InDesign 1.5 is Adobe's top-line page layout package, aimed at graphic designers, production artists, and prepress professionals. It's touted as a direct competitor to Quark Xpress, which has captured much of the professional layout market to date. Adobe's older page layout package, PageMaker, has been relegated to the "simple and easy to use" category, aimed at business publishers and "in-house" designers.
June 23, 2000
InDesign is not based on PageMaker, but is a completely new program. Apparently Adobe felt that a clean slate was needed to reverse their long slide in market share. Once upon a time, PageMaker was seen as a "pro" package, but in recent years it has steadily lost market share to Quark. Adobe claims that PageMaker and InDesign will continue as separate product lines, but this jaded reviewer dares to speculate that PageMaker's days may be numbered.
It's no surprise that InDesign resembles PageMaker (or Quark, for that matter) pretty closely. After all, there are only so many ways to visualize the layout of a document. All the standard text formatting options, text wrap, text threading, drawing tools - it's all there. There are a lot more drawing tools than you might expect in a page layout program, including pencil and eyedropper tools.
As befits a professional page layout package, InDesign offers extensive prepress options. When you export a document as a PostScript file (the standard for delivering a job to a print shop or service bureau), you get to specify various options for doing so, including which version(s) of PostScript it will be compatible with.
Web Publishing
Just for laughs, let's see how InDesign does at saving a document in HTML format. Although this is a print publishing package, in the real world printed material must often be repurposed for the Web. The better a layout tool like InDesign can do at converting it, the less clean-up work there'll be for us poor Web developers.
When we reviewed InDesign's little brother, PageMaker, we tested its HTML capabilities on an existing document, and found them adequate at best. We opened the same document in InDesign (InDesign can open PageMaker files, but this one, at least, did lose a bit in the transition), and exported it to HTML. The results were far superior. Unlike PageMaker, InDesign is capable of preserving existing layers when it converts to HTML. InDesign's HTML document isn't perfect, but it comes closer to the original than Pagemaker's.
Whither PageMaker?
InDesign is a fine program - very powerful but easy to figure out. In just about every category, it beats PageMaker into a cocked hat. With InDesign priced at $699, a mere deuce above PageMaker's $499, it's hard to see any justification for keeping PageMaker around much longer. Of course, beating PageMaker isn't the point. Taking a bite out of Quark Xpress is Adobe's goal, so perhaps they figure that keeping the poor stepchild around increases their odds.
I make two predictions. One: Despite Adobe's protestations to the contrary, I'll wager PageMaker is put out to pasture soon. Two: If you need professional-quality print publishing capabilities, you will not be disappointed with Adobe's InDesign 1.5.
This screen shot shows the various export options available.
