Adobe InDesign CS3 page layout software was introduced on Tuesday as Adobe unveiled its Creative Suite 3 software suite. In building the new version of InDesign, company officials said they watched the evolution of the market and figured out how they could best help their users.
“We wanted to be able to respond to four key trends — Engaging Design, multiple media, personalized publishing and improved productivity,” Chad Siegel, InDesign Senior Product Manager, told Macworld.
InDesign CS3 has several productivity features including Multi-file Place, expanded Quick Apply, Advanced Find/Change and fast frame fitting, which are all designed to eliminate repetitive tasks. Other features like Table and cell styles allow users to quickly format an entire table or apply designs to a regional area, such as a header or footer.
Replacing the “Bundle for GoLive” feature in CS2, Standards-based XHTML export to Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 from InDesign CS3 enables print content to be repurposed for web publishing. A built-in XHTML export to Adobe Digital Editions allows InDesign CS3 users to directly generate dynamic content for Adobe’s new Rich Internet Application for reading and managing digital publications.
The addition of automated bullets and numbering and text variables give users the tools to quickly create and maintain design consistency within long documents. Dynamic generation of page layouts with formatted text and graphics can now be accomplished by applying rules to imported XML content.
“We continue to evolve as the industry changes and our customers expectaitons change,” said Siegel.
With Creative Suite 3 Photoshop has become a core technology, which means it can be accessed from within other applications. InDesign users can now use Photoshop visual effects such as bevel and emboss, as well as satin, with full support for blending modes, opacity, and other options, without leaving InDesign.
“We don’t want to become complacent and we continue to push ourselves to remain the best in page design,” said Siegel. “One of our main goals is that people that switched to InDesign never, ever regret it.”
Built as a Universal Binary application, InDesign CS3 goes through a battery of 600 performance tests everyday. Adobe said the performance has seen significant improvements.
“The performance changes have been very dramatic,” said Siegel. “We didn’t just port over, we spent a lot of time improving the efficency of the code for performance as well.”
Adobe InDesign CS3 and Adobe InCopy CS3 will begin shipping in April 2007 to customers in the United States and Canada. Adobe InDesign CS3 will cost $699 and Adobe InCopy CS3 will cost $249. Adobe InDesign CS3 Server will also be available to qualified Adobe developer partners in the second quarter of 2007.