5 Replies Latest reply: Nov 17, 2009 12:38 PM by David W. Goodrich RSS

    Japanese typesetting in CS4?

    JWH-NIRC Community Member

      Since CS3 (Indesign 5), a few very basic functions for Japanese typesetting have existed, but nothing near what the Japanese version of InDesign offers. Does CS4 fix this? Since we cannot keep shelling out all the money to update BOTH systems, we would like to know when Adobe plans to make an integrated program that handles both--as for instance is the case with the Adobe Acrobat Pro 9. If we have to wait for CS5, we will do so, but if there are no plans to address this problem of having to buy multiple copies of the same program just to typeset in language-scripts, we have to seriously reconsider our options... as do others in our position whom we are in contact with.

        • 1. Re: Japanese typesetting in CS4?
          Joel Cherney Community Member

          I assume you already know about the non-Adobe templates that, for the last version or two, have exposed some minimal CJK formatting tools.

           

          I feel like "paging Rorohiko to this thread" (or maybe Harbs) might get us decent (C)J(K) formatting tools faster than any pleading w/Adobe.

          • 2. Re: Japanese typesetting in CS4?
            Harbs. CommunityMVP

            I feel like "paging Rorohiko to this thread" (or maybe Harbs) might 

            get us decent (C)J(K) formatting tools faster than any pleading w/

            Adobe.

             

            I had considered adding some CJK tools to World Tools, but various 

            factors including my lack of CJK knowledge caused me to drop the idea 

            before it got started.

             

            I might revisit the idea though. Joel, You can feel free to drop me a 

            line...

             

            Harbs

            • 3. Re: Japanese typesetting in CS4?
              David W. Goodrich Community Member

              Last time I looked into this, the problem wasn't simply a matter of updating software: different-language versions of InDesign cannot coexist on the same hardware, plus East Asian versions required an East Asian version of the operating system, Windows or Mac, and not just CJK input systems.

               

              That said, templates from TransPacificDigital (formerly known as TechArt) allow one to use some features of East Asian versions of InDesign in western-language versions.

               

              Good luck!

               

              David

              • 4. Re: Japanese typesetting in CS4?
                JWH-NIRC Community Member

                Unfortunately, the few functions that are available in workarounds do not meet the needs of serious typesetting, even from simple projects. And since, as you note, two versions of the same program cannot co-exist in the same OS, dual-boot is the only way... and that means dual-payment as well.

                   I would hope Adobe would recognize the problem and find some way to combine the two.

                • 5. Re: Japanese typesetting in CS4?
                  David W. Goodrich Community Member

                  I hope so, too.  Perhaps the fact that Quark 8 now claims some of this functionality will encourage Adobe to improve: "Users of any — yes any — edition of QuarkXPress 8 can open, edit, style, and output East Asian documents and maintain attributes without worries."

                   

                  David