Show HN: Remarq.io – Beautiful documents for consultants(remarq.io)
remarq.io
Show HN: Remarq.io – Beautiful documents for consultants
http://www.remarq.io/
24 comments
In a word: control. I don't know about you, but when I use Word I'm constantly fighting it. Of course, I'm rather biased as I'm a LibreOffice developer :-)
This is aimed at being exactly the opposite of DIY. If you're into DIY and it works for you, that's great! You should do what works for you. Many people don't want to spend time with a DIY approach and would rather go for a "done for you" solution.
Word doesn't export to .pdf very nicely. If you want the ease of use of word and pixel-perfect documents, you can buy Adobe InDesign. You can import word documents and fix the issues there, as well as better the layout. Once you nail down the export/import settings and a few macros, it's pretty easy. MS Office comes with a similar software called MS Publisher, but it offers a lot less than InDesign.
Print to PDF.
What is the reason this is sold as a SaaS instead of a traditional program?
A traditional program would have many advantages for the user:
* No limit on documents per month
* works offline
* Reports (which may contain company secrets) are not uploaded on a third party server
While other SaaS offerings always have some kind if advantage like having integrated support, I'm wondering whether a document converter (this is basically what it is) is the right software for a SaaS.
A traditional program would have many advantages for the user:
* No limit on documents per month
* works offline
* Reports (which may contain company secrets) are not uploaded on a third party server
While other SaaS offerings always have some kind if advantage like having integrated support, I'm wondering whether a document converter (this is basically what it is) is the right software for a SaaS.
It's sold as SaaS because you make more money selling it as such, you get a recurring source of revenue without having to sell updates which can be costly to push.
That said, as a personal user, I find the pricing very steep. I'm going to look for a free alternative.
That said, as a personal user, I find the pricing very steep. I'm going to look for a free alternative.
One of the main reasons this is a SaaS is that all of software that is part of the processing pipeline required to produce documents of this quality can be very hard to install and configure properly. This is aimed at people who would rather be creating documents than wrestling with a DIY approach. Being a SaaS also means that people can access their documents from any device that has a halfway capable web browser. There's nothing to download, install or update.
I've been beta testing this and it's been revolutionary — and saved me a bunch of money.
I spent ~$250 on a pages template to use for my reports. And because I write everything in Markdown, my workflow is:
• Write in Markdown
• Open up report
• Painstakingly hand copy and reformat Markdown to Pages
• Save as PDF
• Send to client
Now? I take that markdown, drop it into Remarq, and — BOOM! — I have a beautiful report that I can send to a client.
It's pretty awesome, you guys.
I spent ~$250 on a pages template to use for my reports. And because I write everything in Markdown, my workflow is:
• Write in Markdown
• Open up report
• Painstakingly hand copy and reformat Markdown to Pages
• Save as PDF
• Send to client
Now? I take that markdown, drop it into Remarq, and — BOOM! — I have a beautiful report that I can send to a client.
It's pretty awesome, you guys.
Thanks for being an early tester, and for the kind words, Kai. I'm excited to see how Remarq can help more people.
Did you try/consider pandoc?
To me, it wasn't an option. I'm not a developer — I'm an SEO and Outreach Consultant — and so using something off the shelf (at first a pages template, now Remarq) made a lot more sense.
I didn't want to build something DIY or right to customize something. Pages — and now Remarq — made it easy for me to get a beautiful output.
And, on top of that, there was an ROI consideration. How much time would I spend getting Pandoc working that I could spend growing my business, mapping out a campaign for a client, or relaxing?
To me, the cost of Pandoc was too high.
I didn't want to build something DIY or right to customize something. Pages — and now Remarq — made it easy for me to get a beautiful output.
And, on top of that, there was an ROI consideration. How much time would I spend getting Pandoc working that I could spend growing my business, mapping out a campaign for a client, or relaxing?
To me, the cost of Pandoc was too high.
