What’s New in InDesign CS4
It takes 24 hours for the Earth to revolve around the sun, 12 months to orbit the sun, and—just as surely—about 18 months for Adobe to release a new version of the Creative Suite. So as the sun rises on a new day, Adobe today announces Creative Suite 4, and with it, a brand new version of InDesign.
Adobe InDesign CS4
Let’s take a quick look at what you’ll find in InDesign CS4. Note that this overview only gives a glimpse of what’s to come; you’ll find far more detail in David’s upcoming article in InDesign Magazine (Issue 26) and in future blog postings at InDesignSecrets.com.
Interface
While we initially complained bitterly about yet-another-user-interface-change, after some months of using beta versions of CS4, we now find ourselves really liking the new darker-gray interface and CS3 already feels quaint and old-fashioned. Our favorite new UI feature is the ability to have more than one file open within a single document window (each with a different tab, a la Web browsers).
We also love the new panel features, especially being able to make floating “docklets” that contain multiple panels and put them anywhere we want on screen.
Text Features
We’re “text heads” so we have to admit our tendency to like all things relating to text-and-type. In this department, InDesign CS4 rocks. For example:
Conditional text. You can create one or more conditions and then apply them to any text you want. For example, let’s say you’re creating a brochure that will appear in both the USA and Australia. You could make a condition in the Conditional Text panel called “English English” and apply it to the “u” in “colour” and “harbour”. When you want to print the US version, turn off the condition (click the visibility icon in the panel) and the “u” disappears. In fact, text can have more than one condition applied to it simultaneously, opening up all sorts of possibilities for single-source, multi-channel publishing.
Cross-references. This is the holy grail for many long-document publishers: The ability to create sentences such as “See Figure 5-4 on page 19″ and then have those cross-references (x-refs) update automatically when the figure or page number changes. Now it’s amazingly simple in InDesign CS4. Why Adobe hid the cross-references feature inside the Hyperlinks panel is a mystery, but that’s where you’ll find it.
Line styles. Ever since we started using nested styles a few years ago we’ve wanted to apply a character style to the first line in a paragraph — not just the first few words, but the whole line. Now you can do this, with the new line styles feature. It’s separate from nested styles (though in the same dialog box), but it works pretty much the same way. Since they’re separate controls, you can combine “regular” nested styles with nested line styles (and even GREP styles — see below) in the same paragraph or even instance of text.
GREP Styles. If you’ve ever played with GREP in the Find/Change dialog box, you know that it’s incredibly powerful. However, the problem is that you need to run a find/change routine each time you want to make a change. GREP Styles changes all that: It’s a way to attach a GREP find/change routine to a paragraph (or better, a paragraph style). For example, within the Body paragraph style, you could configure the GREP style panel to format all the text inside parentheses with an italic character style. If a story contains 10 different instances of parenthetical remarks, they all get converted automatically as soon as you apply the Body style to the paragraphs. It’s amazing.
Smart Text Reflow. InDesign users have complained (with good reason) for years about InDesign’s inability to automatically add pages and text frames as you type, paste, or edit text. After all, QuarkXPress has done this for two decades. Fortunately, InDesign CS4’s Smart Text Reflow lets you do this. Plus, as you’d expect, it’s actually even more powerful than XPress’s feature. For example, you can also set it up to automaticaly delete extra blank pages when you remove text. Again, long-doc folks will eat this up.
Interactive Features
Adobe started showing off some “future technology demos” at the beginning of 2008, in which they could export SWF files directly out of InDesign, or export something called an XFL file that could be opened in Flash. For legal and financial reasons they couldn’t say whether these features would be in CS4, but today we can yell a big “Yes They Are!”
While it’s cool to be able to export SWF directly from InDesign, Adobe hasn’t given us many interactive features to work with. For example, you can make buttons, hyperlinks, and page transitions that survive the export to SWF — in fact, InDesign CS4 has brand new Buttons, Hyperlinks, and Page Transitions panels. However, imported movies and sounds are stripped away. Sure, you can import a SWF file into InDesign, but it won’t show up in an exported SWF file. Why can’t Adobe just grab the Quark Interactive Designer panel and put it in InDesign? Because they want you to use XFL and open the file in Flash, of course.
