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Adobe InDesign CS3 Feature Preview

by , 12:45 PM EDT, May 25th, 2006

In a move that is very unlike Adobe, the company has revealed some of the upcoming features planned for the next release of Adobe InDesign. Users probably won't be able to get their hands on the official product until Q2 of 2007, but at least now we have some idea of what to expect.

David Blatner's InDesignSECRETS.com offers a sneak peak inside InDesign CS3. Improved control over transparency is at the top of the list, bringing InDesign up to speed with Illustrator and the freshly released QuarkXPress 7. Photoshop-style effects can be applied to any object, including text.

You can select multiple text or graphic files in the Place dialog. Once you have several items loaded, you can drop them - one at a time - into object frames.

Adobe also reconfirmed that InDesign CS3 will be a Universal Binary application, and the demonstration Mr. Blatner saw was performed on a MacBook Pro running InDesign natively.

Adobe's feature announcements are sure to heat up the InDesign versus QuarkXPress battle even more, which should work out in our favor. Some healthy competition between the two page layout powerhouses is likely to result in better products for designers, no matter which side of the fence they are on.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Subject: Designing trouble

Oh great! More tools "designers" don't know how to use properly to create pages that won't print properly. Yay! More work for me and more added fees for customers who use designers who know diddly squat about production!

The best designers know as much about print production and how to lower costs for their customers as prepress technicians do, but sadly those designers are few and far between. No thanks to Adobe for adding poorly documented, buggy features that give designers the power to produce rubbish that ends up costing their clients significantly.

Close Name:vasic Posts: 279 Joined: 09 Aug 2005
Subject: Unusual but not unexpected

Having Quark 7 out already, Adobe needed to prevent possible ship-jumpers by showing them what they'll be getting in the next version. If anyone really considered abandoning InDesign and going (back?) to Quark, this was to dissuade them. You don't re-engineer your workflow that easilly unless you have compelling reasons. It will probably be cheaper to wait out one more year and buy an upgrade than to scrap everything, buy all-new Quark and pay full (or, at most, competitive upgrade) licenses.

Between (a shipping Universal Binary) Quark 7 coming in September and (a shipping UB) InDesign CS3 coming out in April, I'd probably wait 7 months longer. New Mac Pro machines will should be ready and shipping by then.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Still a fan of Quark

Yeah, they treated us like dirt, they've apologized and are working to regain once loyal customers (from an article in the latest issue of X-Ray)... what has Adobe done...? If it wasn't for a processor change, I wouldn't be upgrading, I've got black eyes from both companies. Come to think of it, the move to OSX was the only reason I upgraded last time, Adobe and Quark owe Steve and Apple a big "Thank you!", wonder what Apple is going to make me buy all new software for in 2010-2011?

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Are Adobe scared?!?!?!

This is unprecedented for Adobe. QuarkXPress 7 must have really got 'em rattled. No mention or demo of Photoshop on a MacBook Pro either! Looks like some of the innovative features in QuarkXPress 7 are really making an impact. Can't wait to upgrade from 6.5.

Close Name:Ibn Rushd Posts: 51 Joined: 16 May 2006
Subject: Is they or are they

Quote
Guest wrote:
This is unprecedented for Adobe. QuarkXPress 7 must have really got 'em rattled. No mention or demo of Photoshop on a MacBook Pro either! Looks like some of the innovative features in QuarkXPress 7 are really making an impact. Can't wait to upgrade from 6.5.


They are probably not scared, but just trying to keep the momentum of CreativeSuite taking more market share from Quark. I look at the upcoming version of InDesign v the Quark and I think that I will wait it out a bit more. Besides I like the work flow of CreativeSuite with Bridge and all, of course I could always learn some new tricks.


"When you're that successful, things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can't really tell whether you have created the momentum or it's creating you. "

Annie Lennox

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

If they weren't scared, why do most of the author's refer to the news being very unlike Adobe !!. They should have been working oevrtime to get us the UB deliverables; instead they are panic stricken over what they could see as their base eroding due to the revolutionary feature set bought in by QXP7. Its anybody's guess that Photoshop is the best horse in their stable (part from Acrobat); and they should be doing their home work in getting this one UB compliant. None of us asked for a bundled suite - who cares about the rest, giev us what we need now.

It seems that the woes for Adobe are just begining - with the Photo editing, PDF & Web designing offensive from Microsoft and the integration of Marcomedia technologies overdue - they are busy paying no heed to developing software for us. You know what happens to quality and fetaure delivery when you grow too fast in making lots of money...

Its amazing to see how a small privately held firm can make the San Jose egoist to wake up from its slumber. And I heard there is more coming in from the Quark stable in the next few quarters. So probably all that the InDesign guys can do is - play catch up with their demo's, while they watch the industry storming ahead with QXP7.

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