Last updated 10/20/2004

Adobe InDesign CS One-on-One

Adobe InDesign CS One-on-One
Author: Deke McClelland
Publisher: deke Press / O'Reilly
484 pages ... 44.95
ISBN 0-596-00736-1
Featuring 2 hours of Total Training video and companion work files on CD

Adobe created Pagemaker which in turn created the desktop publishing industry. Now Adobe is winning back its professional digital production and design audience with InDesign.

Adobe InDesign CS One-on-One is designed for beginners and intermediate users. Experienced users may find a few techniques the do not already know.

Deke McClelland is a professional trainer with more than 20 years of computer design and imaging experience. He asks that you Read the book, watch the videos, do the exercises. Proceed at your own pace and experiment as you see fit.

There are several tutorials in each of the 12 lessons. The lessons cover 1. Starting a Document, 2. Creating and Flowing Text, 3. Basic Text Formatting, 4. List and Tables, 5. Using Style Sheets, 6. Drawing inside InDesign, 7. Importing and Modifying Artwork, 8. Transparency and Effects, 9. Pages, Layers, and XML, 10. Working with Long Documents, 11. Hyperlinks, Bookmarks, and PDF, and 12. Printing and Output.

Deke McClelland writes that No one book can teach you everything there is to know about InDesign, and this is no exception. He then lists topics not covered in Adobe InDesign CS One-on-One. This disclaimer should concern you, at least not until you become an advanced user.

Deke McCelland used InDesign to create every page in this book. The book walks you step-by-step through more than 50 projects. The book itself, and the projects, show the kinds of things that InDesign can do as well as how to do them.

I do not have InDesign, so I cannot really review this book.

I did try the exercises in Deke Mcclelland's book Photoshop CS One-on-One using Photoshop Elements 2. Based upon that experience, I believe that following the steps will get you results that are close, if not identical, to the author's results. Probably, as the author claims, ,q>It's the best way to learn. Ð at least for a lot of people.

The back cover claims the 50 projects are practical and useful, but do not expect the resulting documents to be practical and useful. The projects will only be practical and useful if you practice applying and varying the steps and learn to create your own documents. Then your own documents will be more practical and useful.

For more information or to buy Adobe InDesign CS One-on-One, go to
http://www.oreilly.com