By: Michael Murphy
April 20 2007 • 4:02 PM
The InDesigner’s Review of InDesign CS3
After putting InDesign CS3 through it’s paces, I’ve summed up my impressions of the new version not only in the overview article for InDesign Magazine, but also in a full-blown product review on CreativePro.com that went live this morning.
The review covers the major new features, enhanced existing features, and many small touches, and is illustrated with numerous screen shots. It points out not only what works great, but what’s missing, and what could use some improvement in future versions.
For eager early adopters looking to justify the purchase to their bosses, and frugal purchasers still pondering the “Is it worth it?” question, there’s plenty of information intended to help you make your buying decision.
One question about the running heads I’ve not seen answered anywhere. The illustration in your article has the left header picking up the first USE of a subheading style on the left page. That’s fine for dictionaries and catalogs, where subheadings change rapidly. But it doesn’t work with books where new heading can be several pages apart and headers must stay the same over all those pages. In those situations, the left header must be the most recent subheading in existence at the start of the page or the subheading that comes at the very start of the page.
Can ID be set up to do that? If so, I’ve got a 400+-page book, Chesterton on War, in desperate need of the new version. If not, I’m in serious trouble.
You will not be disappointed, Mike. Based on the example I showed in the review, if that write-up for the Mac IIci continued on for 5, 10, 20, or any number of pages, every header variable on those pages would continue using the “Mac IIci” text in the header until InDesign encounters the next use of the Sub-Head paragraph style.
It’s the exact same principle that keeps the chapter titles consistent on every header in the chapter. The Chapter Name paragraph style only appears on page 1 of the chapter, but the name appears on every header.
Great review. You really nailed the subtle shift in focus from the “gee-whiz look-at-me” features of yesteryear to a series of largely under-the-hood tweaks and tune-ups more typical of a mature platform.
I’m finding that a few things were inexplicably left behind in the upgrade. For instance, I still can’t find a keyboard command for closing out of the Find/Replace and Dictionary boxes (and the little red “Close” boxes are still teensy). The somewhat limited Autocorrect implementation appears to be unchanged; there are still many standard characters it simply won’t accept at all, and it’s limited to only a sentence or so. I had hoped the Autocorrect and Dictionary import/export features would be beefed up as well (my pipe dream was to have native support for going to and from Word’s user dictionary and AutoCorrect list. Imagine the friends I could make working collaboratively with folks who have inexplicably remained bound to medieval anvilware rather than forking over 1K to join me in OpenTypeHappyLand!)
Matthew, you can close Find/Change by pressing Esc. But oddly enough, this only works in the Text, GREP, and Glyph modes. It doesn’t seem to work in the Object pane.
Yes, there is no doubt that Adobe has “room to improve.” However, I find that’s true with any software. I like your ideas for Autocorrect and Dictionary. I also wish there had been some improvements on the interactive doc features such as the incredibly frustrating Hyperlinks panel. But I am ever the optimist and have high hopes for CS4!
That’s the great thing about “soft”-ware—if you can imagine it, you will likely see it in the next update, if not sooner in a script or plug-in. If you’re motivated (and impatient) enough, you can even script it yourself. Guess I’m not that motivated…
Fantastic write-up, with enough detail and thoughtful analysis to set it apart from other ID CS3 reviews.
BTW, while most of the variables will just overset if they can’t fit the frame (as you pointed out), that’s not true for running header variables. If they don’t fit the frame, ID decreases the kerning to make them fit, damn it … like the mean stepsister’s feet in the glass slippers.
Are you telling me that where ever I use a running head style and variables for Level 1 headings on the LHP and a running head style and variables for Level 2 headings on the RHP that InDesign will automatically insert these headings over multiple pages until it gets a to another Level 2 heading, changing them automatically throughout the book? Even though my LHP running head are variables to pick up Level 1 headings, will the running head stay with the Level 2 heading for left and right pages?
Do the new thumbnails in the pages pallette cause any memory/performance issues? Is there a way to turn them off? Thanks.
Rob,
I haven’t seen any problems with the Pages panel thumbnails (they only update when you’re not doing something else). And yes, there’s a preference for turning them off!
Eugene — If I understand your question correctly, the answer is yes. As long as your level 1 and level 2 headings each use a different paragraph style, you can set up a right-hand folio with different variables than the left to achieve what you describe.
@Matthew — I agree with you and David that it’s always disappointing to see something missing from a new version. From my perspective, though, I try not to harshly criticize people who make excellent products for not making perfect products.
@Anne-Marie — Thanks for the kind words on the review…and for pointing out that difference between running heads. Personally, I’d prefer that it be handled consistently. I don’t like the sound of InDesign squishing all of my text together if that’s not what I specified.
@Steve — Thanks for fielding that question. I had the same answer, basically. The option for turning off page thumbnails is available in the Panel Options from the Pages panel menu.
