Adobe Indesign 2.0 Upgrade

Rating:
Summary: Powerhouse for desktop publishers
Review: I found that InDesign 2.0 offers greater flexibility than Quark and certainly is light years past PageMaker. Clearly, you need to read and compare the features of these page layout programs and, if at all possible, try the various page layout software before making a purchase. These programs still cost big bucks.

InDesign has so many whistles and bells that at first it overwhelms, but if you are already familiar with other Adobe software, the learning curve is not that steep and most of the tools and controls will seem fairly intuitive.

I especially like the flexibility of being able to import native Photoshop and Illustrator files and the easy-to-use links navigator. I also like all of the options for working with text and fine-tuning the appearance of a document. It's great to have a drop cap appear at the start of a paragraph without relying on extra tools (as in PageMaker) and seeing a preview of how a change in attributes will alter text of the same style. Features such as the ability to add metadata and export pages in SVG format are another plus.

The manual is pretty clear, though the section on breaking text links is needlessly confusing. Still, between the information in the manual and the online resource guide, most questions and issues are likely to be addressed.

If you are creating books, directories, and annual reports, then InDesign will make your life easier. It even converts Quark files so that you can work with any legacy documents.

Rating:
Summary: Must Have
Review: If you're running OS X, InDesign is a must have for page layout. A very short learning curve particularly if you're familiar with other Adobe design softwares. Since Quark is taking their sweet time coming to the OS X table, I went ahead and tried InDesign and must say I was totally impressed.

Rating:
Summary: NEWSFLASH: QuarkXPress is HISTORY
Review: When Steve Jobs announced that all the new 2003 Macs would only be able to boot in OS X, I figured it was time to step up to the plate, get oriented to the new OS and upgrade our art department. The only thing holding me back was not having a page layout app that ran natively in 10, and I had no intention of working in Jurassic mode. I had heard less than positive things about InDesign 1.0, but figured I'd do the free tryout from Adobe, since it would give me the chance to test drive Jaguar in an all-Adobe environment.

Talk about a revelation. This program's ease of use had me creating usable projects inside of a week, and by the time the tryout expired, I had converted about 150 pages of our company catalog from the old Quark files. That was when I realized how much we truly needed this package. It was as if I'd been using it for years. I could import files from Illustrator and Photoshop without having to save them as tiffs or eps. I could export press optimized pdfs without going through Distiller, that weighed in at a thrifty 4.5 mb ..... not bad when the Photoshop elements totalled over 50 meg! The tables tool is extremely helpful; it functions like a mini Excel, eliminating the need for tabs in charts. The text formatting is a breeze, the preview display looks great even at low quality, and proofs that I output to my inket printer look phenomenal. Just try doing that in Quark without getting nauseous. But wait - there's more ...... layer support and blending modes, transparency, drop shadows, gradiated text, and the list goes on. We don't need no steenking XTensions .........

Adobe InDesign is, at the time of this writing (11/02) still the only layout app that runs natively in Mac OS X, thus completing the Holy Publishing Trinity with Illy and PShop. In a way, Quark has done us a favor by dragging their feet on upgrading, thereby giving us a chance to try out a tool that is so much better, more intuitive and integrated with the other tools we have to use. It's as if Adobe stood back and observed all that didn't quite work about QXP (and that other abomination PageMaker which the company may just as well disavow), and created an app that works beautifully without having to think about it too much. Whatever the case, the timing is right, and we Mac users really appreciate it.

Adobe InDesign and Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar is, quite simply, a publisher's marriage made in Heaven.