

So it's perfectly possible to perform a free Quark to InDesign conversion if a little long-winded! As I said, this assumes that files are Quark version 4. And I found that InDesign ended up being much nicer (and more stable) to work with. I spent a lot of time checking each page, but not nearly as much time as I would have spent recreating the documents from scratch. The positioning of all text boxes and images were the same, and with only the odd spacing glitch where I'd embedded images within text boxes, all was fine. But using the procedure below I managed to convert both books without any problems. Both books had been created using Quark XPress 7. Their in-house team had switched to InDesign entirely and they no longer accepted Quark files. During one of my conversations with the client it was revealed to me that the files had to be created in InDesign. There were two 300+ page documents of fairly complex text and diagramatic content, both of which were nearing completion.

Recently I was working on an enormous book project for a publishing client in Greece. So you've got archives full of Quark files and you've long since made the transition to InDesign.

First though, find out if you have what you need for a free Quark to InDesign conversion: If you're converting Quark to InDesign and you only have the latest (or a recent) version of Quark, you'll need to purchase a plugin like Q2ID. The bad news is you can only import Quark version 4 files. The good news is if you want a free Quark to InDesign conversion tool, you'll find it built right into InDesign. Is There a Free Quark to InDesign Conversion Method?