Thanks, Steve and Michael. Glad to know it’s not an issue and that there’s an “out” if it becomes one.
Ok, I will clarify my question. I have a specific publication. All the running heads have to correspond to the page content. With the Level 1 headings, to appear on the left running head. This could span several pages. The Level 2 headings would appear on the right running head and changes every page. From what I understand and thanks to Michael for clarifying that this does change automatically. Which is good news. Thanks.
Does ID CS3 support inserting footnotes in tables? If not, how do you handle long documents with lots of footnotes in tables which span more than one page? Thanks.
I had the footnote problem in CS2. All I did was add a footnote after the table and put in white (colour of the paper) then manually inserted a footnote figure in the table. Not the best solution and could backfire if you add in or delete a footnote. I never really understood why InDesign CS2 wouldn’t allow footnotes in a table to be continious with the text.
No version of InDesign (including CS3) supports footnotes in a table, unfortunately.
Any changes to how XML is handled? I’m most interested in if different styles can be applied to tags in different context and if Unicode hex entities are an export option.
I am probably the last person to advise anyone on InDesign’s XML capabilities, which is why it was not mentioned in my review. Going strictly by what Adobe has stated in the “What’s New” section of the InDesign CS3 User Guide, here’s what’s been changed (just don’t ask me what any of it means):
- XML Rules: Conditional rules automatically adapt formatting and layout depending on content.
- Support for XSLT and CALS tables with XML: Apply XSLT style sheets when importing or exporting XML content to make flowing XML into InDesign pages easier.
Hi all - I’ve been playing round with my copy of CS3 and loving it. I’m getting frustrated though because I can’t figure out how to do this one trick (i remember seeing it somewhere but have since forgotten it’s location). Perhaps someone can help me out. It’s hard to describe so bear with me. I have three layers: 1, an image (background) 2, a white box (middle-ground) & 3, text (foreground). I’m trying to make it so that the text is transparent and enables the background image to show through the white box in the middle-ground (essentially making the background the text fill) How can I achieve this?
Ben, check out this method Pariah came up with.
Oops.
In-Booklet for CS2 is not compatible with CS3. CS3 does not allow for creation of indd files in CS2 format (save as ==>). And, yes, I did a dumb thing: saved my indd file using CS3 and overwrote the existing one and now I will pay the price by re-creating my CS2 document.
What have I learned?
1. I will run both CS2 and CS3 on my machine.
2. Keep my CS2 documents separate from CS3
Alfred
Alfred, to save “backward” to CS2, use File > Export, then choose InDesign Interchange Format (INX). CS2 can open INX files. (Best if you update to CS2 4.05.)
Alfred — The key to backward compatibility from CS3 to CS2 or CS (or from CS2 to CS) is not to “Save As…” but to export the file to InDesign Interchange (.inx) format.
From the File menu, choose Export and from the menu at the bottom of the dialog, select InDesign Interchange Format. This creates an XML-based file that essentially describes how to “re-build” your document in InDesign (either the current version or an older version).
The comparison I always make is that the INX file is instant oatmeal, and InDesign is the water. Use InDesign (CS or CS2) to open up the INX file, it will open up as a new, Untitled document, then you just save the file as a “.indd” document and you’re back in business.
David (and Anne-Marie) and Michael,
Fantastic! Access to this site and to the podcasts has made it easier for me to take on the challenges created by the need to produce excellent quality publications. Right now, I face deadlines and I need to learn to use the tools with CS3 properly. I will keep using CS2 for a couple of months during the transition.
About the adobe videos: Michael, I hope this doesn’t mean an end to your podcasts.
Alfred
Thanks for the encouragement, Alfred.
The Adobe videos have no impact on my efforts. It just means that people have even more resources to help them do their work better and faster. There’s always room for more points of view. There are some things in InDesign that are not my strength, and others that I just don’t get around to covering, so whatever fills in those gaps for my fellow designers is OK by me.
Respected Sir/Madam,
One question about footnotes we code in xml and when we import they show in text not in bottom and we do manually can u please tell me the easiest way to treat footnote as when we import xml footnote comes automatically place in bottiom.
Regards,
Deepak Sharma
Hey, I’m trying to use a running header connected to a character style my only problem is that the variable text is longer than a single line but no matter how I tell it to format it still scrunches the first line untill there are no spaces before moving on to the next line. How do I get it to cut that out, and stick with the kerning I’m wanting?
A major drawback in the Text Variables feature is that the variable text will not, under any circumstances, wrap or break. If your text is more than one line…you’re out of luck. It will either be “scrunched” as you say, or show up as overset.
Thanks Michael, that will save me a ton of aimless “trials and all error” I’ll look for a third-party plugg-in if I find anything I’ll let ya know, thanks again.