Ask Girl Geek: Help! Mac Graphic Artist vs. PC Web Designer

Hi Annette,
I have a graphic designer who has designed several things for me, the latest being my website (which is not up yet). He does not actually post things to the web, however. Herein lies the problem. He works on a Mac (like many graphic designers), and he used Quark X-Press and Adobe Illustrator for the most part. I like what he has done.

I also have a Website designer who adapts and posts designs to the web. He works on a PC and uses Adobe Photoshop among other things (I'm not sure what else).

The Webpage designer cannot read the graphic designer's files in their original program form, and the various outputs that the graphic designer has been able to make available join all of the layers together, making it very difficult to manipulate anything. I want to avoid having the website designer (who is not a polished graphic designer) try to reconstitute everything "more or less" because I think that it will result in a lot of work for him as well as in a less polished product.

Do you know a way around this Mac-PC-Quark conundrum? Can Mac-Quark files be saved in a PC format, for example? Etc, etc.

Any words of wisdom would help. I'm too far down the track here to change the fundamental parameters or players.

Dear Help,
I edited out the rant my programmer gave about never using graphic designers who don't do web work. You're learning that the hard way.

Here's his suggestions. I'll forward more from the others as I get them.
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It doesn't matter if it is on a Mac or not, Quark is an impossible
program to deal with in most of my experience.
It was not designed for web development, it was designed for print
publications, and is not easily portable.

The only thing I could suggest is that all files be converted to
Illustrator if possible.
It shouldn't matter at all if it is Mac or PC Illustrator... just as
long as in the Mac you click the box to save with "PC Friendly
Extensions".
From there you should be able to find a way to save with all layers
intact.
If you can save with all layers intact, A newer version of Photoshop
should be able to read the Illustrator file and layers.

Other than that I am afraid that you are left with taking actual
screenshots of the Quark files and just splicing them in Photoshop to
create the cuts that you need.

Thanks.

If needed and you can provide all of the Quark files I might be able to
find an copy and covert them somehow to a useable format for the web
guy.

Second Opinion:

I talked to another graphic designer with 20 years+ experience.

He echos some of what the other email said. Quark and Illustrator are software programs which do not save files that can be used on the web. They are the best program to use for PRINT design, but not website.

There may be some add-ins available for Quark to make the images web ready, but you'd have to find those on the web and there would be an expense to purchase those.

What your web designer is trying to do, to replicate the graphic as close as possible to what the graphic artist is doing, is the best solution.