31 Replies Latest reply: Dec 13, 2008 9:15 PM by cgrscott RSS

    Indesign CS4

    RodneyA Community Member
      I see that we're approaching FrameMaker's feature set now, with automatically updating cross references, auto-adding pages when the document gets longer, conditional text, and a few other nice long-document touches. I do still miss being able to anchor graphics in any column and have them float to the next available spot on the page, and it's not clear that we're getting that. But it looks like a nice upgrade.

      Rodney
        • 1. Re: Indesign CS4
          Community Member
          I don't see any compelling reasons to upgrade, especially when one has a ton of CS-InD3 plug-ins that most likely won't work with CS4. Adobe seems to be trying to push us all into video & web capabilities.

          No thanks, at least not now.
          • 2. Re: Indesign CS4
            Mr. Met Community Member
            This on CNET:

            CS4 changes
            • 3. Re: Indesign CS4
              BobLevine CommunityMVP
              Here's a few others.

              InDesign Secrets:

              http://indesignsecrets.com/whats-new-in-indesign-cs4.php

              and

              http://indesignsecrets.com/indesignsecrets-podcast-087.php


              The InDesigner:

              http://www.theindesigner.com/blog/episode-51-introducing-indesign-cs4


              And my $0.02 worth:

              http://www.theindesignguy.com/cs4-thoughts.html

              Bob
              • 4. Re: Indesign CS4
                Eric @ MCA Community Member
                Nested styles via GREP is my number one reason. The second I saw that, I was like "Where have you been all my life?!"

                Imagine being able to auto-apply the character style "Fig Num" to every instance of the word "Figure followed by a number, a hyphen, and more numbers without any effort.

                Glossaries, indexes, figure numbers in bold or itals. It's useful in a lot of places for us.
                • 5. Re: Indesign CS4
                  Ad Type & Design Community Member
                  Hey Adobe, will IDCS4 work with Leopard without crashing?

                  I still use IDCS2 and decided to skip that upgrade because I read all the horror stories about IDCS3 crashing. With IDCS2, to avoid a crash, each time I launch the application, I have to first create a blank .indd document with some raw text, save it to the desktop and close it. Then I can go work on my files without crashing problems. Wish I had stuck with Tiger.

                  Tim
                  • 6. Re: Indesign CS4
                    dave c courtemanche Community Member
                    Tim,
                    I run CS3 on an Intel mac running Leopard. Other than the hiding issue, it's much more stable than running CS2 on Leopard/Intel.
                    • 7. Re: Indesign CS4
                      sandeecohen CommunityMVP
                      > Hey Adobe, will IDCS4 work with Leopard without crashing?

                      "Adobe" stepped out for a moment, but I can tell you that no company can guarantee that any application will run anywhere with any crashes.

                      Even Apple apps crash in Leopard.

                      Having said that, it is more likely that there will be less crashes with CS4 under Leopard than CS3 or CS2.
                      • 8. Re: Indesign CS4
                        Michael Witherell CommunityMVP
                        I am shocked that CS3 on Leopard crashes badly, and continues to crash badly, lo these many long months. I just spent 2 classroom days with the Leopard 10.5.4 machines killing a lot of time crashing badly. My work-around is to Repair Permissions, and also have a dummy throw-away INDD file saved to the desktop and minimized while I work on the real file.

                        Mike Witherell in Silver Spring, MD
                        • 9. Re: Indesign CS4
                          Community Member
                          All I can say is FINALLY, SPREAD ROTATION!!!!!! Hip, hip, hurray!

                          There are some other cool things that make me want to get it, but not so much productivity improvements that will help me push the upgrade with my boss.

                          I'm wondering if table data viewable in story editor means that InCopy users will be able to see table data in the non-layout views? Anyone know?
                          • 10. Re: Indesign CS4
                            Fred Goldman Community Member
                            > And my $0.02 worth:
                            >
                            > http://www.theindesignguy.com/cs4-thoughts.html
                            >
                            > Bob

                            Bob,

                            Nice site! And thanks for the explanation of the features, very informative.
                            • 11. Re: Indesign CS4
                              peter at knowhowpro Community Member
                              >Posted by Eric @ MCA on 11:08am Sep 23, 2008 Pacific

                              >Nested styles via GREP is my number one reason. The second I saw that, I was like "Where have you been all my life?!"

                              >Imagine being able to auto-apply the character style "Fig Num" to every instance of the word "Figure followed by a number, a hyphen, and more numbers without any effort.

                              >Glossaries, indexes, figure numbers in bold or itals. It's useful in a lot of places for us.

                              Although a nested GREP style can do this, ID's new cross-references offer another tool to do the same thing a different way...when CS4 ships. Depending on your needs, one or the other may be more suitable.

                              HTH

                              Regards,

                              Peter Gold
                              KnowHow ProServices
                              • 12. Re: Indesign CS4
                                Eric @ MCA Community Member
                                Yeah, I think GREP styles are more useful for our purposes. I can see the new cross-ref feature being really useful if you're generating the index and such on the fly (since the page numbers would actually update with any content reflow), but alas, our front and end matter arrives as a totally separate package--usually towards the end of the project.

