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Four Adobe InDesign CS3 features revealed

In a highly unorthodox moved by the traditionally tight-lipped company, Adobe Systems has followed up its official leak of details on Apollo with some gems on the next major release of InDesign.

In a private briefing with InDesignSecrets, the software company revealed four features planned for the next major release of the page layout application, which will ship in the second quarter of 2007 as part of Adobe Creative Suite 3.0.

The move comes just days after rival Quark announced a major overhaul to its own desktop publishing and page layout software, QuarkXPress 7.0. Although Quark called a last minute audible and released the software for Macs as a PowerPC native application instead of a Universal Binary, the company promised to release a patch that would deliver native Intel support by August.

Similarly, InDesign CS3 will also be a Universal Binary when it's released. The application is already up and running as a Universal Binary, Adobe revealed in demonstrations on a MacBook Pro.

One of the new features of the application, dubbed "Object Effects," will allow designers to apply Photoshop-like effects such as bevel, emboss and inner shadow, to any InDesign object including text. Meanwhile, another feature will allow transparency effects to be applied to an object’s fill, stroke, or contents on an individual basis.

InDesign CS3 will also offer designers more control over the way they select and work with multiple files.

"You will be able to select more than one graphic or text file in the Place dialog box, and when you click OK, you’ll see a small thumbnail of each image next to the Place cursor," InDesignSecrets said in its report. "You can then quickly place each image or text file into a frame with a 'click, click, click.' Even better, you can cycle through the images “loaded” in the Place cursor with the arrow keys before clicking."

During the briefing, Adobe representatives said the adoption rate of InDesign CS2 has been extremely strong, especially in the magazine market.



28 Comments

fahlman 23 Years · 707 comments

I was talking to an Apple Specialist on the phone yesterday that I've known for a dozen years. I've always used this guy to do repairs that required an Apple Authorized Technician at the last three places I've worked. I also buy all my major equipment from him. I pay a little more but I get great service when necessary. Anyways, enough of the background. I've been talking to him about purchasing a MacBook for personal use. We also got on the subject of probably purchasing a new workstation for the office this summer when the "Mac Pro" is released and he mentioned that Adobe expects to have CS3 ready to ship as a Universal Binary when Apple ships the "MacPro". Lets hope he's right!

kim kap sol 24 Years · 2935 comments

Feature #2: Universal Binary
Pretty insulting. Are you going to give money to a company that lists UB as a 'feature'?

Let's get this straight...UB is not a feature...it's a fact of life. Adobe and MS belong together as entities that don't give two shits about their clients. They should watch out...they're in for surprises...you hear that Brucie?

xanthohappy 23 Years · 101 comments

Quote:
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Let's get this straight...UB is not a feature...it's a fact of life.

You're right. I can't see Adobe listing that as a feature, when we all know it's a given unless they're planning on throwing away the market. I'm guessing that it was InDesignSecrets that saw it as a feature, and not Adobe. Note how the way they describe it comes off as an observation on their part, as opposed to some secret revealed to them by Adobe.

chevaliermalfet 22 Years · 467 comments

While I welcome the feature in and of itself, and can imagine some useful applications, my first reaction was...

Ye Gads more boilerplate Photoshop filters everywhere.

Thanks, that's all.

jeffdm 21 Years · 12733 comments

Quote:
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Feature #2: Universal Binary
Pretty insulting. Are you going to give money to a company that lists UB as a 'feature'?

Let's get this straight...UB is not a feature...it's a fact of life. Adobe and MS belong together as entities that don't give two shits about their clients. They should watch out...they're in for surprises...you hear that Brucie?

Then you can probably take your money to Quark. I hear they hold their customers in the highest regard.