Great Resources at InDesignUserGroup.com
Currently there are over twenty official InDesign User Groups having regular meetings across the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe. The newest ones are in Toronto, Canada, and Dallas, Texas. Lucky for you if you’re near a meeting — but if you’re not, lucky for you that Chris Converse brings the meetings to you!
Independent designer/author Chris Converse designed and maintains the InDesignUserGroup.com web site on behalf of his plum client, Adobe Systems Inc. Chris’s site not only collects and organizes all the meeting notes, handouts, and pictures from each groups’ activities, and maintains each group’s registration page, but he’s also collected an enviable list of general InDesign resources including PDF tutorials, whitepapers, checklists, plug-in developers, and more.
I’m a member of the Chicago InDesign User Group, but I regularly go to the InDesign User Group site to see what other groups are meeting about and to download their handouts. It’s a huge treasure trove of material you can put to use right now at your own workplace.
And I love that Chris created a single page — called the Meeting Topic Archive — that categorizes all the meeting notes and handouts according to subject, each entry annotated and linked to its source on that group’s “home” page within the site. Thanks, Chris!
Even if not called “InDesign User Group”, my website milic.com/indesign is read daily by an average of 800 different IPs and its forum/mailing list are read by 500 members, mostly from French speaking countries. We see each other during DTP fairs in France on a regular basis.
The site (containign news, tips&tricks, solutions to bugs…) is alive since September 1999, when InDesign 1.0 was available in stores.
Sounds like it’s time for you to create an InDesign User Group, Branislav!
There are a number of great sites offering InDesign info, including yours, of course. I just wanted to call attention to the existence of InDesign User Groups themselves, and the great site that gathers all their resources together for the benefit of everyone.
I can’t agree more about the value of the User Groups. I was an InDesign novice when I attended my first meeting in December 2004, where I saw Adobe’s Terry White speak. I was so motivated by the potential of the application that I haven’t missed one since. They may not be the same as classroom instruction, or on-the-job experience, but they can be an incredible shot in the arm to inspire someone to dive deeper into the power of the application. In less than a year and a half, I went from first-time attendee to presenting before the NY group myself. Kudos to all the chapter representatives for their efforts, Adobe’s Noha Edell for championing the groups, and to Chris for gathering all the information for those who can’t attend.
Hehe Anne-Marie, before creating an InDesign User Group, Europeans should learn what’s being in a community… and they prefer being a virtual “member” behind their computer……….
This is one of the major differences between the US mentality and the European one, and in this case, the US get a point.
Anne-Marie, just simply look at the differences between the maps of the US and of Europe that you posted in this thread… The picture says it more than words. I didn’t even know that there was an IUG in Switzerland and I don’t even know what they do, what they publish, are they gathering on a regular basis…..
I guess the same could be said about Asia (there isn’t even one in Asia!) and to a lesser extent, Australia…
Hi Branislav,
I attended a course held by you at the Lineheart center in Luxembourg last year. Since then I’m a real InDesign addict. To answer your previous question: Yes, there is an InDesign Conference in Bern/Switzerland every September. There you can meet the pro’s and join the discussions. The community is great and there are some really cracks moderating the board, especially in terms of Scripting, Colormanagement and PDF. The URL is: http://www.hilfdirselbst.ch/foren
Greetings from Luxembourg, Sacha
Hi all, and, along the same lines, I may add http://www.inEditoria.net which is the web site supporting the Italian User Group since 2003 and which counts over 300 registered users in the forum. We haven’t had time to organize a big meeting yet but we are seriously thinking about it.
“Forza InDesign!”
Thanks to Chris Converse for adding inEditoria on the World Map!
Wonderful … I’ve updated the map, and since it’s so tiny now, it’s linked to the large version on Chris’s site.
Nice Site!!! (p)