1Virtually anything you can put on apage with QuarkXPress (QXP),PageMaker (PM) , I l l u s t ra tor,

FreeHand or any other page layout pro-gram you can do with InDesign CS(IDCS). That said, you’ll probably have tolearn new tools and shortcuts to do thesethings quickly and efficiently. There isoften more than one way to do something

in InDesign, and you’ll need to find theapproach that works best for you.

2 If you work with recent versions ofIllustrator or the final versions ofPM (v. 6.5 or 7) you’ll find a lot of

familiarities in InDesign. If you’ve workedonly with QXP you’ll find the differencesa lot wider. Adobe has used tool types andconventions from Illustrator and kept afew ideas from PM. The program shipswith its own keyboard shortcuts and a setthat’s similar to the one in QXP that you

can choose in Preferences. One for PMusers is available separately. If neither ofthese is for you, you can create your owncomplete keyboard shortcut set.

3 If your experience is primarily withQXP, there are a whole range ofthings you can do in InDesign that

were impossible in QXP without commer-cial add-on Xtension products. Thingslike smooth drop shadows, transparencyeffects and feathered edges. Many of theseeffects need to be ‘tamed’ before you send

24 Graphic Monthly, January/February 2005

By Bob Atkinson

digital report

Moving to InDesignTen things you should know about making the switch to InDesign CS

them for final film or plate output, how-ever, especially if you use older RIP soft-ware. To do this, you’ll want to learn howto use InDesign’s flattening options.

4 Take advantage of the tight integra-tion between IDCS and otherAdobe products. In addition to

importing all the usual graphic file for-mats like TIFF, EPS, JPG, and others,IDCS can also import native PhotoShopand Illustrator files and keep all effectsintact, speeding up your workflow andsaving disk space.When the InDesignfile is saved or exported to a normally flatfile format like EPS or PDF any specialeffects in these imported files are flattenedas well.

5 You can now work in English,French and many other languages.Unlike QXP, which limits you to

English-only for spell-checking, properhyphenation, justification and other func-tions, IDCS allows you to choose a lan-guage format for every story. To get thatin QXP, you’ll need to shell out $2,200 fora copy of QXP Passport.

6Open and convert your old QXP andPM document and template files—with limits. PageMaker 6.5 and 7

files will open in IDCS with well-preservedtext and graphic page objects, master pageobjects, page positioning, graphic and inter-nal text box links, groups, tables, appliedcolour profiles, type specs, styles, coloursand almost everything else. One impor-tant exception applies to any graphicsembedded in the PM file using the Pastefunction—these will not be converted.

Opening and converting QXP files is abit more of a challenge. First, and proba-bly most irritating, IDCS can only openQXP files from versions 3.3 or 4.1x, bothof which have been out of productionand widespread use for some time. If youhave QXP 5, you must open the files in itand save down to v4, and if you workwith QXP 6.x you have to open it thereand save it down to a v5 file, THEN openit in QXP5 and save it further down as aQXP 4 file, hoping that you actually stillhave both versions of the program on yourcomputer and that your file does not useany of the v5 or v6-only capabil-ities. Adobe certainly took a lotof trouble to get the PM/QXP-opening feature to work as wellas it does, so it’s strange that ithas not added the ability to openmore recent QXP files. And, as ofthis writing, I have not seen anadd-on InDesign plug-in productthat offers support for v5 or v6QXP files.

January/February 2005, Graphic Monthly 25

digital report

Which design package comes out on top with handling common functions?

■ Measurement palettes These are the Measurements palettes from InDesign, top, andQuarkXpress, bottom, with some text selected. Both offer all the basics, but Quark wins forscreen space-saving while InDesign adds other information, like the Paragraph Style andStory Language.

■ Typographic controls InDesign, left, puts most of the type controlsin these top-three floating palettes rather than the dialog boxes favoured

by QuarkXPress, right. When itcomes to hyphenation and justi-fication options to improve typeflow, the programs have similarcapabilities, although InDesignoffers Optical MarginAdjustment—like hangingpunctuation marks out into thegutters for a perfect right-handmargin in fully-justified text—and a handy slider to sethyphenation limits quickly witha live preview of the effect.

■ Tools While InDesign, left, offers more tools for illus-tration (looking a lot like Adobe Illustrator's toolbox),

QuarkXpress, right, focuses on the basics andgets more uses out of each tool, resulting ina less cluttered look. Both toolboxes offer all

the critical functions, but Adobe adds some marginallyuseful tools like the Pencil and Ruler tools as well as sep-arate Box and Frame tools. Both can be filled with placedmulti-column text or graphics or filled or stroked withcolours or gradients.

■ Trapping In this case there is no comparison, InDesign offers far more powerful and flexi-ble trapping options—like sliding traps for objects on top of a changing colour background,

trap corner and end effects, and colour reduction toreduce noticeable trap lines. Both programs can auto-matically trap simpleobjects, but user inter-vention is required inmore complicated situa-tions, especially wherespot colours are used.

