Book Review: Moving To InDesign

With delight I opened David Blatner's new book, Moving To InDesign, because any book written or co-written by David is a delight. This one was no exception.

Moving to InDesign, by Blatner, Smith, and Werner.
(2005 PeachPit Press) 

Co-authored by Christopher Smith and Steve Werner, Moving To InDesign is a roadmap for QuarkXPress and PageMaker users mak­ing the move to InDesign or just begin­ning to check out the neigh­bor­hood. The book is not a how-to, nor is it a com­pre­hen­sive InDesign ref­er­ence. There are oth­er books for that. Moving To InDesign is tight­ly focused on the dif­fer­ences and sim­i­lar­i­ties between InDesign and its forebears.

Especially valu­able to any long-time Quark shop mak­ing the move is the sec­tion on con­vert­ing Quark doc­u­ments through InDesign’s import filter–what comes through well, what not so well, and what not at all. Alone the val­ue of being fore­armed with this knowl­edge is worth ten fold the price of the book.

Either camp, Quark or PageMaker, will appre­ci­ate the sec­tions on top ten “gotchas”–some of the most oft cit­ed pain points for new­ly bap­tised InDesign switchers.

The authors–Mr. QuarkXPress cum Mr. InDesign, David Blatner, American Graphics Institute pres­i­dent, Christopher Smith, and long-time Quark and InDesign train­er, Steve Werner–know how Quark and PageMaker users work. And they talk these users through an effi­cient con­ver­sion to InDesign with con­cise descrip­tions, friend­ly explaina­tions, and amus­ing lessons–all in the indus­try lin­go of expe­ri­enced lay­out artists.

Do not buy this 268 page book if InDesign is your first lay­out appli­ca­tion. Buy the Adobe InDesign Classroom in a Book or Sandee Cohen’s InDesign CS for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide. If a com­pre­hen­sive desk ref­er­ence for InDesign is your goal, don’t buy this book. Pickup Galen Gruman’s Adobe InDesign CS Bible. For proven shop hows, whys, and whens of using InDesign, get Real World InDesign CS, writ­ten by Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner.

If you’re an expe­ri­enced QuarkXPress or PageMaker user who has made, or is con­tem­plat­ing mak­ing, the move to InDesign, this is the book you want. The oth­ers can come after as need­ed. Moving To InDesign will move you at your own pace, accord­ing to your own needs, into cre­ative and pro­duc­tion nir­vana with InDesign. With its effer­ves­cent design geek quips and easy writ­ing style, you’ll be chuck­ling all the way through the shal­low learn­ing curve.