🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1f6m18c.8qhf02t7cvwgN@ip68-9-106-192.ri.ri.cox.net>, Lee 
Blevins <leeb@digitalgraphics.net> wrote

>Most Quark classes that I've seen are taught by designers and offer
>little more than what you could get from the tutorial.

I have to agree with Lee. US mileage may vary, but in all the Quark 
courses I've had anything to do with over here, whether from so-called 
"Authorised Training Providers" or those taught by Colleges of Art and 
Design under various, ever-changing fancy names, the onus is firmly on 
learning the capabilities and features of the application and applying 
them to different publishing projects. This is no bad thing in itself 
but Quark is not an island unto itself. It is next to useless in _this_ 
industry without a knowledge of pre-press and print and these are the 
skills that such courses do _not_ teach, except in a very superficial 
and hap-hazard manner. i.e. Some explanation may be given about why 
image resolution and halftone screen resolution are dependent upon one 
another but no training is given in how to apply these principles in 
preparing pre-press files for output, nor on the very different 
requirements that need to be met for sheet and web offset litho, flexo, 
screen printing, photogravure, etc, etc.
Equally very little is generally taught about the differences between 
vector and raster artwork and the different ways in which it should be 
handled. Neither is there much said about the production issues that 
arise when spot and process colours are mixed in multi-colour work (i.e 
6 and 8 colour working), nor is Postscript or PDF discussed in anything 
like the detail needed to ensure the "graduate" is competent to begin 
his or her life in the wonderful world of pre-press and print!

In short, these courses teach very little that the intelligent and 
conscientious user could not learn from Quirk's own excellent manuals, 
which, in this age of ubiquitous PDF manuals, amount to a 3 inch thick 
tome that Quark Inc are to be heartily congratulated for continuing to 
produce.

Best,
-- 
Del Tree