Adobe Indesign An Introduction

I was a loyal Pagemaker user, right since the time it belonged to Aldus and then I discovered Indesign and I got hooked to it. What is Adobe InDesign and what can it do for you? InDesign is a powerful publishing application that lets you work the way you want to work. You can use InDesign as a free-form but manual approach to layout, or as a structured but easily revised approach. The fact that you can choose which way to work is important for both novice and experienced users because there isn’t a single, correct way to lay out pages. Sometimes (for example, if your project is a single-instance publication), creating a layout from scratch — almost as if you were doing it by hand on paper — is the best approach. And sometimes using a highly formatted template that you can modify as needed is the way to go: There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for documents that have a structured and repeatable format. InDesign can handle sophisticated tasks, such as magazine and newspaper page layout, but its simple approach to publishing also makes it a good choice for smaller projects, such as one-off ads and fliers. InDesign is also a good choice for corporate publishing tasks, such as proposals and annual reports. Plug-in software from other vendors adds extra capabilities.
But that’s not all. InDesign was designed from the ground up as an electronic publishing tool. That means that you can easily send documents to service bureaus and printing presses for direct output, which saves you lots of time and money. It also means that you can create documents for electronic distribution, particularly using the Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). These electronic files can include interactive features, such as buttons to play sounds or a movie.
After you get the hang of it, InDesign is quite easy to use. At the same time, it’s a powerful publishing program with a strong following among the ranks of professional publishers — and the latest InDesign CS3 version is certain to reinforce that position. Part of its success is due to the fact that its interface is like that of its sister applications, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop,
which are also components of the Adobe Creative Suite.
If you are just getting started with InDesign, welcome! I hope you’ll find the information on this blog to be helpful in getting you started.