When opening v. 3.3 or 4.1 QXP files,most page items convert quite well, withsome caveats. If you have text wrappedaround a graphic in the QXP file, makesure to check ‘Text Wrap Only AffectsObjects Beneath’ in the Composition areaof IDCS’s Preferences before opening theQXP file. Colour profiles applied tographics in QXP are not converted, norare any objects that depend on any QuarkXtension other than the standard onesthat ship with the program. Remove theseitems before trying to convert the file.

A few other points to note. Trap infor-mation from objects in QXP files revertsto IDCS defaults. Non-standard page sizessometimes get changed when opened inIDCS. Differences in hyphenation and jus-tification between the programs can causetext to re-flow unpredictably. QXP Libraryfiles cannot be converted.

It’s also a very good idea to move alllinked or placed graphic files to the samefolder as the PM or QXP files beforeopening it in IDCS or your graphic linksmay be lost.

7Get a bigger monitor. While IDCShas many more options and capabil-ities than QXP or PM, it also has a

serious case of palette-itis, with a whop-ping 29 floating palettes—including theToolbar—plus another six for web-pageprojects. I find that the minimum I need towork efficiently is 14 to 16, grouped intosix or seven tabbed palettes. Even with theability to save your workspace arrange-ment, to combine them into tabbed com-bination palettes, and to collapse or dockthem to the sides of the screen, you’ll stillfind any monitor with less than 1,280 x1,024 pixels to be very, very crowded withIDCS. I’d recommend a 19" or largermonitor with at least 1,600 x 1,200 pixelsfor a good workspace on most projects.Another option is to use two 17" or larg-er monitors—one for the document andthe other for the palettes. That’s my pre-ferred method for using most Adobeproducts.

8 You may need a faster computer.IDCS, like its brothers Illustratorand PhotoShop, wants a lot of

processor speed and memory. If you don’thave a 1GHz, or faster, G4/G5-based Mac(or a 2.8GHz, or faster, Pentium PC) withat least 768 Mb of RAM you’ll find IDCSrather sluggish.

9 The cost of the software. A fullretail copy of IDCS for Mac or PCcomes with a street price of about

$890—not bad when compared withQuarkXPress at about $1,220, but it canstill add up if you have a lot of user seats.If you’re upgrading from a recent versionof PageMaker, the price drops to $429,and if you’re upgrading from an earlierversion of InDesign it drops again to$209. A special PageMaker edition ofIDCS for $399 includes training and spe-cialized software to help people movingfrom PM to IDCS. Unfortunately, Adobe’soriginal cross-grade price for QXP users isno longer available.

10 Regardless of what programyou’re coming from, plan on atleast a full week using IDCS

before you really get up to speed and per-haps another couple of weeks beforeyou’re the speed demon you may havebeen in that older program.

Those are some of the things to watchwhen moving to InDesign. The goodnews? Once you’re comfortable withInDesign you’ll wonder how you ever gotalong without it. ■

Bob Atkinson is a prepress consultantwith clients across Canada and the U.S.He can be reached at (902) 478-2205 orbobatk@hotmail.com

digital report

Coolest feature in InDesign CS Almost any object—text or graphic—created in InDesign orplaced there, can have a number of alpha-channel mask effects applied to it, including variable

transparency, smooth-edge drop shadows and smoothfeathered edges. Properly handled, these can go a longway to adding dimension and polish to your work. Thisillustration, while unlikely to win any design awards, isdesigned to show all of these effects in one place. Thebackground flower photo has a feathered-edge effectand the pink circle on the lower right has transparency,drop shadow and a feathered edge combined to give itan embossed glass effect. The text on top has transparen-cy and a drop shadow. When using these effects, it isimportant to properly flatten the file before outputting tofilm or plate, especially if you work with older RIP soft-ware, or you may well choke the output device.Fortunately, flattening is easy: just pick a flattening style—

low- medium- high-quality, depending on the sortof press and paper your job will be printed

on—and save the file to EPS or PDF.

Coolest new feature in QuarkXPress Several new features have been added to QuarkXPressin versions 6 and 6.5, and several others are promised for version 7, which, as of this writing, isin beta testing. My own favourite new feature in the current version (6.5) is the new PictureEffects item in the Style menu when a placed pixel image is selected. This allows you to modify aplaced photo right in QuarkXPress with many of the key controls you find in PhotoShop, likeLevels, Curves, or Hue/Saturation. It also offers a number of the filter effects you find inPhotoShop as well, including Unsharp Mask and Despeckle. These controls are generally well-handled, and, while Quark’s display of placed images is not up to the display in PhotoShop,these can be real time-savers for last-minute fixes on a tight schedule. This is a major feature to

the program—and onenot available inInDesign—that has notbeen given the attentionit deserves.

26 Graphic Monthly, January/February 2005