Indesign v Quark: Picture Control

Quark

An imported picture in Quark can be sized in the Measurements palette, with the X% and Y% fields. There's no way to link those fields, you have to address both to size an image. Another way to scale an image and its picture box is by holding Command and dragging the corner of the box to scale both. Oddly though, adding the Shift key doesn't constrain proportions in the image, but forces it on the box, so the image gets distorted.

Finally, you can scale the picture to the size of the box by right clicking on the box and choosing the command Scale Picture to Box. Adversely, you can fit the box to the picture by choosing Fit Box to Picture. You can crop an image by changing the size of the box and move the image within the box with the Content tool. To center an image in a picture box, you can use Command (Control) + Shift + M.

InDesign

A placed image can be manipulated separately from it's picture frame in InDesign with the Direct selection tool. You can scale the image with the Direct selection tool. Clicking and holding on the placed image for a few seconds will reveal its total size beyond the boundaries of the picture frame. You can control the percentage of the size of the picture in the Control panel and link the horizontal and vertical aspects.

InDesign has several Fitting options. You can Fit Content to Frame, Fit Frame to Content, Center Content, Fit Content Proportionally, and Fill Frame Proportionally.

Significance

Quark feels clunky when it comes to placing and sizing images, whereas InDesign offers so many ways to deal with placed images. There's more room to change your mind with InDesign, more opportunities to experiment and alter them. Again, I think Quark's mindset is that the designer should already know the size of the imported image beforehand.