InDesign CS cost $699, while QuarkXPress 6 cost $945. QuarkXPress also lost marketshare due to an increasing price gap between it and InDesign. The release of QuarkXPress version 5 in 2002 led to disappointment from Apple's user base, as QuarkXPress did not support Mac OS X, while Adobe InDesign 2.0-launched in the same week-did. Gill sold his 50% stake in the company in 1999 for a reported $500 million. After QuarkXPress 3.3, QuarkXPress was seen as needing significant improvements and users criticized it for its overly long innovation cycles. Xtensions, along with Adobe's Photoshop plugins, was one of the first examples of a developer allowing others to create software add-ons for their application.Īlthough competitors like PageMaker existed, QuarkXPress was so dominant that it had an estimated 95% market share during the 1990s. In 1989, QuarkXPress incorporated an application programming interface called XTensions which allows third-party developers to create custom add-on features to the desktop application. Quark's AppleScript support was a significant factor in both Quark's and AppleScript's success. In particular, the Mac version of 3.3 (released in 1996) was seen as stable and trouble-free, working seamlessly with Adobe's PostScript fonts as well as with Apple's TrueType fonts. In the 1990s, QuarkXPress became widely used by professional page designers, the typesetting industry and printers.

Five years passed before a Microsoft Windows version (3.1) followed in 1992.

The first version of QuarkXPress was released in 1987 for the Macintosh. Founded by Tim Gill in 1981 with a $2,000 loan from his parents, with the introduction of Fred Ebrahimi as CEO in 1986.

Quarkxpress software is what