I suspect a bit of sock-puppetry on this thread. The demo PDF is nice looking, but there are many more ways to generate PDF from Markdown, via LaTeX or HTML. Most people willing to use Markdown instead of Word, Pages, etc. would know how to use tools like pandoc, I assume.
I suspect a bit of sock-puppetry on this thread.
Based on what?
Based on what?
There are a few highly positive comments on this thread that read like advertisements or featured testimonials.
(This suspicion is primarily based on the average negativity and skepticism by the Hacker News community :)
(This suspicion is primarily based on the average negativity and skepticism by the Hacker News community :)
There are plenty of people who like Markdown who don't want to manage a document production tool chain. This is aimed at those people. Folks who like a DIY approach should definitely take that route if it works for them.
Nice designs, but my eyes almost fell out of my head when I saw the pricing. The regular price of the mid-tier is double the price of the highest Adobe Creative Cloud package!
Think about the price in comparison to hiring a design consultant to generate these reports for you. If they charge you or your agency $50/hour, it takes them an hour to design a report, and you're producing 10 documents/month, that's $500/month.
If you're happy working in Adobe / Word yourself, that's awesome! I built Remarq as a tool to help freelancers and consultants generate high-quality, beautifully designed reports and proposals _without_ needing to invest in a designer for them.
If you're happy working in Adobe / Word yourself, that's awesome! I built Remarq as a tool to help freelancers and consultants generate high-quality, beautifully designed reports and proposals _without_ needing to invest in a designer for them.
The right comparison would be: how much do you need to pay a designer to produce a latex template. After that, it's only a matter of running pandoc.
Also, if you know any designers capable of producing a LaTeX template, please put me in touch!
Touché :)
I've recommended the software to my consultant wife (since her company would be paying), but I'm cheap.
How does the pricing work if I want to do revisions to a document? Say it goes through a lot of editing, does each export count towards the maximum number allowed?
If not, what's to prevent users from doing entirely new documents under the guise of "edits" to an old document?
I've recommended the software to my consultant wife (since her company would be paying), but I'm cheap.
How does the pricing work if I want to do revisions to a document? Say it goes through a lot of editing, does each export count towards the maximum number allowed?
If not, what's to prevent users from doing entirely new documents under the guise of "edits" to an old document?
Thanks for the recommendation!
Nope, edits do not count towards the total. You can make as many revisions as you want to a given document. At this point there's nothing to stop someone from doing exactly what you describe. I'm mainly counting on attracting customers that value their time enough that they'd find it silly to expend time and effort gaming that particular system.
Nope, edits do not count towards the total. You can make as many revisions as you want to a given document. At this point there's nothing to stop someone from doing exactly what you describe. I'm mainly counting on attracting customers that value their time enough that they'd find it silly to expend time and effort gaming that particular system.
You could also prevent editing the main title, once you pick it, it's set in stone (or limit the edits to a small Levenshtein ball). That way you can do as many corrections to the document as you wish, but it's much harder to cheat the system.
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If you're comfortable managing that kind of tool chain, then yeah, that's a good comparison. Many people would prefer to focus on creating the content of the document rather than installing and configuring software.
What toolchain? You run a command-line program. Installing pandoc isn't terribly hard (I just did it on this particular Mac in about a couple minutes).
I think you're exaggerating the difficulty of your competition. :)
I think you're exaggerating the difficulty of your competition. :)
Lemme guess, you're a developer/sysadmin/techie type? :)
This is a tool for people who don't want to be anywhere near a command line.
This is a tool for people who don't want to be anywhere near a command line.
Then they can pay some geeky kid in pizza and beer to spend the hour or less it would take that kid to get the supposedly-elaborate toolchain setup (to the point of "drag and drop this text that looks like what you type into the Reddit onto this thingy and it'll spit out a pretty document") and it would still be phenomenally cheaper than what you're charging while being significantly more valuable in the long run.
Wouldn't such people use Word or Pages rather than markdown though?
Add me to the list thinking this looks a bit pricey, though I do understand the value, and am usually one to value my time pretty highly.
