Quark DesignPad for iPad (in an Adobe world)

My first thoughts on opening the app were: 'this is crazy, it's too fiddly to ever be worthwhile', 'there's no multipage functionality' and 'there's no character or even paragraph level formatting, only box level formatting', and then, 'Quark don't get the iPad'. But I've melted a little bit and went so far as to make the in-app purchase for the functionality to export PDFs to Dropbox (and email) today following notification of promotional pricing.

First things first, this isn't going to replace InDesign, it's more likely to be a place to sketch out the type of files you'd put together in Illustrator, which up to now I've used TouchDraw, iDraw and other similar apps to perform.

Given that iDraw notably includes local formatting of text box content, along with the ability to set margins, import fonts and export in a number of formats including PDF and SVG, it has to be asked what the more fiddly DesignPad brings to the table for those of us without a copy of Quark on our desktop systems.

The main thing is a print sensibility through its layouts and the ability to quickly adjust them with a sophisticated range of settings. But it still needs to advancement to become a practical tool. Notably in the area of formatting and fonts, along with output options (SVG, for example, might be a better exchange format than PDF).

Note: The PDF exported from DesignPad can be opened in Illustrator, although there might be some work to be done merging text and so on, but the same is true of iDraw when using local formatting.

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