Glen, how are you? Alright, David and everyone.
It's great to see you, again. Thank you for taking the time to
talk to us. No problem, for myself.
Glen has a been a beta tester, while he's been using many of our
products over the years and he's recently beta tested the new IDMarkz,
which, by the time this views, it should be out. So, you can go check it out over on
markzware.com . Before we jump into Glen's experiences
with the new product,
maybe you can tell us a bit more about yourself, Glen?
I've been a graphic designer, for over 30 years, worked at all
different levels. Started out on the paste-up table.
Wow! So, I've seen how the industry has
completely changed. QuarkXPress and then I made the move
to InDesign, when it came out as version 1. It wasn't really usable, until version
1.5, so, that was when it really started coming into its own. It was actually
at a speed, that you could use it. Right.
Now, since then, I just carried on. I've recently
had the sort of issues, where I've had to sort of cut back on finances. So, I've
dropped Creative Cloud. So, IDMarkz was something I was very interested in.
When I saw the beta testing email. Yeah, we'll get into that, yeah. Well,
Glen's a book designer and, well, graphic designer in general, but also did a lot of
books. I guess you also did the Jaws cover, what, back when. Am I correct?
Yeah, I did the 30th year anniversary, when I worked at Paramount Miller.
That was a lovely job to do. Yeah, that was a great movie, you know?
Yeah. It scared the wits out of me, back then.
I don't know if I want to watch it, again, actually, anyway.
Yeah. Alright, Glen, great.
So, for the people that don't know, IDMarkz is a tool that helps you...
Well, maybe let's try this, Glen. Maybe you can give like the elevator pitch. What is
IDMarkz from Markzware, the new product?
Well, it's a lifesaver, if you've worked on
things in CC. I had someone call me about a possible job and
they wanted an updated version of my CV. I tried to open up my CV in
CS6 and got presented with it's been newly designed, in a more recent version
of InDesign. So, fired up IDMarkz and, within seconds, I was up and running.
Wow! So, it was actually a lifesaver.
Yeah. Yeah, and in a nutshell what it does, IDMarkz is a tool for Creative Cloud, as
well as CS users, alike. It's a tool that will allow you to, number one,
preview InDesign files; number two, export InDesign files; and number three,
even convert InDesign files to many other file formats, including
Affinity Publisher, QuarkXPress, etc., which I'm sure Glen will touch on,
in a moment. I think the best useful thing I can think for,
is in marketing departments, where they may not have a license for InDesign.
Right.
It means if they've got it fast from the designer, they can have a quick preview,
export a PNG, if they need to, for Amazon or whatever, and they're up and running,
very, very quickly. Right. That's a great point! Yes, you can,
with one of the exporting features, you can export in many various
formats, including PNGs or JPEGs or TIFFs or
whatever. This could be a great thing for marketing, for social media use.
Yeah, absolutely. Interesting.
Where I used to work, I could imagine the people working in the
marketing department, making huge use of this program.
Right. You could take a
catalog from your company. You know it's in InDesign, but you don't have
InDesign. You wish you did, but you don't. Drop it on IDMarkz, and take whatever
page, drop it on your desktop, and you get a PDF or a PNG, or whatever you want out
of that page. Interesting. Good. A good idea. And what are some other
first impressions of IDMarkz? Oh, just very, very positive, I mean...
How do you like that PDF Export functionality?
It's the speed of IDMarkz that is so impressive. I mean, as far as I'm
concerned, for most designers who are not using Creative Cloud, or if they're still
on CC, this is no brainer. It is the kind of application, it's going to
make a week possible. Excellent! Well said, Glen, very well said.
And have you tried any of the "Open In" functionality. Drop an InDesign file and
open it in one of the other applications that's possible, in
IDMarkz? Well, I've not got an up-to-date version of
QuarkXPress, but I am, I'm very
interested in the other possibilities that it can offer. It's, I mean,
it's a really thoughtful idea to put the Affinity Publisher, in there,
because I think that program is going to go places. It's very, very usable.
Yes. It's got some really interesting features
and the, like all other Affinity
software, it's actually very, very good. Yeah, affordable and intuitive and, yeah.
Yeah. Just a really solid piece of software. And, I think, for a lot of people
out there that like to produce design work that haven't got a big budget, that
software is going to fly off the shelves. Right. Right.
I... yeah. You're using a Mac, obviously.
Yeah, you're like a full Mac user?
Yeah, I've got a mid-2015 Mac Book Pro. Oh, cool.
And it literally flies on that, so I can
imagine, on the brand-new, 16- inch MacBook Pro, it is going to run like
greased lightning. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point. It's very easy to use IDMarkz, isn't it? You just
drag and drop a file. Absolutely! I mean, it's just it's an exercise
in making great software. Wow! The engineers will be happy to hear
that one. Thank you, Glen! And it's very true, actually, yeah.
Well said, once again.
Well, how about for existing, before we close off here, how about for existing
Creative Cloud users, how would you see
IDMarkz potentially being usable? For Creative Cloud users,
I'd say it's still essential, because of the speed.
Right. It creates a PDF. It
creates an IDML, much, much, quicker. Yeah, I know, in InDesign CC, you've got
the ability to package a document and create the IDML,
at the same time. But you don't always remember to tick that and having an
application that can very, very quickly create the IDML, much quicker than
InDesign does. Yeah. For me, it's just... it's a no-brainer. I
mean, it's something that I think everyone should get.
Awesome! Any creative professional should get this.
Well said. Thank you, Glen. For existing Creative Cloud users, the
little file info window, or mini pre-flight, is very handy to see,
before you open the file, what you're dealing with.
See what fonts you've got, whether any of the images are missing. It's brilliant!
Well, great. I think, on that, we'll leave it at that. I think you've covered all the bases.
You're obviously a fan of the new IDMarkz.
Yep, definitely.
And, once again, the root, yeah? The moment I opened it up and
it saved the day, with that CV,
I thought, "This is groundbreaking!" It's one of those programs that's going to
change people's lives. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Yeah.
Yeah, you guys have literally thought of everything.
Excellent! Very good! Glen, thank you so much for your time.
That's okay. Now, problem solved. So, you have a great day!
And you!