I think my main reservation is the monthly plans, perhaps because I'm not your target market and really don't put reports together that often. (though on another note, I do put bids / proposals together quite often, so maybe that's another angle)
In any case, I think having a plan that is pay-per-use (no monthly, $50 a report) would make me consider this next time I have a document to put together. I'm probably a different class of customer than your demographic though.
In any case, neat product, congrats on the launch!
I think my main reservation is the monthly plans, perhaps because I'm not your target market and really don't put reports together that often. (though on another note, I do put bids / proposals together quite often, so maybe that's another angle)
In any case, I think having a plan that is pay-per-use (no monthly, $50 a report) would make me consider this next time I have a document to put together. I'm probably a different class of customer than your demographic though.
In any case, neat product, congrats on the launch!
Thanks! The per document pricing is an interesting angle. I'll definitely give it some thought.
Right, but is anyone honestly hiring a design consultant for each and every report they generate? Remarq would make sense if that were the case, but it's far more likely that one would hire the designer to produce a template, then use that template until it's no longer in style. That will end up being phenomenally cheaper than what's being offered here.
I speak for no one but myself - I'm sure many will pay those prices :)
On a separate note... Every so often (once every 3/4 months) I have occasion to use litmus.com to test an email template for a freelance gig. They only do monthly plans too - plans which I'll never be able to justify paying. I'd be happy to pay a one-off fee every time I needed it but they won't offer that pricing model, the end result being I cycle trial accounts through my many email addresses and they miss out on revenue.
It doesn't sit well with me because their sole factor of production (like yours, I imagine) is CPU time which is pretty well commoditised nowadays, so offering anything more complicated than a single unit of the product immediately tells me that artificial barriers have been created with the sole purpose of extracting "extra" money from me. It kinda grinds my gears.
On a separate note... Every so often (once every 3/4 months) I have occasion to use litmus.com to test an email template for a freelance gig. They only do monthly plans too - plans which I'll never be able to justify paying. I'd be happy to pay a one-off fee every time I needed it but they won't offer that pricing model, the end result being I cycle trial accounts through my many email addresses and they miss out on revenue.
It doesn't sit well with me because their sole factor of production (like yours, I imagine) is CPU time which is pretty well commoditised nowadays, so offering anything more complicated than a single unit of the product immediately tells me that artificial barriers have been created with the sole purpose of extracting "extra" money from me. It kinda grinds my gears.
Hmm... I hadn't considered that view before, but I can see where you're coming from. The intention (for me) definitely isn't to extract extra money. Rather I'm hoping to provide something that provides enough value that it's a core part of my customers workflow, and worth using every month. I honestly hadn't given much (any?) thought to trying to do one-off documents until you suggested it. I'll definitely be mulling it over.
I uploaded a markdown file with cyrillic characters and got a pdf with plenty of whitespace.
Oh no! I'll take a look and see what went wrong.
Well done! Can we have a look at the markdown input source for the demo pdf? http://www.remarq.io/remarq_intro.md returns a GitHub Page 404. (Also, that url in the marginal note, on page 4 of the demo pdf, is broke, likely because of line-breaking.)
Which flavour of Markdown are you supporting? Do you plan to support _full_ Common Mark?
What are you using under the hood as your typesetting engine and stylesheet syntax? Pandoc, (La)TeX, CSS w/ Prince XML?
Which flavour of Markdown are you supporting? Do you plan to support _full_ Common Mark?
What are you using under the hood as your typesetting engine and stylesheet syntax? Pandoc, (La)TeX, CSS w/ Prince XML?
Ah, crap! Thanks for pointing out the broken link. Here's the input document for the demo.
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/jagthedrummer/213b8a787b3...
Under the hood is Pandoc/LaTeX. Pandoc flavored Markdown is what is supported at the moment.
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/jagthedrummer/213b8a787b3...
Under the hood is Pandoc/LaTeX. Pandoc flavored Markdown is what is supported at the moment.
Confluence + word export? For similar price you get reports plus a wiki as well. I've been using that export recently and it works awesome. You need a word template, though, but that can be cheaply had through freelance designers ($20-50 tops). I'd consider this if this was a one-time purchase or like $5/month, but not for that price.
