Adobe InDesign Reviews

Our Adobe InDesign review will look at what InDesign offers and learn if it is a great pick for you as a business or an individual offering desktop publishing services to clients.

Adobe InDesign – a layout design tool

Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing software that you can use to create your next design or page layout. Also, Adobe launched InDesign in 2000. However, it was not so popular because it had already entered a market with other players, especially the likes of QuarkXpress.

But, with time, Adobe capitalized as they constantly updated with new features, while QuarkXpress failed. As a result, Adobe InDesign is the industry standard for layout design and desktop publishing. You can design flyers, posters, postcards, eBooks, pages, resumes, brochures, menus, and presentations with it.

What is InDesign used for?

InDesign is aimed at designers who create, design, and publish documents that contain images, text, and vector graphics. In other words, it is a layout design tool that makes it easy for designers to create their next graphic that can include any of‌ the following:

Beginners may find themselves confused when picking up the right design software. Adobe offers prominent design tools, including Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.

Photoshop is a dedicated design software aimed at professional designers, offering tons of customization and control over the design. It is a pixel-based editing app.

On the other hand, Illustrator lets you work with vector graphics that can scale according to your needs. This means that Illustrator is a good pick for creating icons, logos, and other illustrations that can be placed on different graphics, including billboards, flyers, or cards.

This leaves us in InDesign. It is aimed at designers who want to create multi-page documents that comprise vector artwork, text, and images. Examples of such documents include resumes, eBooks, menus, etc. In addition, its typesetting feature enables you to use text in your design precisely.

How to add page numbers in InDesign?

To add a page number in InDesign, you need to use the Page number marker. Once added, the page numbering is automatically updated. The page number behaves differently depending on where it is used. For example, if used on the parent page, it shows the parent page prefix. If you use it on the document page, it will be automatically applied to other pages. However, if you use it on the pasteboard, it will only display PB.

Anyway, the step to add page numbers in InDesign are as below:

If you want to change the page numbering style, then you need to follow the steps mentioned below:

How can a graphic designer use InDesign from Adobe?

As Adobe InDesign is a layout tool, the graphic designer can use the InDesign tool from Adobe to create multi-page projects where there is heavy use of text, vector graphics, and images. The best project that a graphic designer can utilize the InDesign is designing a booklet, brochure, or magazine.

So, the next time you get a text-heavy project, you need to fire up Adobe InDesign and let it do the heavy lifting.

Details of InDesign Features

Adobe InDesign’s primary aim is to provide tools and features for designers to create text-heavy documents seamlessly with excellent typography. In this quest, InDesign offers an impressive collection of features. Let’s list them below.

Adobe InDesign offers excellent collaborative features that keep your team on the same page. The collaborative features ensure ‌your team is always productive. For example, the Share for Review feature improves how you share your work with your peers, facilitating a faster response from reviewers. Additionally, you get seamless Adobe Creative Cloud integration, which improves your collaboration with other team members taking care of unique design elements. The Experience Manager also changes how you share content across projects, including graphics and fonts.

The new Adobe InDesign version has improved terminology, changing how you work on your projects. For example, Master pages are now called Parent pages.

Another feature introduced in the latest version of Adobe InDesign is the Adobe Capture feature. You can easily capture color palettes, shapes, and fonts from any image. You can then save them for later use. We can do all of these using the new Adobe Capture extension.

InDesign recently added a scalable user interface. So, if you use a high-resolution screen, you can easily resize the design UI to match your display resolution!

Adobe Stock templates: To provide seamless page and layout design, InDesign comes with standard templates for different ‌projects, including digital media and print. Using the template, you can create excellent professional design solutions using the available Adobe Stock images. These ready-to-use templates are professionally designed and fit directly into your project. Furthermore, you can find all the collections directly from Adobe Stock.

Adobe InDesign has a lot to offer besides the templates for layout. Layouts give you the necessary flexibility you want when creating a digital design. It is common for clients to ask for changes, and these layouts can play a crucial role in making it easy for you to implement changes. Currently, InDesign offers Liquid Layout, Adjust Layout, and Alternative Layout.

Adobe InDesign enables you to do digital publications directly from your interface. You can create eBooks, digital magazines, or other interactive online documents here. For example, if you are a writer looking for a seamless eBook publishing tool, then Adobe InDesign can let you do just that. You can do everything from writing to designing and publishing the eBook here. The result is that you get a polished ePub book ready to be read online.

