Adobe InDesign CS3 Review

Adobe InDesign has grown out from QuarkXpress – famous design and publishing tool, the fourth version of which we know as InDesign CS2. That program was released in 2005 and since that time mane things happened. Today InDesign is not an innovative and rather unpopular tool, but a widespread working environment for numerous designers and people involved into publishing industry. Along with other Adobe products like Flash, Fireworks or Dreamweaver InDesign is a standard today and the leading page-layout software for Intel based Macs.

Currently Adobe InDesign comes in several packages like Design Standard, Design Premium, Master Collection and as a standalone product. Such a “Suite” strategy helps Adobe promoting its less often used products, making them truly popular. This is what we can in the situation with InDesign as well.

Each version of Creative Suite means adding new features, updating efficiency and keeping up-to-date with latest trends in the industry. However, Adobe is a customer oriented organization and pays lots of attention to automation and customization of its products. So, CS3 version also has some surprises for us. First, you may be amazed by new UI. Finally, palette and groups connected to it are combined into docks (they are also known now as panel stacks). Depending on your need you can either use minimized view, or fully expanded one. No need to say, each panel can be popped out to its original size.

All icons have been redesigned and now they look elegant and well-done. Adobe is really good at balancing between style and functionality. Note in CS3 only one panel can be opened or expanded at the same time. This means when you click any other icon or panel, the one that is already opened closes automatically. You cannot change this option as it’s not included in any presets. If you need to have several panels or stacks open, you need to ‘tear’ them off from minimized docks.

InDesign CS3 welcomes us with new Control panel that doesn’t have anything to complain. Overall increased functionality, more user friendly interface and faster access to many features cannot become unnoticed. InDesign is great for owners of big displays – you won’t have “unused” space and will be pleasantly surprised new contextual options in Control panel. You can adjust it according to your needs and taste using panel menu. You can add various stuff to Control panel like text wrap, table cells, object distribution, etc. The way how many features like table style, cell style and controls for opacity, drop shadow and access to Photoshop effects are made may also become very useful for the majority of users.

Menu customization is another feature available in InDesign. First debuted in Photoshop, it helps managing visibility of application or panel menu. You can save these settings as make them a part of custom workspace. Also don’t forget to check Pages Panel improvement that allows displaying thumbnails for document and master page at the same time. This feature is offered in three sizes – medium, large and extra large. Another option here concerns scrolling panel when you move pages – very useful feature that has been definitely necessary in previous versions.

Now it’s time to speak about benefits for this program for designers. Certainly, new interface is a good start, but designers may start thinking, whether improvements in UI are worth upgrading. At first sight you may not find the updates in program’s functionality ‘eye-popping’, but this doesn’t mean there are no updates in InDesign CS3. This version is more about polishing options appeared in InDesign CS2. These slight but yet important updates include such things as the ability to switch between frame and its content by double-clicking or workflow transformers that allow placing InDesign files inside other InDesign files. Photoshop-style effects are also somewhat new for InDesign and you can see the list of them in Effects panel that has replaced Transparency panel. These effects include Inner Shadow, Inner/Outer Glow, Emboss/Bevel and Satin effects. Feather option from CS2 is now called Basic Feather and is available in two variations – Directional Feather and Gradient Feather.

Many designers may find transparency updates worth their attention. From now you can use separate options to text, stroke and fill features of any single object. Yet independent transparency cannot be applied to tables, but this limit is expected to disappear in next versions of InDesign.

Now let’s get back to design time saving tools and devote next part of review to Styles. In case you have worked with InDesign CS2, you know about Object Styles and Nested Styles. InDesign CS3 combines them into Table Styles and Cell Styles. By the way, if you work with InDesign frequently, I’d recommend you to become familiar with Teacup’s plug-ins for CS3. That works great when it comes to formatting styles.

Table Styles are best at adjusting complicated tables with multiple rows, various alignments and strokes. Actually, Table and Cell Styles are truly timesaving tools – you can use spreadsheet document, link it to source document that can be in Excel and then all changes in this document will be preserved in your InDesign project. This is truly useful feature for all designers who need to work with large financial documents like annual reports.

As it has been mentioned previously, InDesign CS3 gives new and potentially enormously useful feature – putting InDesign files into other InDesign files. This idea is quite simple in its core, but it allows breaking projects into parts of a page, so one designer can do one element of whole project like formatting sidebar, another designer can make a half-page ad, while the third one makes whole layout in general, combining those two and adding new details.

Try to place one InDesign file into another and you will see a warning about missing or modified links.

Text processing features are truly awesome in InDesign CS3. Text Variables is the best way to prove this. Just take a look at presets available at your choice.

When you need to find something, “Search” function is the best solution in this case. In CS3 it has transformed into new feature. Typical Find/Change option new can master pages, footnotes, hidden layers, etc.

Just move a little bit deeper and you will see three new functions in InDesign CS3 that concern Find/Change.

GREP isn’t intended for searching, but with its help you can change and rearrange wildcards that match patterns in text. This is great either in text clean up (f. ex. you need to remove trailing spaces) or in such tasks as converting formats (money), formatting e-mail addresses, etc. GREP requires some time to learn, but after you’ve done this, GREP will help to increase your text-processing power and speed up your work.

There’s one more newly remade feature that requires being mentioned. QuickApply has appeared in InDesign CS2 as a tool that helps applying styles by typing first letter of the style’s name. In CS3 Adobe has sufficiently expanded this feature. Now you can use the same typing to apply styles to text variables, cell and table types and scripts. You may think there’s going to be a mess with all those styles available, but Adobe has made the right decision to separate various types of presets. Just type a letter ‘m’ to see the list of menu items; ‘v’ is used for variables, ’s’ – for scripts, etc.

There are still numerous smaller updates that are not mentioned in this review. Adobe’s specialists have right approach to Creative Suit development, so they always have that ‘perfectionist’ state of mind, improving already well-polished program. Even though Adobe InDesign CS2 is a mature product with good functionality that, seems, doesn’t need many upgrades, CS3 version shows Adobe still has some of sparkling ideas concerning update. All newcomers may find InDesign CS3 a little bit complicated and we all know this program requires learning. Veterans, who are already aware of InDesign CS2 may find updates worth their attention and as upgrade price is not that high they might consider upgrading to latest version.

 

Also check out: Adobe InDesign CS4 and Adobe InDesign CS4 for Mac