                                The coolest thing to me about GREP styles is that they save formatting time for standardized things like figures or dates or whatnot. You can set it up once and know that you're catching all of them document-wide without worrying that a page-setter accidentally missed one.
                                • 13. Re: Indesign CS4
                                  Community Member
                                  I know GREP styles will be very useful--if I could just figure out GREP. The one or two times I've tried to compose my own GREP searches in CS3 things did not turn out too well. I fear it will end up being one of those tools (like scripting) that is just too far over my head for me to use.
                                  • 14. Re: Indesign CS4
                                    Community Member
                                    I'm sorry If I'm being redundant here, but what exactly ARE grep styles? Does GREP stand for anything?
                                    • 15. Re: Indesign CS4
                                      Community Member
                                      NM, got it. I use them all the time, just never knew they had a name.
                                      • 16. Re: Indesign CS4
                                        Fred Goldman Community Member
                                        Anyone who wants to know what GREP is or how to use it should really buy
                                        Peter Kahrel's ebook on GREP. It is very well written and easy to
                                        understand. The ebook is very short and makes GREP easy to grasp.

                                        http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517069/
                                        • 17. Re: Indesign CS4
                                          BobLevine CommunityMVP
                                          Diane,

                                          http://www.theindesignguy.com/cs4-thoughts.html

                                          Check out the section on tables in story editor and look at the
                                          screenshot very carefully. :)

                                          Bob
                                          • 18. Re: Indesign CS4
                                            Community Member
                                            >Check out the section on tables in story editor and look at the
                                            screenshot very carefully.

                                            Ah, cool! Thanks--that may help push an upgrade at work.
                                            • 19. Re: Indesign CS4
                                              Kris_Hunt Community Member
                                              Does anyone know if InDesign CS4 fixed the bug wherein clicking on the New Layer button in the Layers Palette inserted the new layer at the top of the stack, regardless of which layer in the stack was selected?
                                              • 20. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                Steve Werner CommunityMVP
                                                Kris,

                                                That is not a bug. It is "as designed."

                                                From the InDesign CS4 Help file (it's the same in CS3):

                                                " To create a new layer at the top of the Layers panel list, click the New Layer button.
                                                To create a new layer above the selected layer, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) as you click the New Layer button.
                                                To create a new layer below the selected layer, hold down Ctrl+Alt (Windows) or Command+Option (Mac OS) as you click the New Layer button."
                                                • 21. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                  Kris_Hunt Community Member
                                                  Illustrator and Photoshop do not work that way. If it's not a bug, it's stupid. I thought one of the big new features of CS4 was a single, unified interface. There also seems to be no way to both create a new layer above the current layer AND name it as it's created.
                                                  • 22. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                    Mr. Met Community Member
                                                    >I thought one of the big new features of CS4 was a single, unified interface.

                                                    Good point but I don't think it's a huge issue since the capability to create a layer above a selected layer already exists.
                                                    • 23. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                      Steve Werner CommunityMVP
                                                      InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop are designed by different teams. Over the past three Creative Suites, there has been slow progress toward a common interface. They have focused on the most important commonalities. The fact that layers don't work precisely the same between apps is a minor annoyance, but definitely NOT a bug.
                                                      • 24. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                        Community Member
                                                        Anybody know how CS4 handles saving down to CS3? Is it still the same Export-as-.inxx approach?
                                                        • 25. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                          Community Member
                                                          yup
                                                          • 26. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                            Community Member
                                                            I am importing InDesign files which have already been designed as separate documents into an InDesign book. There are missing fonts for each page. How can I substitute fonts only once and have those font substitutions apply to all pages of the book? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
                                                            • 27. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                              Community Member
                                                              Will IDCS4 install and run on a dual 1.42GHz G4 with 2GB of RAM? The system requirements say G5 or better, but will it install on a G4?
                                                              • 28. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                                cgrscott Community Member
                                                                "Will IDCS4 install and run on a dual
                                                                1.42GHz G4 with 2GB of RAM? The system
                                                                requirements say G5 or better, but will it
                                                                install on a G4?"

                                                                Yes it will. I installed IDCS4 on my Dual 1.25 GHz G4, with 2 GBs of RAM, under 10.4.11 (Tiger) ad it runs just as fast as IDCS3.

                                                                I don't know if Adobe re-wrote the CS4 apps to take advantage of the speed boost offered by having a Tiger/Leapard-Core-Image-compatible graphics card but I have a Core Image Compatible retail ATI Radeon 9600 Pro on my Dual G4. This same card also works on early G5s. My Powerbook G4 has an Apple Radeon 9700 Pro mobile processing chip, that is also supported by Core Image in Tiger and Leapard, and it runs InDesign CS4 plenty fast.

                                                                When I first shared that IDCS4 runs on my Dual G4, in this forum, someone posted that they tried to install IDCS4 on their 400 MHz Powerbook G4 and the installer shut down on them.

                                                                Even though IDCS4 unofficially runs on some G4 machines, not all of the CS4 apps will. I installed the beta version of Dreamweaver CS4 on my G4 and it was too poky to be usable.

                                                                Adobe officially supports Acrobat 9 Pro to run on any G4 machine that has Tiger 10.4.11, or later.
                                                                • 29. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                                  Community Member
                                                                  there are some very slow G4s. I'm sure for this reason Adobe chose the G5 as a cut off point.
                                                                  • 30. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                                    Community Member
                                                                    "I installed IDCS4 on my Dual 1.25 GHz G4, with 2 GBs of RAM, under 10.4.11 (Tiger) ad it runs just as fast as IDCS3. "

                                                                    Thanks for that reassurance.

                                                                    Have you perchance also installed Illustrator CS4 on your G4? If so, is its performance also reasonable?

                                                                    Martin
                                                                    • 31. Re: Indesign CS4
                                                                      cgrscott Community Member
                                                                      I have not run the Illustrator CS4 and Photoshop CS4 apps but it's worth finding out. Hopefully someone has an experience to share. I'm running the CS2 versions AI and PS on my G4s.