SAN FRANCISCO - Adobe Systems Inc.’s InDesign won the popular dual-product shootout held during last month’s Seybold San Francisco conference.

The page design and layout app beat Quark Inc.’s QuarkXPress 5-3, according to a panel of judges.

Shellie Hall, president of design and consulting firm DuckType presided over the contest, which measured selected features and capabilities within the products.

David Evans, a consultant with ecreative.com and former Adobe employee, handled the InDesign software while Galen Gruman, a principal with The Zango Group, put QuarkXPress through its paces.

Some tasks, such as using data to automatically replace text, were closely mirrored by both packages.

But InDesign’s extensive transparency features appeared to be the tipping point for the eventual victory. As multiple layers were built up, lens distortion effects added and dropshadows switched on, Gruman conceded that QuarkXPress couldn’t keep up.