VICLEN  Do we really care whether someone has "moved 4 production departments to InDesign" or has some other axe to grind? Nope.

Why won't anyone download the 60-day trial, work with it and then post a review? Why live in the past? Judge QuarkXPress 8 on its merits.

I've been using it for three weeks or so. In that time there have been no crashes or unexpected quits - not that I get many problems with v7.

On a dual-processor G5 running Mac OS X 10.4, the screen redraws are much faster than with v7 - my productivity is definitely up irrespective of the new user interface. Being able to just draw a text box and instantly type into it is a no-brainer - should have been there years ago. And no, Adobe didn't 'invent' this for InDesign as it was a standard feature in PageMaker when I used it back in the early 90s.

The new user interface has allowed me to speed up quite considerably courtesy of instant object rotation, live preview of changes, Adobe-style bezier tools and the easy-to-use measurements palette.

Dragging text and graphics to or from any drag-&-drop-enabled app is also a useful addition, probably more so than some others such as being able to use grids on individual text boxes. But the new hanging characters feature and vertical alignment have their place in day-to-day work. It's also nice to see an end to language problems with QXP handling 30+ languages as standard.

Being able to import Illustrator files as well as Photoshop ones has useful and having Flash creation/exporting as standard makes QXP 8 an all-in-one for design: paper, web and presentation.

Yes, I use InDesign too but given the option I'd rather work in QXP and v8 has enough going for it to convince me to upgrade.

Vic Lennard

Cover disc editor, Macworld UK magazine  
(Version 8.0)

VICLEN  Ignore my comment about $29!  
(Version 1.0.1)

VICLEN  There's no point to buying this if you own Acrobat. It already has the facility to Export all Images. $29 seems rather steep.  
(Version 1.0.1)

VICLEN  I've owned SP for some time, using it to provide an hourly backup for my studio's files. Two bugs appeared: an error of "too many open files"; and a "can't find disk XXX" even though the disk was clearly visible on the desktop. This happened with both Mac OS X Server 10.3 and 10.4. I lived with this for some time, finding that quitting SP and relaunching solved both problems - but this is backup software, it's commercially priced and shouldn't have these problems.

I reported them to tech support and was told: "Synchronize! Pro X asks to close every file it opens. It couldn't work properly if it didn't, because the maximum number of open files is 256, and Synchronize! Pro X routinely copies hundreds of thousands of files in its backups."

"I have no other reports of a similar problem, despite the fact that Synchronize! Pro X is in daily use on tens of thousands of computers worldwide."

"What this means to me is that your computer is not operating properly. If it were my computer, I would use Disk Utility to "Repair Disk". If the problem persisted, I would reinstall OS X in an attempt to eliminate the problem."

My knowledge of Macs is quite extensive and I didn't believe this. Sloth confirmed the existence of numerous temporary files. Tech support then commented: "Mea culpa! I've attached a version of Synchronize! Pro X that I believe no longer exhibits the problem."

I tried using the v5.0.8 beta but it wouldn't accept my serial number. What followed was numerous emails back and forth and a call to Hugh Sontag (both tech director and tech support) in the States. He absolutely refused to give me a working serial number, insisting this was user error. I'm positive it isn't but even if it is, what kind of company takes such an arrogant, intractable approach?

In the end, I gave up. I bought Tri Backup (at half the price) which works perfectly, especially as my server is working on a non-Intel machine (Tri Backup is PPC only).

The moral? Never trust *any* company that has a "lots of people use our product and no one complains" attitude.

Vic  
(Version 5.0.7b)

VICLEN  If you're using a high-end scanners such as a flat-bed Heidelberg or a Crosfield drum scanner where the dedicated scan software won't work with Mac OS X, stick with an old Mac and OS 9. That will also solve your connectivity problem.

If, as is likely to be the case, your scanners aren't really that high-end, definitely switch to a SCSI to FireWire converter. I use one with both Heidelberg and Umax flatbeds faultlessly.

Unless you're floating transparencies on oil, you're very unlikely to get good results from any 1200dpi flatbed and even many of the 35mm scanners are pretty poor.

As for Vuescan, I use it with two decent standard flat-bed scanners. It does an excellent job in all modes, including transparencies up to 200% or so with care. It is a little quirky, especially with screened material, but without it I would have had to invest a lot of money in new scanners.

Don't use this as a whinge forum - you won't benefit in any way.  
(Version 8.4.39)

VICLEN  Hmmm - and there I was thinking that this could convert plugins between Audio Units, VST and MAS...

I suggest changing the name of this!  
(Version 1.0)

VICLEN  Good grief - if I was actually considering buying the software the totally patronizing tone of the last comment would make me think twice. Rather than have blind belief in your product, at least consider what possible users are saying...  
(Version 1.0.7)

VICLEN  What would I prefer? The author to continue adding features and fixing bugs, or to spend time on changing a GUI that is half-decent at the moment? No contest...  
(Version 8.4.17)