Anyone Use Adobe InDesign?

[astrostu]

I'm thinking of greatly expanding my lunar eclipse photography guide to include the basic foundations of what's going on from a science standpoint and from a photography standpoint (like explaining histograms rather than including a link to a website). I also wanted to do more advanced stuff with layout and images, including screenshots of processing steps, call-out boxes, etc. (so more like a modern textbook than an essay). I was thinking InDesign would probably be best for this (since I'm pretty good with Photoshop and don't want to mess with nor buy Quark).

So a few questions:

(1) Am I right - is InDesign the right software for this project?

(2) When doing this, I assume that you actually write the text first in something like Word and once you get the words right then you go into the actual layout process?

(3) Is InDesign difficult to learn if I know Photoshop? I opened it briefly and it looked similar, but it seems to have quirks that are quite different from PS.

(4) Anything I missed?

 

[Digital Matt]

Yes, InDesign would work well for this. InDesign is built for type, so you would type right into text boxes. It has spell check, and full control of text layout.

Is it difficult to learn? It's not photoshop. It has some similar pallets and terminology, but it's a different animal. If you've never used page layout software, you'll probably find it somewhat difficult at first, but I'm sure you can learn it enough to do what you want to do. As with photoshop, you can find lots of answers online, and the help is actually fairly decent.

 

[Arch]

So a few questions:

(1) Am I right - is InDesign the right software for this project?

Yep

(2) When doing this, I assume that you actually write the text first in something like Word and once you get the words right then you go into the actual layout process?

no, you can just write it straight into InDesign, however if you are use to writting more efficiently in word then you can do so.

(3) Is InDesign difficult to learn if I know Photoshop? I opened it briefly and it looked similar, but it seems to have quirks that are quite different from PS.

The layout is similar but it functions differently as it is more geared towards publishing than design and photo creation/manipulation.

(4) Anything I missed?

Its really just a case of learning it as best you can... i highly recommend you do if you are thinking of doing more publications in future. Just start by using it.. if you run into any problems just google the action your trying to achieve and you should find some info on it.

.... and dont worry about trying to buy Quark... InDesign has totally taken over the market where Quark was once a leader... they do similar functions but with Indesign its alot easier to transfer your PS skills and to import and export data. I dont even use Quark anymore for design work.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

I still prefer Quark as it has extras and is easier to use (but then I've been using QX for years) but InDesign is a good second choice.
If you are in full-time Education QuarkXpress comes in a student version which is considerably cheaper (but has all the features).