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storer · Jun 12, 2004, 10:07 PM

I am in charge of purchasing a new eMac and Adobe CS for a youth organization. I want to know if you think I should buy CS Premium or forget Acrobat alltogether, and go standard. The main form of output for the organization it PDF. Is panther's PDF creation good enough to do this? It doesn't need to be anything super special.

chabig · Jun 13, 2004, 12:10 AM

Acrobat lets you combine PDFs, insert and delete pages in PDFs, and add bookmarks, among other things. These are all things that Panther by itself won't do. Does that help you decide?

Chris

storer · Jun 13, 2004, 02:50 AM

Originally posted by chabig:
Acrobat lets you combine PDFs, insert and delete pages in PDFs, and add bookmarks, among other things. These are all things that Panther by itself won't do. Does that help you decide?

Chris

sort of. the editing doesn't matter that much. The big issue is money. It is $A1575 for CS and $A1899 for the CS Premium with Acrobat. We have $A5000 to buy a reasonable scanner, new design Mac, CS and a cheap office PC. Anyones opinion is greatly appreciated!

killer_735 · Jun 16, 2004, 12:56 PM

Exactly what kind of tasks do the programs need to do? There are a very specific set of things that Acrobat does, and if you're not going to use them, there's no point in just having the program sit on your hard drive.

storer · Jun 16, 2004, 09:33 PM

Originally posted by killer_735:
Exactly what kind of tasks do the programs need to do? There are a very specific set of things that Acrobat does, and if you're not going to use them, there's no point in just having the program sit on your hard drive.

well, they just need to output a 4 page newspaper for print at in greyscale. we dont need any editing at all. The organisation already has acrobat 5 for windows, so if we network the machines, we should be able to distill the PS file remotely, through the network?

Macola · Jun 17, 2004, 04:45 PM

If you're using InDesign CS and just want PDF output, then it will be more than adequate. You don't need to output a PS file and distill (as you would do in Quark, for example). Just use the built-in PDF presets.

As others mentioned, if you need anything more than just PDF output, then Acrobat will come in handy.

storer · Jun 17, 2004, 06:29 PM

Originally posted by Macola:
If you're using InDesign CS and just want PDF output, then it will be more than adequate. You don't need to output a PS file and distill (as you would do in Quark, for example). Just use the built-in PDF presets.

As others mentioned, if you need anything more than just PDF output, then Acrobat will come in handy.

So does InDesign itself have its own PDF making Capabilities?
Thank you very much! You have helped me save them a few hundred dollars.
MMM, another quick question; the manager of this organisation, was a graphic designer for a long time and used only quark. I also have only ever used quark 5.0. So will we have difficulty getting to know InDesign? Or is it very similar?
Thanks in advance

quietjim · Jun 19, 2004, 02:02 AM

I have no experience with Quark and limited Pagemaker experience about 8 years ago.

We bought InDesign (actually the whole Studio CS setup) about a month ago and have had no problems learning it enough to put out a newsletter. I'm sure there is a lot more to learn but the basics are very easy.

One thing that was helpful: we bought a book called "InDesign One on One " by Adobe. Good lessons, good tutorials.

storer · Jun 19, 2004, 06:12 AM

Originally posted by quietjim:
I have no experience with Quark and limited Pagemaker experience about 8 years ago.

We bought InDesign (actually the whole Studio CS setup) about a month ago and have had no problems learning it enough to put out a newsletter. I'm sure there is a lot more to learn but the basics are very easy.

One thing that was helpful: we bought a book called "InDesign One on One " by Adobe. Good lessons, good tutorials.

thanks jim. Unfortunately, Australia here, books are limited but I will have a look...
Anyone else?

Macola · Jun 22, 2004, 11:21 PM

I think you can make the switch to ID without too many problems. The learning curve is not that steep, and you can even set up ID to use the Quark keyboard shortcuts (works for most, but not all, functions). I learned ID by using it for some projects and referring to the online help, which is not bad. I'm not too big on books, so I can't recommend any, but I'm sure you can find something on Amazon.

Edit: storer, to answer your previous question: Yes, ID does have its own PDF output capabilities. A nice bonus!

storer · Jul 5, 2004, 11:27 PM

Originally posted by Macola:
I think you can make the switch to ID without too many problems. The learning curve is not that steep, and you can even set up ID to use the Quark keyboard shortcuts (works for most, but not all, functions). I learned ID by using it for some projects and referring to the online help, which is not bad. I'm not too big on books, so I can't recommend any, but I'm sure you can find something on Amazon.

Edit: storer, to answer your previous question: Yes, ID does have its own PDF output capabilities. A nice bonus!

Ok NOW i need help. The manager thinks it is better value to buy a PC as a design computer and then buy the software. what should I tell him to prove to him thats not right? He also says that an eMac is crap cos you can't update. He is a video editor and I don't think he understands that we wont use an 80gb hd ever. oh well... i will let you know what happens

brettcamp · Jul 6, 2004, 01:26 AM

maybe you can find some ammunition here:
http://macspeedzone.com/html/hubs/pa.../creative.html

killer_735 · Jul 6, 2004, 03:35 PM

Three things;

A windows PC opens up big, nasty security holes. Can't have your design system come down with a virus, can you?