The good news is that Flash CS4 is way, way, way better than any previous version. That is to say, it works more like an Adobe application, and there are a number of cool things you can do even if you don’t know ActionScript. (The bad news is that hyperlinks, page transitions, buttons, and pretty much everything interactive drops out when you export to XFL … because the idea is to design in InDesign, and add interactivity in Flash.) However, the beautiful formatting you applied to text in InDesign is maintained–and fully editable–in the Flash file.
If you still prefer PDF to Flash, that’s okay, too. All those page transitions and buttons and hyperlinks (and even movies and sounds) can be exported to interactive PDF files
Linked Images
InDesign CS4 offers a few cool features for those of us who place a lot of images. First, the Links panel has been given a ground-up workover, and it’s just so much better. We didn’t really think the old Links panel was so bad, but now that we’re used the new features — such as choosing which information we want to display, an interactive File Info area, arrangeable columns like a spreadsheet or database — we just no longer want to go back.
Two other link-related features bear mentioning, as well: There’s (finally) an “Edit With” feature that lets you choose which program you want to launch to open a file. And the Place cursor (the thing you get when you choose File > Place) has some hidden features now. For example, as you click-and-drag, InDesign constrains the size to the proportions of the image you’re placing. Small but sweet!
Also, if you’re placing more than one image at a time, and you hold down the Command-Shift/Ctrl-Shift keys while dragging, the images get placed into a grid on the page. It’s a handy and fast way to make a contact sheet out of a bunch of graphics.
Preflighting
One of the most important new features in InDesign CS4 is the Preflight panel. Adobe ripped out the not-very-useful Preflight feature from earlier versions and replaced it with a grrrrreat way to check (and double-check) your documents. Most importantly, you can create custom preflight profiles to tell InDesign what you want it to look for. For example, you could have it search for overset text frames, images that are below 150 ppi effective resolution, graphics or text that have been scaled disproportionally, and page objects that don’t bleed far enough off the side of the page.
Even better, it does all this checking in the background while you work, even if the Preflight panel is closed. (InDesign displays a little green light in the document window when there are no errors, or a red light when it finds one.)
But wait, there’s more!
We just don’t have space to cover all the features in this short overview, but we would be remiss in our duty if we didn’t at least mention a few others that we’re so happy to see in this version.
- Rotate Spreads. You can rotate one or more spreads of a document by 90- or 180-degrees. Very useful for making calendars or viewing rotated text!
- Power Zoom. The Navigator panel has been removed and replaced with the Power Zoom mode. Get the Hand tool (hold down Option/Alt-spacebar) and hold down the mouse button for a moment and InDesign zooms back to show you the whole spread, along with a red navigation rectangle. Drag that rectangle someplace else and let go of the mouse button and you zoom right back in on that new location.
- Smart Guides. Taking a cue from Illustrator, InDesign CS4 now has smart guides that show up whenever you create, drag, or resize an object. For example, you can drag one frame below another and quickly align it to the left, center, or right side of the frame above it based on the smart guides that appear. Or, you can drag one frame between two others until the smart distribution guides indicate that there is equal space among all three objects. Very smooth, very powerful.
- Tables in Story Editor. Our list of features wouldn’t be complete without mentioning a feature that we (and many others) have been craving for years: Seeing table data inside the Story Editor window. The problem is that Adobe blew their whole “nice UI” budget on the general interface and gave the challenge of coming up with a clever way to show tabular data inside Story Editor to an intern who hadn’t actually ever used InDesign before. At least that’s what it looks like to us. Oh well, maybe they’ll make it prettier in CS5.
Speaking of CS5, hang on to your hats… If the sun keeps shinin’, the Earth keeps spinnin’, and Adobe shareholders keep expectin’, then we’re putting our money on the Summer of 2010. In the meantime, however, we have a lot of exploring to do in this new, and very welcome upgrade.
