Product Reviews

By rationalising the features that had accumulated in its predecessor, PageMaker, and its once dominant rival, QuarkXPress, and integrating creative options such as transparency and soft shadows, InDesign hauled desktop publishing (DTP) into the 21st century. This version develops those themes. The Object Effects dialog brings a full equivalent to Photoshop's Layer Styles, enabling bevels, glows, embosses and more. Still on the wish-list is the ability to apply effects to specific text characters.

InDesign's powerful handling of master pages and styles has been taken further. Nested styles can now loop; for example, a paragraph style for a list of items and prices can automatically alternate between two styles. Table and cell styles make it even easier to format data imported from text or Excel files. An intriguing new feature is text variables: a placeholder automatically fills with a copy of the first piece of text on that page, handy for dictionary-style page headers.

You can now import several text and/or image files at once. The Place cursor shows each in turn, and you click to place it. Other forms of automation are also improved. Find/Change has been vastly expanded, enabling complex global replacements to text

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and graphics. Scripting is better than ever, with a choice of Visual Basic or JavaScript, and the latter can be compiled via the ExtendScript toolkit. You can script the production of layouts from XML content and export XHTML formatted by a linked CSS file, whether as a final product or to go to Dreamweaver. The focus on practical XML workflows is far superior to QuarkXPress's built-in web tools.

QuarkXPress 7's Composition Zones allow a document to contain elements edited as separate files by different users. Adobe has taken a simpler approach with the ability to place one InDesign document within another; like an image file, it's tracked in the Links palette and can be updated when it's changed.

The CS3 user interface suits InDesign well, with palette clutter initially banished. Keeping everything you need at hand can still be awkward, but it's all neat and usable. The page icons representing your document can now show thumbnails of the layouts, which is great.

Instead of using tabs like QuarkXPress 7's Measurements palette, InDesign's Control panel shows all relevant options all the time. This is less confusing, but you'll need a large monitor to see all the tools. A Customize option lets you turn items on and off. Quick Apply has been expanded; click its lightning bolt icon or press Ctrl+Enter and you get a list of relevant styles and commands. To pick one, click it or type the first few letters of its name. This is a godsend if you prefer keyboard to mouse, and custom shortcuts are definable for every command.

There's little more we could ask of InDesign CS3. It would be nice to have more of Illustrator's drawing/warping tools and a few of Photoshop's basic image adjustments to save switching applications. That aside, this is a top upgrade to what's becoming the perfect layout tool.