Sarasota PC Monitor

Adobe InDesign CS

A Software Review
by Herb Goldstein
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.

This publication has been produced since its inception long ago using Adobe Pagemaker. This software has performed its job well and has to our experience outclassed any competition. In recent years and with the advent of some other professional publishing programs like Quark Express, Pagemaker has begun to get a little long-toothed for some pros. To bring its publishing products more in line with the competition, Adobe created InDesign. More recently, InDesign CS Pagemaker Edition has appeared to make the transition to InDesign by Pagemaker users more palatable.

Users should understand at the outset that InDesign is a professional publishing program from A to Z. The graphics and design features, layouts, text manipulation, etc. are all highly advanced and were created for use by pros, graphic designers, production artists, print professionals or advanced users to create sophisticated publications. Experience with publication software is pretty well a "must." The program is complex and takes some serious study and practice for successful use. Turning out a 4 page church newsletter with InDesign is gross overkill.

Experienced Pagemaker users will benefit by the InDesign Pagemaker Plug-In Pak. You can import items previously created in Pagemaker, retain styles and design features, and achieve a running start with what is new and modified in InDesign by familiarity with corresponding protocols in Pagemaker. You can even create keyboard shortcuts in InDesign to correspond to those you were used to applying in Pagemaker.

In addition to providing a whole host of new and advanced features, InDesign does away with many annoyances common to Pagemaker. For example, drop caps can be directly modified without destroying the layout of the first few lines of text in a paragraph. The wheel on your mouse will finally work whereas it didn't in Pagemaker. Automatic text hyphenation will be always properly and correctly applied, another Pagemaker failing.

Learning InDesign is far from easy. A CD accompanies the software but is usable only as a general guide to the features of InDesign. An after-market tutorial manual like Adobe InDesign CS, Classroom in a Book (Adobe Press) is most essential and highly recommended. While many features of Pagemaker are retained or modified, the bulk of the program's operation is new. You are not going to effortlessly bounce right into InDesign and come up winning. InDesign also integrates closely with other Adobe apps like Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat.

Some of the key features of InDesign of interest to Pagemaker users include:

  1. Publication converter for Pagemaker documents and templates to InDesign format.
  2. InBooklet Special Edition plug-in controls print spreads and custom print items of former Pagmaker items.
  3. Automated bullets and numbering. Automatically updates as changes are made to original lists.
  4. Data merge. Merge data from a spreadsheet or database into an InDesign document.
  5. Position tool. Combines cropping, resizing and moving images into a single tool.
  6. New templates and template browser. More than 80 new templates to browse, add, delete and reorganize.
  7. Create new keyboard shortcuts or retain the former of your choosing.
  8. Pagemaker toolbar. Keep your former tool buttons or create new ones.
  9. Multiple undo and redo. I never could figure out why this essential item was not included in Pagemaker.
  10. Enhanced lines and strokes.
  11. Easy, enhanced table creation. Another surprisingly missing feature in Pagemaker.
  12. Text handling is far superior to Pagemaker.
  13. A major Pagemaker shortcoming is a frequently non-functioning help menu. InDesign provides several new and functional "help" attributes that includes advanced on-line help, an on-line video workshop and a template guide.
  14. Preview low resolution versions of graphics for faster performance.
  15. Create and directly export PDF files of InDesign documents.
  16. Story editor acts more like a word processor.

While Adobe indicates that it plans to retain production and support for Pagemaker, it is likely that Pagemaker 7 constitutes its last upgrade. It is obvious that InDesign represents the future of publishing software in Adobe's stable. InDesign CS Pagemaker Edition lists for $349. The Pagemaker plug-in for prior owners of InDesign is $49. An education version for students and teacher is available for $219. Street prices, as usual, are discounted. :

Copyright 2004. This article is from the June 2004 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/

The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.

See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.

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