This article is being published simultaneously here and at the CreativeStudio Cafe.
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s absolutely wonderful. I’ve been using «» marks to italicize text such as book titles within an index by using a GREP search & replace. This could do that automatically if and only if it can remove the markers at the same time it applies an Italic style. If not, I’m back to my old scheme with a hope they’ll add that in the next iteration.
Done well, change the style but hide the markers would let users markup text coming from other applications with special styles. Improved a bit, it could let users tag text to apply paragraph styles. For instance, a paragraph beginning with [[Quote]] could be given the Quote paragraph style.
(That matters, since I write in Scrivener, which is marvelous for writing but lacks Word’s named styles. That would let me avoid clumsy workarounds.)
Unfortunately, Adobe does not seem to have added the ability to specify that a character or paragraph style start or end with a specific text. That’d allow us begin a paragraph with Warning: just by specifying a paragraph style. Used cleverly with character styles, it would let Nested Styles add text inside a paragraph when the style changes. Addresses, phone numbers, prices, part numbers or whatever could be given the proper lead-in text or marker automatically. Marvelous!
To give my final why didn’t you, they’ve still not implemented next most needed long document feature, particularly now that conditional text will have documents growing and shrinking. The number of columns needs to be a paragraph attribute (yes, like in FrameMaker). That’d let us shift between a column-spanning heading and two- or three-column text in the same frame even with conditional text changing a document’s length and thus where that heading comes.
Congratulations to Adobe. This is a good upgrade, particularly for long document folk like me. I’ve been one of those whining to Adobe programmers that ID won’t add or remove pages automatically like FrameMaker did. Now it does. Three cheers for the team in Seattle!
–Michael W. Perry, Untangling Tolkien
Documents in tabs? TABS? I still don’t get the advantage of an app frame, I didn’t get it when using Windows, I didn’t get it when trying out the Fireworks beta and I never will. This totally breaks Exposé. However, the app frame is optional (still true in the final version, I hope, otherwise this will be the last day on earth for any Adobe engineer ;), so I’m ok with that. If conditional text works as good as it sounds, this will make up for it
Dr
Tabs helps to see all documents open at the same time and put them forward, much faster than Exposé that I like indeed.
Hey,
How about the footnote-function? Have they improved anything?
Sacha
For me, GREP Styles is the biggest new feature in CS4. Why? Cause I wait a long time for that. As I wrote at indesignsecrets.com on May 7th, I send a feature-request to Adobe for GREP-Powered Nested Styles:
http://indesignsecrets.com/applying-expert-fonts-to-numerals-with-nested-styles.php
I was so pleased, as I saw “my” feature in the Prerelease of IDCS4. OK – I cannot be sure, that my post had any influential to the development, but psychologically I feel connected. I think, I will send more feature requests from now on.
Thank you, Adobe!
Martin from Germany
Quotation: “We also love the new panel features, especially being able to make floating “docklets” that contain multiple panels and put them anywhere we want on screen.”
I don’t understand the improvement? Couldn’t I do the same in CS3?
Adobe CS4 Design Premium Upgrade from CS3 (any):
$ 599 in the US. € 891 in Germany (= $ 1.310 today)
This madness must stop.
I feel incredibly tempted to go back to porating this shit.
Miek Perry wrote:
“Unfortunately, Adobe does not seem to have added the ability to specify that a character or paragraph style start or end with a specific text. That’d allow us begin a paragraph with Warning: just by specifying a paragraph style.”
Mike you can do this by using paragraph numbering - you just have add the text you want written at the beginning of your paragraph to the Number field of the Bullets & Numbering section of the paragraph style.
Granted you can’t add text to then end automatically using bullets & numbering but a find & replace can be used just as well.
Chris
I am really annoyed that the footnote system haven’t been improved - there is no freedom of footnote placement in the current system!
