The decline and fall of Quark XPress

Adam Tinworth
Adam Tinworth

Quark XPress 3.32

Many of us of a, um, certain vintage will recall the days when Quark Xpress ruled the desktop publishing roost. Stephen Hackett charts its fall:

The application that once enjoyed upwards of 90% marketshare is now regulated to the sidelines. Looking back, the app’s demise was long and slow, giving the company lots of time to change course.

It didn’t, of course. And that allowed Adobe to get InDesign into pretty much every publisher out there.

Quark was a notoriously slow and uncommunicative company back then – but its software made publishing so easy it was hard not to love it – until they really fell behind. The disruptor can be disrupted…

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Adam is a lecturer, trainer and writer. He's been a blogger for over 20 years, and a journalist for more than 30. He lectures on audience strategy and engagement at City, University of London.

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