leaving their shops were in tact, had integrity and would produce in the manner that was expected of them. And with the help of my partner, Ron Crandall, Markzware was born and we became widely known in the print industry as the “preflight” company.

Preflight and postflight: Defining the terms
The term “preflight” has been adopted by the graphic arts community as the blanket or umbrella term that refers to file checking at any stage of the workflow. While we know that it’s essential to verify file integrity at several points in the process (creative, production, prepress), it would better suit us to distinguish these quality control checkpoints with terminology that , in fact, reflects when and why the file is being checked.

At Markzware, we’ve always considered the term “preflight” to be specific to the creative process, when digital files are in their native application form. “Postflight,” however, is a subset of preflighting that refers specifically to file verification that occurs, for example, after the prepress file (usually a PDF) has been created and is used to drive prepress processes, such as digital contract proofing, platesetting or digital printing. Distinguishing between preflight and postflight ensures that print buyers and their manufacturing parters are clear about when in the workflow quality control should take place.

Markzware, for example offers several tools including our flagship FlightCheck application, that will both preflight native application files and postflight PDF files.

Why do we need to verify digital files at more than one point n the workflow? Some may argue this is a redundancy that digital production and CTP was supposed to alleviate. Similarly, many print buyers and production professionals say, “Why do I need to preflight? I just send my digital files over to the printer. They’re going to check them there anyway.”

Point noted, but we mustn’t minimize the impact to deadlines and the bottom line if a printer receives a problematic file. consider this analogy: When traveling by plane, particularly these days, each passenger expects to wait in long queues at the single security checkpoint that stands between the terminal and the gate. If there were several smaller checkpoints along the path to boarding the plane, long lines could be minimized or eliminated.

While no two digital workflows are alike, there are some commonalities, and to illustrate my point, let’s take a look at a typical print buyer/printer relationship.

At the customer’s site, you may have an art director who is pulling elements from a variety of sources (images, logos, copy, etc.) and compiling them into a QuarkXPress or InDesign document. Once the creative forces and others have approved the final page, that native application file is then destined for the printer (presumably, not hopefully, along with a digital proof that represents that file).

At the printer, the file is then manipulated — and sometimes altered n any number of ways. The printer may apply things like trapping, make textual changes to the document on the customer’s behalf or RIP the file to a PF or whatever type of file format they need to drive their own proofing and platesetting processes.

If that original native application file the print buyer sent to the printer is flawless — if all the elements are in lace, fonts are embedded, graphics are all CMYK and resolution is high — this workflow should be relatively seamless, and the file will move through each of the stages without setbacks.

That’s the ideal. Now, let’s look at the real world. In the past few years, printers have noted that their customers are certainly becoming more adept at preparing digital files, but still some report that more than 80percent of the digital files (including both native application and PDF files) they receive from customers are flawed in some way. IF you think about it, that’s an extraordinary percentage of bad files being passed around – poorly prepared files that cost the print buyers both time and money to remedy.

While PDF has been lauded as the print industry savior, remember this: If flaws are resident are in the native application, they will remain in the pF, as well. Simply taking your native application to a PDF does not ensure that these problems will be remedied.

So, yes, most printers will happily accept your digital files — good, bad or otherwise — and they’ll happily run it through preflight, make fixes and changes, convert it, postflight the new file and send it on its merry way to the platesetter or digital press. But, remember, there’s a cost for this. Not only are you paying the printer to find and fix these errors, there is the potential cost of missed press schedules and distribution deadlines. It’s really a no brainer: Send your printer a bad file, and accept the costs and risks of doing so.

Quality control mustn’t be a print buyer’s afterthought. Preflight and postflight technologies are readily available, inexpensive to buy and easy to apply to the creative and in-house production workflow. Why take the risk?

Have The Best of Both Worlds with Q2ID

Despite all the gains and benefits of computer-to-plate (CTP) imaging and digital design, the process of creating compelling packaging designs is actually more complicated than ever. In the days of film, it didn’t matter what creative application you may have been using — Adobe Illustrator or QuarkXPress, for example — because in the end the creative work became film, which any packaging manufacturer could accept.

Then came CTP, and film stepped aside and allowed digital workflow to take center stage. No longer was film trafficked; rather, digital files became the means for exchanging packaging content. And suddenly, it became increasingly important what design application a creative director may be using, and what types of digital file formats a package printer may (or may not) accept.

There will always be loyal QuarkXPress fans, or loyal Adobe fans, who stick with their favorite creative application, no matter what the other developer may offer. But increasingly, there are greater numbers of package designers who find that it’s not a matter of choosing one application versus the other. Instead, they find themselves enmeshed in a creative workflow that requires the use of both Adobe’s and Quark’s solutions.

Design of the times
Caleb Clauset owns 2cdesign, a creative agency and consultancy based in Silver spring, MD. Clauset splits his time between managing the firm, creative design, and globe trotting on consulting projects for which he helps publishers, creative agencies, and printing businesses build the most efficient digital workflows.

Clauset has been a witness to the evolution of design tools for the graphic arts. “I actually started out in my career using Adobe PageMaker, but quickly switched over to QuarkXPress,” Clauset recalls. “I used QuarkXPress until 2001. But when Adobe introduced InDesign, I started playing with that, and evenutally switched over completely to InDesign.”

While Clauset continues to hold a license for QuarkXPress, he says, that he’s using the application less often. “I haven’t had the need to open up QuarkXPress in months,” he confides. “When I do it’s usually to do a little bit of document clean-up work before I use Q2ID.”

Q2ID is a plug-in from preflight Pioneer Markzware Software, in Santa Ana, CA., “I’d heard of Markzware’s Q2ID plug-in,” Clauset recalls, “which will let you bring an InDesign file into QuarkXPress. And I was just waiting for Markzware to come up with a tool that would let you do the reverse — pulls a Quark File into InDesign.”

Clauset admits that he was initially skeptical about any tool that promised a true conversion from one application to the next. “I was kind of reluctant to buy Q2ID at first,” he recalls. “I checked out the information on the Web site, and the documentation was pretty thin. I really wanted to now more about it before I plunked down $200.”

“But I had a job that I needed to turn around in a day, and I knew I needed this tool” Clauset continues. “If I had to recreate the file from scratch, in InDesign, I knew it owuld take me between eight and 10 hours.” Clauset soon discovered why the technical documentation for Q2ID was so “thin,” as he had called it.

“I bought the software, installed it, and found that the coolest thing about it was that it, too, is so thin!” Clauset affirms. “there’s no user interface and nothing to learn. Essentially, it does its job, but it’s completely transparent. It’s the best kind of plug-in. You install it, hit “File” and “Open,” and InDesign opens your document. That’s it.” For Clauset converting QuarkXPress documents to InDesign-friendly ones takes mere minutes, rather than hours of duplicating work that process once required. “Q2ID maps everything that Quark does to the InDesign equivalent,” he adds. “If it’s a table in Quark, it becomes a table in InDesign, and so on.”