We do a lot of bibles with thousands of footnotes, and still we have to “cheat” our way around the system using scripts to place footnotes in text frames, not being able to reflow the document etc.
Disappointing.
Ok, all looks fantastic. Great post and I’m looking forward to the release thing viewing on the internet.
Can you span columns with footnotes though?
In addition to the international price irrationalism, international custumers will have to wait another couple of months to get their hands on CS4
I’m desperately waiting for a special new feature in Photoshop CS4, which will definitely save me a ton of hours of work as well as increase the quality of the output for an upcoming project (mapping pictures on simple 3D-objects — tin cans in this case). Until now it’s not quite clear when the project will start, it’s been pushed back several times — now I hope they’ll push it back to late December 
Just looked at the prices, and compared these with the american store…. in Holland we pay more than double the price for an upgrade. So I can fly to NY, buy it and get back, and still save money.
And why should I care about Flash, I work in the printing industry, it would be better that you could choose to leave away the extra bells and whistles (Indesign Extended…)
Looking at CS4, I have no need to upgrade, they should have called it CS3.5. For now we will stay with CS3, and, unless Adobe changes the overseas prices, we will use it for quite a while…
So what’s the expected release date?
I agree with some of the commenters here, an improvement to the footnotes feature is overdue. I usually do them manually. I’m not too enthusiastic about that app frame thing either — and I’m (still) a Windows user.
Can that Conditional Text feature be applied to other objects as well? For example, can I use this to swap an image of a flag to indicate which version of the document it is? Or do we need hacks for that (like making images anchored objects)? And is this feature powerful enough for real multi-language documents, not just an US and a UK version?
As far as the table features are concerned — can we now reorder columns/rows via drag & drop? That’s more important to me than being able to edit tables in the story editor.
Also, are there any improvements to InDesign’s handling of grayscale images? Or any useful additions or changes in the area of InCopy workflow/plugins/application?
Peter
Peter, conditions can only be applied to text (thus the name, conditional text); but yes, if you anchor an image or a group of frames in the text flow, then its anchor can be made conditional … and so an image/group can be made to show/hide depending on the visible conditions. Since tables are essentially anchored objects, entire tables can be made conditional too (as well as discrete text selections within).
Not sure what you mean by “real” multilingual publications but indeed it should work, assuming what you want to show/hide is text or anchors.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing new in CS4 in regards to footnotes or table row/column manipulation. InCopy has a few new features that I’ll write about in incopysecrets.com today.
Thinking … well since you can edit tables in the Story Editor (and in InCopy’s Story/Galley), then it should be easier to drag/drop table rows into new positions. However there’s no easy way to select columns in that view.
@Anne-Marie: Thanks
@Roland: Adobe says they’ll release “in October.”
@Eugene: As Anne-Marie said, there don’t appear to be any changes to the footnote feature.
@DrW: Yes, the Application Frame is definitely optional on the Mac. So are tabbed windows! You can turn that off entirely in Prefs.
@Martin: I think you’re smart to keep sending in feedback requests, especially after you see the full scope of CS4 features. I don’t think it is a secret that Adobe has already started working on CS5. Software takes a long time to write!
So, with the conditional text feature, does that mean you could create an “Extortionate Overseas Pricing” set which adds an extra 0 to the price. Then when you’re selling your product overseas, you just click on the little visibility icon next to it, and low and behold, you charge double for the same product.
@gragganmore: on the Dutch Adobe web-store they say that owners of Adobe CS3.3 should call Adobe’s Customer Support, so I’m assuming those of us who upgraded for the Acrobat update will get something in the form of a discount.
I’ll give them a call later in the week when I actually have more time.
Also, there’s a €250 discount if you purchase prior to March 31st 2009 so who knows how much we’ll actually end up spending here in Europe
@David: October seems mighty soon. Has it really been 18 months since CS3 was released? Tempus really does fugit when you’re having a good time…
Here are some other first looks at CS4 from around the Web:
Jeremy Schultz at CreativePro.com notes that some people have said that CS4 is more of a maintenance upgrade than a major upgrade. I disagree. The changes in ID are huge for many users.
