Adobe InDesign CS5.5 Desktop Publishing Program for Multi-media Productivity
By Howard Berenbon
Adobe Systems is by far the most prolific publisher of creative design programs since the introduction of the personal computer. They continue to be in the forefront with new and improved tools for multi-media productivity including print and online publishing (Website publishing ), animation, drawing and graphics design, photo manipulation, video production (movie making) and audio creative works (including mobile devices). About a year ago, they introduced their new and improved CS5 products, and now just a year later they’re offering more improvements with CS5.5. If you’re a creative media professional, then you probably use one or more of their products and an upgrade may suit you. If you don’t use any of the Adobe products you should consider one of their suites. The improvements, to date, can add to the quality of your work, and save you time designing.
Adobe InDesign CS5.5 Desktop Publishing Program
Adobe InDesign® CS5.5 is professional typesetting program for print, online, computer and mobile devices. It’s no longer just a tool for typesetting text with graphics that you send to the printer for publishing, but allows you to design projects, with video and audio, for Websites, cell phones, tablets and personal computers. It’s perfect for your traditional print media projects , or use for multi-media publishing online.
New and Improved Features
Interactive documents and presentations. Add interactivity, motion, sound, and video to documents and presentations, exporting directly to SWF for playback in the Adobe Flash® Player runtime.
Simplified object selection and editing. Perform repetitive layout tasks efficiently using new and enhanced tools and on-object controls.
Integration with Adobe CS Review*. Create and share reviews online while working in InDesign with Adobe CS Review, part of CS Live online services. See feedback in the context of your page layout.
Track Text Changes. Mark up text directly in InDesign, easily tracking copy revisions.
Redesigned Layers panel. Easily manage page items with a redesigned Layers panel that is more like the one in Adobe Photoshop® and Illustrator® software.
Export to Flash Professional. Export InDesign documents to Flash Professional to add sophisticated interactivity, animation, and navigation to complex layouts.
eBook creation. Create compelling eBooks in the EPUB format for the Apple iPad, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble nook, mobile phones, and other devices.
Maintain the fidelity of your original file. Hand off page layouts from InDesign to Adobe Flash Professional with even greater fidelity. Add sophisticated interactivity to your documents without compromising on page design.
Multiple page sizes. Create pages with different sizes in a single document.
Paragraphs that span or split columns. Quickly create text that spans or splits into multiple columns in just a few steps.
Production enhancements. Find and drag images into page layouts from Adobe Mini Bridge without leaving InDesign. Document-installed fonts can help eliminate missing font issues.
Live Captions. Generate static or live captions automatically from image metadata.
Folio Producer tools—new for CS5.5. Create and preview digital magazines, newspapers, and catalogs with engaging elements such as 360° object rotation and image panoramas for a wide variety of tablets. Upload to Adobe Digital Publishing Suite1 for further production and distribution.
Access to Adobe Digital Publishing Suite—new for CS5.5. Access the hosted services of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite from within InDesign to publish engaging digital documents for a range of tablet devices.
Enhanced eBook authoring—new for CS5.5. Create more engaging eBooks, with less need for developers. Use a smoother workflow as you include refined typography and images that resize to fit virtually any screen. Even add video and audio for eBook reader applications that support HTML5 video and audio tags.2
Articles panel—new for CS5.5. Control the sequence of text, images, and graphics when you export to EPUB or HTML without changing your InDesign layout. Organize your content by dragging it into the new Articles panel to define the export order.
Running InDesign CS5.5
When you run the program, two screens appear: your main menu with work area and a smaller screen in the foreground where you can open an existing file, or create a new one (Document, Book, or Library). When you compare the main menu screens of CS5.5 to CS5, they look the same . For online help, under Community, you can access InDesign Exchange, InDesign User Group, InDesign Partners and InDesign Plug-ins. You can also access help at Adobe.com by clicking the Resources button (lower left). There you’ll find lots of help in PDF format files, some video tutorials, plug-ins, templates, community access and more. You can also access Adobe CS Live online serves from this screen.
If you’re familiar with any of the Adobe CS5 products, you’ll notice they look very similar. In fact, the InDesign CS5.5 main menu looks very much like main menus on many of the Adobe programs with some variations. At the very top you can select File, Edit, Layout, Type, Object, Table, View, Window and Help menus. To the right you have access to Adobe Bridge and the zoom, screen mode and arrange documents buttons. And on the left side of the screen is a movable vertical tool bar with access to all the text and graphics tools.
To start an existing document, click on the Open Document box to display your My Documents folder, or you can just create a new document from the File menu. On the left you'll see the floating tool bar, in the middle is the page you’re working with and at the top are the text and page controls. On the far right, the Essentials panel is displayed with access to Pages, Links, Stroke, Color and Swatches. To enter text, click on the T symbol, then drag open a text box in your document. You can add graphics and pages (objects) in several formats, including PDF, using the Place command. When your project is complete, either for computer screens, mobile or tablets, maybe with some fancy animation, or for print production, you can save it as an InDesign document (.indd) or template, or save and export in various formats including Adobe PDF (print or interactive), JPEG, InCopy, Flash, Digital and Dreamweaver.
Adobe InDesign CS5.5 sells for $673 (upgrade from CS5 for $119) and will run on any multimedia PC with Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 or faster processor, Windows 7, Vista or XP, 1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended), 1.6 GB hard disk space 1,024 x 768 display resolution, Adobe Flash Player 10 and a DVD-ROM drive. Also available for the Apple Macintosh for $673 with a Multicore Intel processor, Mac OS X v10.5.7 or v10.6, 1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended), 2.6 GB hard disk space 1,024 x 768 display resolution and a DVD-ROM drive. For more information or to order, visit Amazon.com.
Software Companies Mentioned
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Ave
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
URL: www.adobe.com
Phone:
800-833-6687
