Looking for help moving from QuarkXPress? Don’t hit F1.
It’s no secret that many InDesign users are QuarkXPress converts; more and more of them every day. There are plenty of books and training videos that make the transition as easy as possible but sadly, the one area that lacks much in the way of help is InDesign’s own online help files.
While the documentation itself is very good, a search for the terms familiar to Quark users will either turn up empty or return information totally unrelated to what the users is looking for. The reason for that is that Adobe has left out the terminology that a Quark user would enter. A perfect example would be the word “link.”
A Quark user entering that term would be looking for the procedure to thread text frames but would get information on linking to external files for graphics and text.
And so, as a service to those QuarkXPress users looking to make that jump to InDesign, we present some of the more common terms and tool names that you might find helpful. The Quark term is first followed by its InDesign equivalent. Most are self-explanatory but notes have been included where appropriate.
(This list isn’t comprehensive and was compiled and edited by myself, Anne-Marie, and David. Feel free to add more of your own in the comments below.)
| QuarkXPress Term | InDesign Term |
| Item Tool (the “pointy thingy”) | Selection Tool (black arrow) |
| Content Tool (the “Hand tool”*) | The Position tool (which is hiding under the Direct Select tool) is the closest thing when working with graphics; use the Type Tool for text frames. The Direct Selection tool (white arrow) is also similar. |
| Box | Frame |
| Text Box tool | Type tool (drag out a frame with it) |
| Color palette | Swatches panel |
| Runaround | Text Wrap |
| Frame/Border | Stroke |
| Background | Fill |
| Bezier Line Tool | Pen Tool |
| Tab Fill | Tab Leader |
| Skew | Shear |
| Multi-Ink Color | Mixed Ink Swatch |
| Collect for Output | Package |
| Linking text boxes | Threading text frames |
| Linking and Unlinking Tools | No equivalent because the Selection tool is used for this. Threading (linking) text frames is done by clicking the Out port of one text frame with the Selection tool and then dragging out another text frame on the fly or clicking anywhere inside another text frame. |
| Modify dialog box | Text Frame Options dialog box comes closest, for all else use the Control panel. (ALAP offered something similar for a while in their InTools plug-in, now defunct, unfortunately.) |
| Get Picture or Get Text | Place (from File menu). InDesign doesn’t limit your choice and you don’t have to have a frame selected first. |
| Measurements palette | Control panel |
| Lines | Paths |
| Lists | Table of Contents |
| Item menu | Object menu |
| Table tool | Tables in InDesign are inline objects inside text frames. Use the Table menu to create them. |
| Framing Inside/Outside | Align stroke buttons in the Stroke panel |
| Starburst Tool | Polygon Tool combined with the up/down and left/right arrow keys to control the look. |
| Picture Usage | Links panel |
| Font Usage | Find Font in Type menu |
| Jabber | Fill with Placeholder Text |
| Space/align | Align panel |
| Normal style sheet | [Basic Paragraph] style |
| XTensions | Plug-ins |
| Hyphenation Exceptions | Hyphenate button in the Dictionary dialog box (modify and click Add) |
| Append | “Load” commands in many panel menus (e.g. Paragraph Styles, Swatches) or Load buttons in dialog boxes (e.g. Print Presets > Define) |
| H&Js | H&Js are set with the Hyphenation dialog box and the Justification dialog box |
| Dashes & Stripes | Stroke Styles inside Stroke panel menu |
| Clipping | Object > Clipping Path |
| Kerning table edit | Not available (most would say, far less necessary with the InDesign type engine features) |
*Note that Anne-Marie and David always refer to XPress’s Content tool as “Mr. Spanky” for obvious reasons when you look closely at it’s icon.
For further information, you can refer to this conversion guide published by Adobe or look around for a copy of Moving to InDesign. Though written for CS much of the content still holds true.
This article was last modified on December 19, 2021
This article was first published on June 10, 2008
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