Check out the PhotoshopCafe.com, which is releasing info about all the CS4 apps (not just Photoshop). They also have an exclusive (and funny) interview with John Nack.
If you speak French, check out Branislav Milic’s InDesign site here.
Pariah S. Burke at QuarkVsInDesign.com offers his top 10 new features list!
Mordy Golding at Real World Illustrator, has a great rundown of all the goodness in Illustrator 14.
@David
What about Michale Murphy’s vid on http://www.theindesigner.com
very good stuff
Thanks, Eugene! I hadn’t seen Michael’s video. (He’s been distracted, so he probably neglected to tell us about it.) I agree: It’s very helpful to see how these features really look and feel.
Regarding release dates, the Amazon CS4 pages give us various dates in November, early to mid-month. Given that Amazon was about two weeks delayed with their Lightroom 2 shipments, I would take even those dates with some salt.
I’ve been reading up on CS4 all day, and there are HEAPS of new, great stuff in PS, but the ID upgrade seems a modest one, alas.
So what about bug fixes? Can you copy vector graphics from InDesign into Illustrator?
Oh I’m so dissappointed that there’s no improvement in footntes. they should make it possible to change the graphics of the footnote seperator (not just lines), and decide where to put them on the page, and have 2 columns of footnoes on a 1-column story, and I really need an endnote feature.
it’s a shame that some of the above-mentioned deatures exist in Word, but not in Indesign.
i think whether indesign cs4 is modest or not depends on your perspective. i’m very psyched about a number of the new features. from conditional text (i used to love that in framemaker 15 years ago) to the updated links palette to rotating spreads… all things i will use quite a bit.
Hi David,
will your great InDesign magazine continue to have tutorials for pre-CS4 versions of InDesign?
I’m just beginning to fiddle around with InD and am not upgrading. The magazine is so helpful.
thanks
Kim
I want to know if they fixed the OPI info in exported PDF files in CS4. They broke it in CS3 and without it CS4 is pretty worthless IMO. But of course Adobe won’t even admit that it is broken in CS3 and there is no info about it either.
What is the backwards compatibility - CS4 TO CS3. Will we have to do the .indx file again to send files to those who have not upgraded?
Kim, I know David will respond shortly (and I sent a link to your comment to Terri Stone, editor in chief of ID mag), but in the meantime I can assure you that InDesign Magazine — and InDesignSecrets.com for that matter — will continue to carry content that’s relevant and useful to CS3 (and earlier) users for many months to come.
It’s understandable that there’s a lot of hoopla and press about CS4 today and it won’t abate for awhile .. but all magazines, trainers, blog writers, conference speakers etc. know that it will be quite a while before the majority of the readers/attendees/students will be using the current shipping version.
I remember doing a seminar at an InDesign Conference, eight months *after* CS3 shipped, and asking how many people were using CS3 … only about half raised their hands. The rest were on CS2 and earlier.
Lisa, yes, you’ll need to export ID CS4 files to .inx (InDesign Interchange) format in order for CS3 users to open the file. We talked about this a bit in our latest podcast, #87 (where David and I talk about the new CS4 features) too.
@Kim: Yes, InDesign Magazine will definitely keep doing CS3 information. The next edition of the magazine has a lot of CS4 information, but we’ll also offer some good CS3 articles, too.
@almaink: I haven’t heard about any changes to OPI. But so few people still use OPI anymore that it’s hard to imagine Adobe pays much attention to it.
@Alan: Copy from ID to AI? You can do that now in CS3. If it doesn’t work, perhaps you have some other issue going on.
Will CS4’s .inx file only go back one version like CS3 and CS2, etc.?
Still no possibility to assign function and “ordinary” number keys to paragraph and character styles??!!
Oh, yes, there’s CONDITIONAL TEXT instead.
Those really useful, time-saving features can wait, of course - seems like we have to deal with not really interested monopolist.
