Adobe InDesign CS2 product reviews

I am new to InDesign, I have never used any other their previous versions of InDesign, or its predecessor PageMaker; so I approached this review with 'virgin eyes'.

So, to start at the beginning, installation, as with all other Adobe products is a breeze; put the disk in and off it goes, and that was it. Once registered, it opened into the splash screen with some helpful starting places.

I tried to create a magazine cover. Getting the text in place was obvious and intuitive. Within minutes I was able to place the text, change fonts, size, placement, rotation and many, many more other options to manipulate text on the page. Everything was so simple and basically put, 'idiot proof'. It really is that simple to get great looking publications and InDesign makes it very easy.

The main problem I had was inserting graphics and by that, I mean a jpeg file, 'File > place' was not overly obvious to me, however, once I had figured that bit out, inserting and manipulating images was as simple as inserting and manipulating text.

All in all, once I had played with InDesign for a while, and got to learn a little about it, creating a cover was very quick, simple and professional-looking - to my 'virgin' and inartistic eyes. It even made me feel like I had artistic potential and Adobe InDesign is able to bring this out of me. I can easily imagine I will begin to play with Photoshop and Adobe's other products in the Creative Suite 2 range. I don't personally feel the learning curve to get to grips with this application will be that great, I think getting used to what is where and the language used will be the hardest part - but not that hard. This package has everything one could need - and more. InDesign is a serious addition to the desktop publishing market, and exceeds other lesser quality products.

It has been many years since I last used any heavy-end publishing tools, and back then it was an early version of QuarkXpress. Since then we have seen Pagemaker be absorbed, PageStream vanish, Publisher make itself far more robust and feature packed, and InDesign appear and take the DTP world by storm.

With all the usual features you expect in a DTP package, there are also tools to keep you ahead of the curve in today's industry. Features that allow you to build a single multimedia document and export it ina an impressive array of ways. Whether it be a fully interactive website, an interactive PDF or a static hardcopy, you can use InDesign to publish to all of them and keep a consistent style to them all.

With the updates and optimisations to Adobe Bridge, and it's inclusion within the CS2 framework, you have seamless access to all of your source materials including Photoshop documents, RSS Newsfeeds, Adobe Stock Photos, and any of your Version Cue controlled custom artwork. This gives you an unprecedented amount of creative freedom.

Overall, though it has a steep learning curve, it is worth getting stuck into. There are even downloadable Skill Conversion Charts to help you utilise existing experience with other packages, which I think is a wonderful idea, and I found them invaluable to help me reuse my QuarkXpress skills effectively shortening the learning curve. If you want to experience the widest range of publishing options, you will need InDesign.