Simon Eccles tries the latest versions of Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress software and provides a run-down of the variable data plug-ins that run with them.

In the past year we have seen major updates to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress, the most widely used layoutprograms that support third party variable data plugins. Here we look at the most significant changes to these programs, together with a run down of the main VDP plugins.

Back in May, Adobe announced that henceforth it was switching its Creative Suite set of programs to an all-subscription model called Creative Cloud. Despite the name, these programs do not run from some nebulous offsite server farm, they are downloaded directly to your computers and run locally as before. The ‘cloud’ part is partly that Adobe’s management utility periodically checks over the internet that your subscription is still being paid, and if not it switches off your access to the programs. The other cloudy aspect is that Adobe has introduced various collaborative and sharing features for designers to use over the internet.

 

Cloudy future

InDesign, Adobe’s multi-page layout program, has emerged as the main vehicle for third party developers that use plug-ins to set up variable data text and imaging fields within the document pages. InDesign has steadily gained market share over the past decade. This has come at the expense of QuarkXPress, which dominated professional layout and publishing in the 1990s and which had previously been popular with third party developers because of its support for plug-ins that Quark calls XTensions.

With Creative Cloud came InDesign CC, an upgrade to the previous CS6 version. It has to be said that there are not many new tools or features in this, though under the skin performance is improved by full 64-bit support. There is a modified user interface that adopts more of the visual feel of Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC. Font selection is improved with useful search features and the ability to mark and display favourites. A QR code generator is now built in.

That is about it: the built-in variable data features are confined to the same basic mailmerge that has been there for about a decade. There is no built-in support for PDF/VT, the variable-data file format that has been committee developed over the past five or six years. Some of the third party plug-in suppliers add PDF/VT though.

 

Quark tries harder

With Quark now very much the number two in market share, it evidently feels it needs to try harder with its upgrades. QuarkXPress 10 shipped early in September with a whole bunch of genuine new features, followed in late November by a minor update to v.10.0.2 that introduced support for the new Apple OS X Maverick operating system plus some bug fixes.

As with InDesign, there is a new code structure. Windows users get support for Windows 8, unsurprisingly, but Mac users get Cocoa, the native code for OS X, for the first time. This has tangible benefits in that it taps into OS X internal features such as full-screen preview, recent file lists and language selection. If you have a Retina screen, QXP10 supports this with a higher resolution display.

There is a heavily revised user interface with new ways to organise palettes and improved pull-down menu scrolling. The Print and New Colour menus have been changed. Print gets a colour preview of any page in a multi-page document, with indications of bleed, printers’ marks and print area. The New Colour palette can now be enlarged to full screen size, which makes picking from the colour wheel more exact, while it also displays more and larger

Pantone swatches at once. Another nice new feature is the ability to import photographs or PDFs with multiple layers and to switch them on and off as needed – useful for languages or different versions. You can also control the colour channels that way.

Quark has developed a new graphics engine called Xenon that improves the rendering of graphics on-screen. This is apparently also responsible for the new ability to preserve transparency within imported PDFs, and to integrate this with Quark’s own elements. InDesign has had this for ages.

Unfortunately, Quark’s implementation does not work very well, at least not on the Macs I tried it with. Even on the latest v.10.0.2 that was supposed to fix it, the imported transparent colours are wrong on screen. However, if you export them within a new PDF, they are correct.

 

Who will switch?

In terms of new features, QuarkXPress 10 beats InDesign CC hollow. However, InDesign was already pretty good to start with. Most users will already be committed to one of the programs in terms of investment and staff experience, so new features are not going to sway them much. 

However, there has been a lot of online user grumbling about Creative Cloud monthly payments, where you are effectively renting the software and never owning it. Adobe promised a rolling programme of new features in return for this never-never payment scheme, but six months on there has been nothing notable for Illustrator or Photoshop while InDesign has merely gained the ability to synchronise settings between desktop and laptop installations.

Quark still sells you a ‘perpetual license,’ which may work in its favour, as you only need to upgrade if and when you feel like it. With no guaranteed monthly income, it’s in Quark’s interests to make its updates zing to the point that you will actually want to pay for them voluntarily.

 

Variable Data choice

QuarkXPress was the original extensible program and early third-party VDP offerings tended to work with it. Since InDesign appeared in 2000, many VDP developers have switched over, though there is still a decent choice for XPress users. If you are planning to upgrade to InDesign CC or XPress 10, check that the VDP add-ons will actually support these latest versions first.

Also look for output formats and check that your Rip/workflow can support it. Most variable data systems generate PPML. AFP/IPDS may be needed for some high end printing systems. VPS (Variable PostScript Specification) is accepted by Creo PODS based Rips on Canon/Océ, Kodak, Xerox and other digital presses. JLYT/Snap is a similar format for HP Indigos.

PDF/VT is available with some of the third party VDP add-ons, but nearly six years after it was announced, it still does not seem to be making much impact in the real world.