Resale value: If your boss puts up the money for an emac and you decide it isn't working, you can sell it back at a minimal loss, probably less than $100. Try the same thing with the pc, and you probably lose at least a third of its value.

Also,

Windows. Font. Management.

Randman · Jul 7, 2004, 03:17 AM

Have him check with many design houses, publishing houses. Macs are far better for graphic design and used with much greater frequency than PCs. The only advantage PCs have for a large company is lower price.

timmerk · Jul 9, 2004, 10:41 AM

CS sucks and corrupted all my files.

storer · Jul 10, 2004, 01:10 AM

ok. i pointed these out but he decided mac anyway. he didnt realise how cheapo the emac was.

siliconwarrior · Jul 15, 2004, 09:59 AM

"CS sucks and corrupted all my files."

Explain how?

mitchell_pgh · Jul 16, 2004, 12:20 PM

CS works just fine. I'm a Quark user, but realize InDesign has a nice bag of tricks. Once some of my printers start really liking it, I'll switch 100%.

digital_dreamer · Jul 17, 2004, 04:22 AM

Just a heads up on InDesign's PDF creation abilities:

Better make sure your printer can work with InDesign's PDFs.
I have not had good success with its PDF export options. It'll create PDFs that'll open in Reader, but has problems outputing/separating to older Postscript printers and RIPs.
This is even after converting fonts to outlines, etc., etc.

The recommended way to create PDFs from InDesign, and the way I have to do it, is to output the document as a device independent file and run it through Distiller. Really.

Notice this site set up for advertisers and others who submit files to Time, Inc.
The InDesign page includes these instructions:
Note: Do not export your Indesign file to PDF. This will cause unexpected results. Only use the instructions below to create a PostScript file.

"Unexpected results" is right. Unfortunately.
It's odd, as Adobe is the creator of InDesign, Postcript, and PDF.

regards,
MAJ

Macola · Jul 17, 2004, 09:54 AM

And did you notice those instructions were for OS 9? I'm willing to bet they were written a few years ago, based on an early version of InDesign.

So far, I haven't had any problems with print shops and PDFs exported from InDesign CS.

storer · Jul 17, 2004, 08:20 PM

Doesn't really matter anyway, we found out from adobe that we can get education prices so we will get the premium version for $AU500, which is quite good. We are working in conjunction with the newspaper on the new system setup, so if the have a problem they'll say so. Like I said, we sont need anything super special - we are working with Acrobat 4 now, and its generally in greyscale.

siliconwarrior · Jul 19, 2004, 04:59 AM

PDFs from IDCS are fine.

Dark ages printers/service providers may experience "unexpected results" when they try to place these PDFs into Quark for output but this has nothing to do with InDesign's PDFs and everything to do with Quark's poor, poor PDF support.

xe0 · Jul 21, 2004, 06:23 AM

hows it going storer. Im down here in Oz as well.
A few reasons to stick to the Mac platform when it comes to the printing industry.

Fonts.

Reliability.

Security.

Panther.

Trust me, Ive been in this game for a few years now, and I can say, save yourself time and money and buy a Mac. Seriously

xe0 · Jul 21, 2004, 06:24 AM

Originally posted by siliconwarrior:
PDFs from IDCS are fine.

Dark ages printers/service providers may experience "unexpected results" when they try to place these PDFs into Quark for output but this has nothing to do with InDesign's PDFs and everything to do with Quark's poor, poor PDF support.

I second that

Stephane · Jul 22, 2004, 07:41 AM

Originally posted by digital_dreamer:
Just a heads up on InDesign's PDF creation abilities:

Better make sure your printer can work with InDesign's PDFs.
I have not had good success with its PDF export options. It'll create PDFs that'll open in Reader, but has problems outputing/separating to older Postscript printers and RIPs.
This is even after converting fonts to outlines, etc., etc.

The recommended way to create PDFs from InDesign, and the way I have to do it, is to output the document as a device independent file and run it through Distiller. Really.

Notice this site set up for advertisers and others who submit files to Time, Inc.
The InDesign page includes these instructions:
Note: Do not export your Indesign file to PDF. This will cause unexpected results. Only use the instructions below to create a PostScript file.

"Unexpected results" is right. Unfortunately.
It's odd, as Adobe is the creator of InDesign, Postcript, and PDF.

regards,
MAJ

I am pretty sure that ID 2 didn't use the same PDF engine than Distiller to create PDFs and thus going through a .ps then send it to Distiller was more reliable. I had problems sometime with Pantones and transparency.

I was told by a few people that ID CS now use the same engine than Distiller but were unable to confirm it so far.

But when you are working with PDF/X certified files, Distiller use job options available here, in France, through an independant organization that allows for standardized process in getting perfect PDF files. Then you can Certify them using Pitstop.
If a printer can't open such a PDF/X file then he surely did something wrong.