After a few weeks of using InDesign CS3 , here are a few of my thoughts for those of you still waiting to see how the upgrade game plays out :
First the goodness . InDesign CS3 is really quite tight . Adobe also has greatly amend the interface , which I count most as important as the things the program can do . ( After all , it ’s what you employ to create the file . ) And finally , they ’ve add some not bad feature .
On the impudent side , InDesign CS3 needs some creative adjustments so as to run at the speed you would expect . It also suffers from some interface shortcomings , and is missing some feature of speech that have repeatedly cause me to shake my top dog .
Since I ’m running a MacPro with 3 GB of RAM , I expected the speed of InDesign CS3 to register somewhere near “ blazing . ” Unfortunately , this was something I could only accomplish after play with the preference and related to mise en scene , but once I did , I was pretty happy .
For starters , that nifty young feature of prove thumbnails in the Pages Panel … it ’s a dog . Working on a Holy Scripture of 30 - plus pages — with graphics on each Thomas Nelson Page — made scroll through the Pages Panel excruciatingly slow . Frankly , after trying to put up with the speed , I come to the conclusion that have the thumbnails was of no value because they ’re too small to see anything unless you set the size to be huge , at which time the entire Panel becomes useless because you may only see a few pages without scroll . Setting the icons to no thumbnail and sized small pay off affair right up .
It ’s not too terribly hard to find other pocket-sized modification that will speed things up with just a little bit of playing around either . For good example , turn off font menu previews ( Preferences - > Type ) went a long agency in speed up up the font pick process , but only when I take Type - > Font from the menu . This attack is quite tiresome the first fourth dimension you bring it up and is n’t exactly libertine when you ’re scroll through a long case list , but turning previews off definitely helps . funnily , selecting the font computer menu from the Control Panel was much faster even though it also showed font previews . Go figure .
A “smarter” Control Panel
Also , when I was wreak with the Selection tools , it contribute a smile to my face to have all the option from the Align , Text Wrap and Tables palettes from CS2 available in the Control Panel . Throw in the fact that you could quickly go for drop shadows and other effects — including adjusting transparency — all without opening a individual panel ( which is what the palettes are now call , by the way of life ) , and the power of the new Control Panel is readily apparent .
speak of control board , there sure are a lot of them now . Of naturally , Adobe has always designed palette - felicitous applications , and CS3kind ofmakes dealing with them a bite easier . I like the new dock control panel mode , but I ’m left wondering why Adobe has n’t made them so that just moving the mouse over them opens them up , and moving the black eye aside closes them . I found myself doing an dreadful heap of clicking when I kept the panels docked in icon modality . Instead I ’ve keep the most used one , such as the Color , Swatches , Pages and Links panels fully candid , and the subaltern ones like Pathfinder , Object Styles , and Separations Preview dock in ikon mode ( see the image above ) . Perhaps over metre , as I have the panel and their options imprinted upon my brain , I ’ll see the wisdom of Adobe ’s approaching .
The export and printing enhancement are welcome additions . you may now export to thePDF / X4format . In short , the PDF / X4 format allows for transparence to be contained in the PDF filewithoutflattening the foil . If you do n’t know what that entail , it ’s belike no grownup deal , but if you do , those around you are inquire why you are trip the light fantastic in front of your Mac . And , for those of us who have longed for an easy elbow room to print booklets on high - end printer / copier machine , the Print Booklet command in the File menu makes curt employment of this job , including options for adjusting creep , signature size , run up style , bleeds between pages and more . This feature was there before in the form of the InBooklet hand , but I could never figure it out . Print Booklet makes it dead simple .
Whither LiveColor?
I ’ve only touched on a few things I felt worth note , but you may read a lot more about it now that the suite is cargo ships and more designers and product managers have had the opportunity to play with it . I suggest starting with this excellent review ofInDesign CS3on Creativepro.com by Michael Murphy , server of theInDesignervideo podcasts at InDesignSecrets .
With InDesign CS3 , I would say Adobe has topped what they did with CS2 , a elusive project since that interlingual rendition was practically a fresh app on its own . The only thing that might keep you from using InDesign CS3 full - metre in a production environment is the fact that some font management apps do n’t yet have auto - activation fire hydrant - IN uncommitted yet . ( Insider Software of late announced that a CS3 - compatible of FontAgent Pro will be available “ later this bound . ” Extensis ’ Suitcase Fusion currently supports machine - energizing with Illustrator CS3 ; further details are on the company’sCS3 compatibilitypage . )
[ James Dempsey runs theCreative Guyblog , which offer point , whoremonger and opinion on a sort of innovation topics . ]
