Do I have your attention, with such a title? Yes? Well, of course it isn’t true, strictly speaking. I mean, nothing special happens when you open a QuarkXPress 7 document in InDesign CS2. It looks just like you’re opening another InDesign document. No fanfare, not a sound or even a slight pause in operation. It just works --very frustrating if you like a bit of drama in your every day life. Alas, Q2ID is a quiet and sure-fire operator.

OK, I was kidding for about 10 percent. Ninety percent of the time, Q2ID will work without any problem at all. But the truth of the matter is that Q2ID isn’t perfect, as is so little in life. For example, Quark Image Effects won’t convert. Some text characteristics won’t either, or will manual tuning afterwards --kerning, even the flow in some circumstances.

But that’s not the point. The point is that Q2ID saves time, a lot of time. A couple of months ago, I tested the mirror application, ID2Q. One thing I noted about that XTension was that transparency in InDesign would inevitably lead to double and sometimes even triple text frames.

DTP'ers Saving Time When Converting

That’s a problem you won’t see with Q2ID. Problems that do occur are more subtle in nature. I don’t know why this is so, but I do know that both add-ins saved me a lot of time, even if it means I have to fine-tune the results afterwards to make them identical. I even timed the difference between having Q2ID and not having Q2ID, and it’s a ratio of about 200:1.

Because without the add-in you will have to export the content, then re-create the whole design in the “other layout application” and then reflow the text after having created the new stylesheets. That’s all unnecessary with Q2ID (and ID2Q). 

Could they be even better? I suppose so. They would be perfect if I didn’t have to fine-tune anything at all after conversion, but that’s simply impossible. The reason is that QuarkXPress differs so much from InDesign it’s a small miracle conversion is possible at all. If both applications were pure XML, that would be different, and I wouldn’t be as positive about Markzware’s plug-ins at all.

But despite the fact that QuarkXPress and InDesign both claim to be 100% XML compatible, that only goes for the content and structure of the text and elements, not for the formatting, and that’s where the real problems occur when converting.

So, I’m quite happy with the results of Q2ID; a bit more so than with those of ID2Q, to be honest. If you work in a mixed environment, where both layout programs are used, the plug-ins are certainly worth their money; I guess if there are a lot of conversions to be done, even a lot more. The plug-in is not yet compatible with InDesign CS3. It will be later this year.