MARCH 05, 2004
Adobe InDesign CS + PageMaker Plug-in Pack
Page layout suite with add-on productivity package
 by David Nagel
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Also added is a new and much-appreciated Control palette, a sort of catch-all, centralized option bar that provides context-sensitive access to parameters for the currently selected tool or element.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]And it gains some various customizability features. The program was already quite customizable, but now it adds collapsible palettes, which can be nested on the side of the monitor and out of the way until they're needed; a customizable pasteboard, which can be expanded up to 120 inches above and below the document; named workspaces; and the ability to define document presets so that you don't have to enter information every time you create a new page.



As I mentioned, the bulk of the new features in InDesign CS can be classified as workflow enhancements. And of these, many are small-scale enhancements. In other words, they're things you won't consciously notice, but they're present nonetheless to make your life a little easier. I can't actually show you screen shots of these kinds of enhancements. So, instead, here's a quick runthrough:

  • Performance improvements in navigation, import, print processing and spell checking;
  • Interactive text scaling;
  • Double-clicking on a text box to activate the Text tool;
  • The ability to move and resize text frames without losing cursor position;
  • Real-time previews for moving and resizing text, including live updates for text affected by text wraps;
  • Better font handling for fonts with duplicate names;
  • The ability to align the first line of a paragraph to the grid;
  • Option-double-click to edit an element in its original program, such as editing a graphic in Photoshop;
  • Support for Photoshop CS files, including duotones, tritones and quadtones;
  • The ability to override all master page settings;
  • The ability to delete prefs on startup (a feature all programs should have);
  • Support for the mouse scroll wheel on Mac OS X;
  • Global reference points in the Transform palette;
  • The addition of an Info palette;
  • The ability to add multiple color swatches to the Swatches palette without opening and closing the dialog for each one;
  • And the ability to disable text wrap on hidden layers.



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