Former ALAP Plug-Ins Now Quark-Only
QuarkvsInDesign is full of good (back) design news. Or bad news, in this case. Sorry this isn’t an April Fool’s joke.
Once, not long ago, there was a little software company with an interesting name: A Lowly Apprentice Production, Inc., or ALAP.
ALAP didn’t make software that stood on its own. Rather, it made modules that delivered extra power to users of QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. You knew what they were: If you were a Quarkster, you thought of ALAP’s QuarkXPress xtensions XPert Tools, XPert Print, and XPert Scale; if you were an InDesignista, you thought of some of the best plug-ins for that application, plug-ins like InTools, InBooklet, and InTips, a collaboration with former Mr. QuarkXPress himself, David Blatner.
ALAP produced good software. Adobe fans were particularly fond of InBooklet, a plug-in that brought imposition, or the process of arranging pages in printer’s spreads, into InDesign.
Adobe liked InBooklet enough to include the SE version with InDesign; it’s handy to have (as a preview, or whatever) even if printers do almost always handle it. So, in December, when Quark bought ALAP, I wondered what would happen — but Quark was coy. Well…:
Just hours ago [March 7 —Ed.], the latest edition of the PowerXChange’s enewsletter announced that Quark has ceased distribution of ALAP’s entire line of InDesign plugins—including InBooklet. Although Quark could not be reached for comment, we at Quark VS InDesign.com consider the source credible because the owner of the the PowerXChange is Cyndie Shaffstall, the director of Quark’s QuarkAlliance program and the liaison between Quark and XPress xtensions developers.
The sole concession to the Adobe side of the fence is Imposer Pro, a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat, whose lifecyle has not been officially terminated.
Quark XTension sales, of course, continue unaffected. Like this section of the article particularly:
[T]elling InDesign users that everything is all right, that the future of their workflows is secure, because QuarkXPress xtensions will take over the functions of their InDesign plug-ins is arrogant. More importantly, it misses the point of why designers choose InDesign over QuarkXPress, and why InDesign users keep a copy of QuarkXPress around.
Good stuff — read the rest. Wish they could have found these teeth with respect to the logo.
They note in an update, by the way, that InBooklet SE will continue to ship with InDesign and the Creative Suite. Probably only for the duration of CS2 would be my guess — but here’s hoping some of those developers, or another company altogether, can fill the need for those that rely on InDesign tools like the former ALAP’s.
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Posted by Giles, Saturday, April 1, 2006, at 11:45 PM.
Posted to Business | Computers | Technology
