InDesign CS4

Today Adobe announces the release of Creative Suite 4, but Computer Arts has been testing a Beta release for a while. Here are our thoughts on InDesign CS4

Adobe has released InDesign CS4 just three months on from Quark's release of Xpress 8. Quark Xpress 8 was celebrated for its more streamlined design workflow and extended interactive features.

Adobe's response has been to refocus InDesign as a layout application, not just a print application, and integrate it more tightly into the rest of Creative Suite 4's applications.

InDesign CS4 does this through four core new features, the first of which takes on Quark's interactive Designer environment head-on. New SWF functions pepper the interface, allowing users to export interactive Flash movies without the need to code the ActionScript. These functions allow users to add interactive buttons to documents, set up and test hyperlinks, create animated page transitions for online publications and export an entire document's layout to SWF.

Mimicking Photoshop CS4's Rotate View tool, InDesign CS4 also allows users to move, zoom and rotate the page view smoothly.

But interactive features isn't only what InDesign CS4 is about - there's much for print fans, too. The new Smart Text Reflow function is a superb time saver for print workers, as are Smart Guides and Conditional text functions.

The new Live Preflight tool works with Adobe's latest PDF/X format to ensure error-free printing and real-time corrections of broken links, lo-resolution images or corrupt fonts.

You can read our first impressions of other elements of Creative Suite 4, including Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 and Flash CS4 here.

A full, in-depth review and analysis of InDesign CS4 and the rest of Creative Suite 4 will be in November's Computer Arts magazine, issue 155 - on sale October 23.

What's new in InDesign CS4