Quark to InDesign...smoothly
Mark Jones (5 points) | Sun, 2006-01-08 00:57Hi Creative bits,
After happily using Quark for 10 years in various design houses, I'm soon to be thrown in the deep end into Adobe's InDesign.
I've been avoiding InDesign for about 18 months. Suddenly, my studio manager tells me we're ditching Quark all together and migrating to InDesign in a month.
Anyone got any sure fire ways to make the cross over go smoothly.
Any great books, besides InDesign manuals?
Are there any books that cover switching from Quark to InDesign?
Should I close my eyes for a month and hope it goes away???
I know it'll be amazing when I get to grips with it. I'm just scared.
Saw an awesome InDesign T-shirt at www.cafepress.com/taxi_for_quark
Maybe I should get one of these and just get on with it.
Any advice appreciated
Mark Jones
David Blatner has a great book out called "Moving to InDesign" http://www.moo.com/compbooks/id4qx.html
He also hosts a podcast called InDesign secrets which is a great source of information. http://www.indesignsecrets.com/podcast.html
After using InDesign for a short period you'll wonder why you ever used Quark.
It really IS apples and oranges. Except the apple in this case works and tastes good whereas the orange was rotten and kind of stinky.
What took you so long? :)
The tutorials over at lynda.com are simply awesome if you have high bandwidth and a few hours to take it all in.
Terrell Thornhill
e-zign Design Group
great to find a techy podcast which doesn't send you off to sleep+
Anne-Marie Concepcion is amazing, has me in stitches - apparently she and Blatner have done some books together before so they obviously make a great team when it comes to InDesign stuff.
Interestingly her site says she does InCopy as well (we're looking at it for editorial, but trying to get hold of anyone to train it is a nightmare) - might get her in just to see if she is as funny real life...
They do a free monthly tipsheet as well - http://www.senecadesign.com/index.html
We have been using and InDesign-InCopy workflow for a year now. I don't know how I ever worked without it (we have a montly magazine and a monthly newspaper). Aside ffrom a few glitches, the editors here got it down pat.
I would suggest checking out Adobe's forums. David Blatner and Anne-Marire Concepcion spend a lot of time there and are very helpful (as are the other regulars). There is also a forum dedicated to InCopy that I have found a life-saver.
Also, somewhere on Adobe's site they have some white-papers on using the ID-IC workflow. Check the main page for each app (that's where I found them).
Jennifer
Honestly, I think InDesign is one of the few graphics apps I've learned without having to spend alot of time reading manuals. If you know keyboard shortcuts from Photoshop and Illustrator, many of them apply to InDesign as well.
I think the best way to learn is to have someone over your shoulder who knows InDesign walk you through building out a brochure. Don't let all the choices and differences from Quark overwhelm you. Just focus on what you need to do. Start out learning all the essential functions you need for page layout (placing images, text, examining links, color, make PDF, etc) and wait till later to have a look at some of the extra interactive and web features... you probably won't use them anyway. The help menu can answer most of your questions and if you can't find it there, go to the Adobe site. Once you've used InDesign, you'll pick it quickly. And then once you've been using it for a little while you will wonder how you managed with Quark.
I'm not afraid to say it: Quark's a bitch! Now that there is InDesign, I really resent when I have to use Quark on a project.
The future will soon be a thing of the past...
I've been doing a weekly (or semi-weekly) podcast for InDesign users since November, 2005. The podcast is called The InDesigner and provides both audio and video episodes. Feedback from the 750+ listeners per episode has been unanimously positive so far.
The podcast is available free by subscription on iTunes. There are 15 episodes posted so far. Check out the show and let me know what you think.