Overall the software seems nice, but there are just too many limitations which make this a bit of a niche software, IMHO.
* SaaS. OK if your documents contain text only data. Maybe it contains a way to include images (I just don't see that from screenshots and description), but really no way to automagically run R/python/whatever scripts to insert actual data on the fly. Probably solvable with an API.
* Subscription pricing. If you have long running projects and publish [a batch of] documents less frequently than every month, pricing will start to really bite. I see that I am not alone that is concerned about pricing :)
* Template limitation. OK if all your documents are your own and not your clients'. Out of luck if you need to prepare documentation for clients. Maybe template customization is that powerful, but again, examples do not suggest that.
Interesting, but not interesting enough to warrant such a steep pricetag, in my opinion at least.
Yeah, this caters to the people who don't want to fiddle with pandoc or some other Markdown-to-$format tool, but even the cost (in terms of time spent) doing that would still be probably significantly less - and result in a more valuable end-product (since there would be no arbitrary limits) - than the monetary cost of this particular service.
Yeah, it's cheaper than hiring a designer every single time I want to create a document, but who the hell would do that? I would opt to have the designer create a template once, then use that template repeatedly, which would end up being much more affordable than this in the long run.
Nice idea, but the price is going to strangle this thing in the crib.
Yeah, this caters to the people who don't want to fiddle with pandoc or some other Markdown-to-$format tool, but even the cost (in terms of time spent) doing that would still be probably significantly less - and result in a more valuable end-product (since there would be no arbitrary limits) - than the monetary cost of this particular service.
Yeah, it's cheaper than hiring a designer every single time I want to create a document, but who the hell would do that? I would opt to have the designer create a template once, then use that template repeatedly, which would end up being much more affordable than this in the long run.
Nice idea, but the price is going to strangle this thing in the crib.
I think it depends on what sort of rate you're able to charge as a consultant/freelancer. If you're anywhere near $100/hour (or more) you could very easily waste more time/money by trying to do it yourself.
I think by lowering your pricing you will attract more customers and make more profit.
It is an awesome idea but the basic product (i.e. non bespoke) needs to be cheaper. Although I know you look at the value you are adding, you also need to consider that another startup can easily copy your idea and outdo you on price.
On the value proposition side. Yes a designer is more expensive but they can design something custom to my brand. This can be done as a word template then I just type my next report into that and it's done for free.
As a comparison think about the autoresponder market. A $19 aweber plan should be sold for $1000 because think of all the envelopes / stamps you are saving? Well it isn't because of Getresponse etc.
It is an awesome idea but the basic product (i.e. non bespoke) needs to be cheaper. Although I know you look at the value you are adding, you also need to consider that another startup can easily copy your idea and outdo you on price.
On the value proposition side. Yes a designer is more expensive but they can design something custom to my brand. This can be done as a word template then I just type my next report into that and it's done for free.
As a comparison think about the autoresponder market. A $19 aweber plan should be sold for $1000 because think of all the envelopes / stamps you are saving? Well it isn't because of Getresponse etc.
Your reasoning for the steep prices is only going to convince yourself unfortunately. The price is so high, I'm not even going to try it, because I know I'll never buy in anyway.
But maybe I'm wrong. I wish you success.
EDIT: Ok, I tried it. It does a fantastic job, I'll admit. But much too pricey for me.
But maybe I'm wrong. I wish you success.
EDIT: Ok, I tried it. It does a fantastic job, I'll admit. But much too pricey for me.
I used Remarq when it was in pre-release mode, and it is super slick. Basically it lets you write in markdown, but easily convert that to good looking PDFs. Perfect for sending reports to clients/bosses/etc. I'm sure there are lots of other good uses for it too.
Thanks for being an early tester!
Looks nice! The design of the example PDF is a bit noisy for my taste (the geometric shapes at the bottom of every page). And the demo PDF you generate by uploading a markdown file has a lot of whitespace. But I assume that's all tweak-able with a real account.