Did you guys get to try out the new INDML format? That looks to be one of the most interesting new features to me.
Math support also not included in CS4, it’s really disappointed me.
Nice
Linux port would be handy with the next release
Steve, the IDML format is really interesting for developers. It’s basically a zip file with the contents of the indesign document inside it in xml format (each story, each layout, and so on). More interesting is that developers could write IDML to disk even without InDesign, send you the file, and you could open a finished indesign document!
Some other InDesign CS4 information that people should know about:
Bob Levine’s excellent top 10 reasons to upgrade
Gurus Unleashed list of InDesign blog posts
David,
“@almaink: I haven’t heard about any changes to OPI. But so few people still use OPI anymore that it’s hard to imagine Adobe pays much attention to it.”
I guess Adobe never heard of anyone using the RAMpage rip then? What I do is place a multipage PDF file into RAMpage for processing. It rips the files and makes PDF FPO’s for imposition. I impose these FPO’s in InDesign and export an imposed PDF of those RAMpage FPO’s at plate size, back to RAMpage. Never had any issues doing this until CS3 came out. It seems CS3 strips out the OPI info when I export the composed PDF. If I go the old fashion way, and write a postscript file the PDF works fine, but thats time consuming. And with all this transparency we now have to deal with, it’s faster to rip transparent single pages and FPO them.
All I can get from Adobe is, “We didn’t change anything in CS3″, but apparently they did, I have proof.
I’ve used the RAMpage and the FPO system before, for about 4 years. It was a good system, but used PREPs for imposition, to be honest it worked fantastically. Although, hand in the air, I’ve never used it with InDesign, it was a Quark workflow.
Many thanks to “Martin from Germany” for suggesting the idea for GREP styles to Adobe. I just made a post to an Adobe blog in which I asked who came up with an idea so unique.
Many thanks for the tip!
Unfortunately, text at the start of a paragraph style isn’t as versatile as text at the beginning and end of character and paragraph styles. Without being able to add text with character styles, all the wonders you could do with those utterly marvelous nested styles go away.
TWO QUESTIONS:
1. Does anyone know if GREP styles let us add or remove text like GREP does? I saw one preview that seemed to say it does. I edit history books, and it’d be handy to type bc and have it become B.C. in smallcaps.
2. Does the originally typed text remain in the document, with the changes only applying to what is displayed and output? Or does GREP style do a search & replace, altering that text forever, even if you apply another style? The latter isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s something we’ll need to keep in mind.
Last but not least. In the midst of every problem, there lies a business opportunity. Someone should look into quietly starting a business that buys Adobe products in the US and sells/ships them for Euros across the water. Dealing with customs can’t be that difficult and if Adobe blocks your ability to buy wholesale, you can always buy retail and still give these much put-upon Europeans a great discount.
@Mike: No, GREP Styles only lets you apply character styles to text that matches the grep pattern. That’s all. Find/Change with GREP is far more powerful, allowing you to change the text itself.
Honestly, while Martin’s idea was great, I have to say that I don’t think Adobe got the idea from him. Many of these features were in place a year ago. It just takes a long, long time for them to get tested, debugged, fine-tuned, and so on. Software is a far slower process than it seems.
@ Mike Perry: could you include Australia in your business ventures? AU $815 for upgrade (download option only), and it was an additional $80 if you wanted it to ship in its box, despite having Adobe IN Australia… QQ
There is this annoying sorting order bug/feature with indexes in CS3 where spaces and punctuation are ignored. Does anyone know if that was fixed in CS4?
For example:
wild wolves
wilderness
Currently, “wilderness” would be sorted before “wild wolves” because the space is ignored. Is it still this way in CS4?
Ok… so it sounds like you can save a CS4 file as an INX that will open in CS3, but not in CS2.
Can anyone confirm that you can upgrade from CS3 to CS4, yet keep a fully functioning CS3 on your system?
For example, when I upgraded CS2 to CS3, CS2 was still available (except for the CS2 version of Acrobat.)
