Catalyst was a program that was distributed bundled with the Apple IIe, and allowed users to run floppy disk–based applications from their hard drive.

They also attempted a product line called "Quark Peripherals", but the market for storage devices at the time resulted in a huge financial loss.

In the late 1990s, Quark faced intense criticism for slow innovation cycles, high prices, and a poor response to customer needs.

The release of Adobe Creative Suite in 2003, essentially including InDesign with Photoshop and Illustrator, resulted in ongoing market share loss for QuarkXPress.

As a result, under the new leadership of Raymond Schiavone, Quark started to refocus its resources towards the enterprise dynamic publishing market (now Content Automation), announcing a new strategy in March 2008.

[3][4] Quark acquired A Lowly Apprentice Productions (ALAP), which provides extended technology for the publishing and graphic design industries, in 2005.

[8][9] On May 29, 2012, Quark acquired Mobile IQ, with digital publishing technology for tablet devices named PressRun, later renamed to App Studio.

[24] Parallax Capital Partners subsequently acquired Quark Software Inc. from Platinum Equity on July 12, 2017, stating their intentions to invest in growing the company's new content automation business through organic growth and acquisitions.

The company announced a picture editing application, QuarkXPosure, which was never released, and a multimedia authoring add-on XTension for QuarkXPress, QuarkImmedia.