I got an "Oh no! We hit a snag processing your report. Markdown help." error without telling me what was wrong with the file. Seems like images break it.
For making these kinds of PDF I currently do this: 1. Write version controlled rst/markdown/creole. 2. Convert to HTML with a small script / command line tool (which also lets me do pre- and post-processing, like adding CSS). 3. Use chrome's print dialog to save the page as a PDF. This works pretty well for me.
I got an "Oh no! We hit a snag processing your report. Markdown help." error without telling me what was wrong with the file. Seems like images break it.
For making these kinds of PDF I currently do this: 1. Write version controlled rst/markdown/creole. 2. Convert to HTML with a small script / command line tool (which also lets me do pre- and post-processing, like adding CSS). 3. Use chrome's print dialog to save the page as a PDF. This works pretty well for me.
Ah, yeah, I need a better message about images. They work fine if they're at a fully qualified URL.
The final output is indeed tweakable and there are 4 totally different templates to choose from.
I always encourage people to go with whatever system works best for them. I'm glad you have something that you like. :)
The final output is indeed tweakable and there are 4 totally different templates to choose from.
I always encourage people to go with whatever system works best for them. I'm glad you have something that you like. :)
As a consultant, I can see the value for someone who writes at least 1-2 reports a month. I tend to write a single proposal every few months so it wouldn't make sense for me personally on a month basis.
That said, I would recommend not lowering the price to capture low volume customers like myself. You are often better off with fewer customers who can easily justify the price vs. a larger volume of "cheap" customers. The "cheap" customer are often more demanding when it comes to support so in addition to paying less in the first place, the cost you more to support.
That said, I would recommend not lowering the price to capture low volume customers like myself. You are often better off with fewer customers who can easily justify the price vs. a larger volume of "cheap" customers. The "cheap" customer are often more demanding when it comes to support so in addition to paying less in the first place, the cost you more to support.
I don't suppose there's any plans for a Word export feature, is there?
Unfortunately, a lot of consulting jobs require all docs to be in MS Word format... Infuriating I know.
Unfortunately, a lot of consulting jobs require all docs to be in MS Word format... Infuriating I know.
I don't have Word export on the immediate road map, but I'm not ruling it out. Sorry I can't give you anything more specific than that.
Holy smokes, definitely try the demo if you haven't already (midway down the page). The amount of time this could potentially save me is pretty wild. Well done!
My time isn't worth nearly that much right now, but Pandoc as a service is a great idea. Are you planning on buying LaTeX templates from other people any time soon? I've spent a ridiculous amount of time on mine: https://github.com/vaibhavsagar/resume
Would really be great to show some examples of the beautiful documents that can be created right up-front. I assume that's a big selling point because nobody wants ugly documents. So, I'd take the time and display examples front and center (instead of the "icons" that are there now).
Thanks! I think this is a good suggestion. I should definitely feature a real document more prominently somehow.
Looks cool! Will remember if I'm ever needing shiny documents. I agree with those who support a one-off transaction option. (For example, I love PlaceIt and don't pay them monthly, but they might be doing good business from people like me anyway. I see those in the same boat.)
There's a typo in the browser tab title - I see "Remarq - Beuatiful documents" in my tab title which probably isn't what you want.
Thank you!
This looks interesting - is there a gallery where you can see the reports created? Or are you only limited to the demo report?
Here's a page where you can see most of the templates available. http://www.remarq.io/articles/new-templates-now-available/
I should probably make a gallery page and link it somewhere prominently.
I should probably make a gallery page and link it somewhere prominently.
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That's really nice but also really expensive.
That depends on how you value your time, though. If your time is worth three figures an hour and this saves you several hours a month, it has a huge ROI.
I've been beta testing Remarq and the time it has saved me more than makes up for the cost.
This looks pretty slick.
Wonderful, thanks.
#Edit. Perhaps that I just don't see the value as it's not a "trivial amount" for me, and I'd much rather spend some time going the DIY route with software I already have.