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Subject:InDesign -opinions and long document template? From:Peter Gold <peter -at- knowhowpro -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:51:13 -0600
Hi, Victoria:
DISCLAIMER: I train people in Adobe InDesign and Adobe FrameMaker. I
like both products for their strengths in their appropriate
territories.
If you would post some specifics about your reasons for considering a
move from Word to something else, I'm sure you'll get lots of useful
and focused feedback.
If your documentation team is finding a need to move on from MS Word,
you might want to look into Adobe's FrameMaker. There's a User-to-User
forum at Adobe, and also a mailing list at FrameUsers.com. Many people
on this list can offer opinions on their experience in choosing one or
the other, and in moving from Word to FM.
You'll find that a visit to the archives and current postings on the
Adobe User-to-User InDesign forum, is a worthwhile trip.
InDesign isn't primarily an authoring and editing tool. It IS a
terrific layout and output tool - for print, PDF, even for
incorporating multi-media ("cross-media") elements such as movies,
sound, hyperlinks, etc., for distribution on CDs or DVDs.
InCopy, an Adobe ID companion product, however, is intended to be used
by authors, such as writers, correspondents, and reporters, to create
content that InDesign workers incorporate into publications for final
formatting and output.
In this regard, if your Word documents are created with consistent use
of styles and other features, you can import ("Place") your Word
documents into InDesign for final formatting and layout - no need for
InCopy.
The specific long-document features that InDesign lacks at this time
(InDesign 3.x, AKA InDesign CS) include footnotes, sequential numbering
abilities, cross-references, running headers/footers linked to
bookmarks in text, are the ones that come to mind quickly.
An inexpensive InDesign "PageMaker plug-in kit" provides some of these
features, but they are at "PageMaker strength," which might or might
not suffice for your needs.
Other book suggestions: "Real World InDesign CS," and "InDesign CS One
on One." You can read reviews at Amazon.
On Jan 21, 2005, at 1:00 AM, TECHWR-L digest wrote:
We just got InDesign in the office (were using Microsoft Word) and are
just starting to go thru and play around with the software. My
preliminary concern is the lack of (or my inability to find) a template
for a long document. Building from scratch would be ideal, but as
usual
we're in a time crunch with looming deadlines. Anyone have an example
they are willing to share (off list is fine)? Adobe's Studio site did
not seem to have much as far as templates for procedural type
templates.
Also, anyone that is working/has worked with InDesign to develop
software or procedural materials have any rants, raves, tips or trick
to
share?
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