So I’m hoping that when I upgrade to CS4, CS3 will still be available. (In addition to CS2.)
I’ve got some clients still on CS2 who need my final files. Either I do them in CS2, or do them in CS4, down-save to CS3, then down-save again to CS2.
(I’m going to have quite the museum of Adobe Suite products on my computer as the years go on.)
Jake — Yes, you can have CS3 and CS4 on the same machine.
Thanks, Michael!
I actually have CS, CS2, CS3 and CS4 all on the same machine with no problems (besides CS2 being somewhat slow on an intel Mac…).
(InDesign 2 is sitting on the shelf. I didn’t see the point of installing it…)
No Fred. The sort order is just as bad as ever…
@ Jake: “I’ve got some clients still on CS2 who need my final files. Either I do them in CS2, or do them in CS4, down-save to CS3, then down-save again to CS2.”
I do too… I’m wondering if a script or a patch or a program might be developed to by-pass stepping down twice. I’m seeing a lot of nightmares stemming from this process. In fact, I think just notice my blood pressure rise at the thought of it…
Re dealing with multiple versions to support clients … Personally I think this is a no-brainer. If a client will need the actual live InDesign file in its final format, then create and produce it in the version they have. You can occasionally boot up later versions to automate discrete elements (like a multi-level autonumbered list), then export that to .inx, open it in the earlier version, and cut/paste to that earlier-version file you’re working on.
Using the latest version to create and produce the actual layout file, then saving out to .inx to open in an earlier version (to turn over to your client) does not result in a 100% exact replica … the slight tweaking in the text engines between versions (especially with hyphenation points and optical kerning) alone may cause occasional rewrap. Plus it’s too easy to inadvertently use version-specific features that can’t be replicated in earlier versions (e.g. style groups). To see how ID handled the conversion of those features, you have to go over the result with a fine-toothed comb.
To me backsaving an ID file is a last resort, when no other options are available. If you have CS2 installed and the client needs an editable CS2 file, create it in CS2. It’s less of a headache for everyone involved, in my opinion.
@AM: I don’t believe your idea of copy/pasting or using INX to get a newer feature saved back is going to work that easily.
For a number list you’d have to convert the numbers to text or the lists will be decimated going back a version. Same holds for a few other features such as text variables.
I suppose you could PDF the pages in question and drop them in, but all in all your final conclusion is dead on.
If you need to supply specific version files, they need to be produced in that version.
Good points, Anne-Marie. I had already taught myself not to use some of the object effects in CS3 when I was working on something that was going to go down to Cs2.
But now with the prospect of a range between CS2 and CS4, it’s looking more like it would be easier to just do it in the client’s version for those rare instances.
Ugh! Makes me feel like the old days of working in Windows 95 or 98 and then having to go work on someone’s Windows For Workgroups system.
But again, full credit to Adobe for allowing all the versions to stay rather than over-riding which some companies do.
I can’t recall now… when installing the upgrade version of the Suite, does it need to see the prior version still on the system or is providing the prior version’s install code enough?
I already asked Michael Murphy about a function that I am craving for since so long: EASY rounded corners. Liek in Photoshop, where you just type in the radius.
In ID, where many people use this function so often, you still have to go through the menu, a submenu, then open a popup, go to a menu to the last point, choose it, click on PREVIEW (else you don’t see anything of what you are currently doing for what reason WHATSOEVER) and chenge the value from the preset 4.12234324 or so to like … a simple 4. THEN click OK and finally get your rounded corners.
Somebody @ Adobe PLEASE. Did you ever USE your own software in detail?
And about retail prices in Europe: you really do want the pain in the asses of the users to be relieved thru theft or a growing willingness to jump on the next competitor’s train as soon as it arrives?
Yes, as Quark or Nokia know by now: some day, it always arrives.
@Dan: Ack! You’re right… what I was trying to say is that it “revolves” every 24 hours hours. But, um, it is revolving and it is moving around the sun, so um…
As for a test SWF file, try this:
http://www.indesignsecrets.com/downloads/iamaswf.html
Hey there, I need some advice please.