InDesign offers seamless online publishing. With it, you can publish directly on the web. Moreover, you also get to know how your content is performing thanks to the in-built analytics.

Adobe InDesign is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. It also gets access to Adobe Fonts. Adobe was very early when it came to fonts. They started in 1998, and now they have one of the best fonts libraries in the world. Here, you get unlimited access to the Adobe Fonts library on both desktop and online. You also get an excellent Adobe Fonts search feature that lets you quickly go through hundreds of fonts quickly.

You also get Character Panel’s real-time font browsing, where you can see the actual font in action before picking it up. Right now, Adobe has more than 14K fonts. They also have access to some unique fonts not available anywhere else. To help you manage the fonts, you also get access to other features, including sort and filter, starred favorites, classifications, recently used, etc.

You also get access to SVG Open type Color Fonts that give you fine control over your fonts, and they ‌provide an excellent illustration to your design.

We need to cover InDesign’s ease of use as it will help you understand whether it is for you. The first thing that you should know is that Adobe InDesign is not for beginners. To use it effectively, you must have some design experience or previously used Adobe programs.

The real challenge begins when you first open up the solution — you are presented with a blank canvas and tons of tools to play with. It may look exciting and non-confusing, but you can find yourself stuck for a while when using the tools if you are a beginner. However, you can get started with Adobe templates that can give you a good starting point to explore the different functionalities of Adobe InDesign.

Adobe InDesign offers an easy way to export your designs to ePub and HTML. This means you can create eBooks and export them to Amazon Kindle Create. Moreover, you can also use HTML format to publish on the web.

InDesign offers excellent color support. This means you can play with colors using ‌Color Picker, Color Panel, Swatches Panel, Control Panel, and Toolbox. If you want to know the exact color of the design you imported or saw on the web, you can use the Adobe Capture Extension.

While you get an image editing feature in InDesign, you do not get as powerful a tool as you get on other more refined and powerful software such as Photoshop. Here, you can crop images and add textures, transparency effects, and other effects through the FX panel.

You can easily manage objects within Adobe Creative Cloud InDesign. The options you get include:

As for animation, you get an Animation panel from which you can apply any motion preset. Using the timing panel, you can use a pen or direct selection tool to edit the object motion path or change the animation order. Lastly, you can also review the finished animation with the review panel. To animate, you must use a motion preset available under Animation > Preset.

Links are a critical part of any design, and InDesign ensures you get the right set of tools to create and manage them. You can easily add links to your design texts with the Links tool. This way, you can add interactivity to your design. The ‌Links options include:

InDesign is all about working extremely well with the text at its core. To facilitate complete control, Adobe InDesign lets you do a lot of text-related actions, including:

Lastly, we have page control. These feature-set let designers create beautiful professional pages for their projects. The key features include the following:

InDesign Review Conclusions

So, where do we stand with InDesign? Is it worth your time and money? The answer is an astounding yes. InDesign is an industry-leading page layout tool that offers excellent desktop publishing capabilities. On top of that, it is part of Adobe Commons Creative, making it easy for you to work with other software such as Illustrator and Photoshop.

Another excellent positive is the collaborative features which help you gain excellent efficiency and productivity when creating your designs. On the pricing front, InDesign is poised in balance as it is neither pricey nor cheap. In addition, you get 100 GB of cloud storage which gives you enough storage to make your work sharable among peers.

Lastly, I am impressed by their layout options and the ability to customize almost every design aspect. In addition, the introduction of a scalable user interface makes it easy to use your full-screen resolution. The Adobe Capture extension is also a nice addition, letting you quickly capture text or color from any chosen image.

Overall, Adobe InDesign is a top-tier desktop publishing software that meets industry standards with excellent features and constant updates‌.

Do designers still use InDesign?

The market keeps changing with time. For example, around 2000, when they initially launched Adobe, it was not popular. Yet, QuarkXpress was a very popular page design and layout program. However, QuarkXpress fell off due to mistakes that InDesign capitalized on with time. From there onwards, InDesign has constantly improved and captured market share.

Right now, InDesign is ‌an industry standard for desktop publishing. The reasons ‌InDesign is still relevant are as below: