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Unhappy with Adobe subscriptions? QuarkXPress offers upgrade deal

Until the end of the month, anyone who buys or upgrades to the layout software -- an Adobe InDesign competitor -- will get the upcoming version 10.

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QuarkXPress in action
QuarkXPress in action Quark

Users of the InDesign layout software who are disgruntled by Adobe's move to sell its software solely through subscriptions might be interested in a promotion from rival Quark that just arrived.

The Denver-based company announced Wednesday that those who buy or upgrade to its QuarkXPress 9 software will get a free upgrade to QuarkXPress 10.

"Until June 30, 2013 anyone who purchases or upgrades to QuarkXPress 9 from any previous version will receive version 10 for free. After June 30, 2013 only QuarkXPress 8 users will be eligible to upgrade to QuarkXPress 9 for a free upgrade to QuarkXPress 10," the company said.

QuarkXPress 10 should ship in August, said Gavin Drake, Quark's vice president of marketing, in an interview. Unlike Adobe, the company will continue selling the software with perpetual licenses, meaning that people can continue to use a purchased version indefinitely.

In retail channels, QuarkXPress costs about $890 for a full version and $370 for an upgrade.

The software was a fixture in earlier days of desktop publishing for chores like designing magazines, but Adobe's InDesign swept across the market years ago. Newer versions of QuarkXPress have added the ability to create layouts for tablets, e-books, and other digital media, and Quark itself has expanded more broadly into a supplier of tools to automate the flow of information around large companies or governments.

Quark also has been running a promotion that let users of Quark versions 3 to 7 upgrade to version 9. That promotion will end June 30, too, at which point those customers will have to buy the software at full price.