I have CS indesign 1 and i would like to buy indesign 4.
The only concern I have is that I have spent years building ID documents and that if i upgrade to CS4 then these will not be able to be used?
Is it possible to when installing ID4 convert all ID1 files to ID4 so that they can be used in ID4 as per.
Please answer in a not to techincal way as you may have guessed from my question I am not an expert.
Anways any help advice will be greatly appreciated.
Different page sizes in one document available in CS4?
Columns in different sizes in a text box?
Mark me down as totally unmoved about web and flash-ability from ID. I use ID for print.
Tom, InDesign CS3 can open older InDesign files without any special treatment. Just pick the file and it gets converted on the fly. I wouldn’t worry about it, but if you are, you could always keep the old InDesign installed next to CS4 until you’re satisfied it works
Marc, to get different page sizes (or rotations) in one ID file I bought DTP Tools’ Page Control plugin (http://www.dtptools.com) and it works perfectly. I know, it’s extra expenses, but if you use it and it saves you time, the small cost shouldn’t be an issue.
I do have a question of my own though: does anyone know if the Bridge CS4 will actually show the correct dimensions of files (AI and PDF files never get the right dimensions shown in the ‘file properties’ panel) and perhaps more info on InDesign files, like the number of pages?
bah, again, no endnote feature.
why is that so hard to understand at Adobe that for laying out books this is a must have, and many people wont swicth to Indesign till it is implemented?
@ David Blatner. You are a scholar and a gentleman. Many thanks.
How about the compatibility between InDesign CS4 and InCopy CS3? Can I upgrade while the publisher I work with stay on InCopy CS3, and still work trouble free?
Fredrik, thanks for the reminder to write up a post about this!
Good news: Yes, you can mix ID CS4 and IC CS3. In all the IC-related areas of ID CS4 you’re given an option to make [whatever] compatible with InCopy CS3 … exported InCopy content, exported assignment files, packaging assignments for remote users.
The only thing you you can’t do is use a layout-based workflow. The InCopy CS3 users will not be able to open an InDesign CS4 INDD file. They’ll get a “missing plug-in” alert if they try.
The InDesign CS4 user just needs to not use CS4-only features (like x-refs or conditional text) … or test to see if they make it through the process unscathed. I haven’t tried that yet, actually. But I doubt it’d work.
Thanks Anne-Marie! This is great news! I just got the publisher to upgrade to IC CS4, and I doubt that she would’ve upgraded again just like that.
Hey , Quick question does any one know if CS4 works with the Arabic Language ? since i work in publishing in Dubai most of the text i work with is in Arabic.
Also i wanted to know if there is a save back feature on CS4, or at least a PDF default that can be opened on older versions of CS? like illustrator.
Thank you
@Safa: I don’t think there have been many (if any) changes to InDesign’s ability to do right-to-left languages. I assume that Winsoft will come out with a R-to-L version of CS4 soon, though I have not heard any timetable for this yet.
Heh… What you’re waiting for? Adobe is just MONEY MAKER! Best publishing software always was AND IS the QuarkXPress.
Who said ‘Adobe’ is a publishing company? There is a lot of programs which do image editing MUCH easier than Photoshop. InDesign - the same story (lucky users of LaTeX!).
Forget this “another M$” and feel freedom!
Oh, I don’t know. I’ve used (and written about) both InDesign (since PageMaker ran in pre-Windows 3.0 and Quark. I have always found InDesign easier to use. Seems like a matter of taste to me.
But the new features are great and I can see them saving me a lot of time.
How there may be layer to make a copy from one of the documents into the other one?
Is it possible?
@Robert: You can copy all the objects on one layer to another document by Option/Alt-clicking on a layer (to select all the objects), then copy and paste into the other file. To save the layer name, make sure Paste Remembers Layers in the layers panel menu.
How about 4-ups imposition….
Pls email me…
louisanthonylim@gmail.com