Customer Reviews

Adobe InDesign CS3 Classroom in a Book

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This book is disappointing. Aside from the typos, poor grammar, and a few technical errors, there is almost no use or mention of the new CS3 features. The new features are glossed over in a few pages at the start of the book, but it is nothing but marketing fluff. The book is really a re-hash of the same content that existed in previous versions. Definitely do NOT get this book if you want to learn the new features. To make it worse, the writers are from a training company in Seattle - not Adobe - and they shamelessly promote their services in several of the chapters. The book is like a paid advertisement that needs better proofreading.

I am a brand new Adobe InDesign CS3 user. I purchased this book because it was published by Adobe. I figured, who better to learn about an Adobe product from then Adobe?

Big mistake!

This book is terrible. It has typos, grammatical mistakes, and instructions that are both incorrect and incredibly difficult to follow. The pictures and instructions often leave you scratching your head. I've gotten half way through several of their lessons only to give up frustrated. I turned the page back and forth to make sure I didn't miss something only to find out that I hadn't.

I am an advanced computer user. In fact, I am a software product trainer. I mention this because I want to make a point of saying that I am not a "newbie". I know computers and software. Even with my knowledge, I found this book useless. If I wrote this, I would expect Adobe to fire me.

Do yourself a favor, steer clear of this book.

This book should cost about $20 tops, for the amount of detail it covers (not a lot, compared to how complex and powerful the application itself is), and the quality of editing. There are several typos and grammar errors throughout the book, and the quality of the paper is poor IMO.

But the main disappointment is the half-hearted coverage of InDesign's most powerful features, both new and those existing from prior versions. Most examples and descriptions are of the "nuts and bolts" variety and are hard to follow at times. Not sure why it is that Adobe's own books often fall short in the technical merit department, compared to 3rd party authors who cover Adobe software.

As someone who teaches Photoshop for a living and uses InDesign fairly often to help run my business (brochures, newsletters, etc.), I was expecting more from Adobe on this one. Worst of all I purchased this book through another vendor at what I thought was a discounted price, paying $40 for it. Even at $30 though, it would be a waste of money IMO. Look elsewhere for InDesign help.

I've heard good things about the Real World InDesign series, though I do not own the latest copy yet...

I'm reviewing the second printing (published mid-July 2007), which has many fewer errors than the first printing. There were only two or three spots where I couldn't get the result in the book, and I wasn't sure if that was my fault or the book's.

InDesign is conceptually a simple program: you collect all your content, plop it down on pages, and drag it around until you are happy with the result. The complication comes from the zillions of settings and treatments for the objects. This book is less a tutorial than a guided tour showing you how to use some of these settings.

One weakness of the book is that it deals primarily with very short documents (one to a few pages), and even on the multipage documents the exercises usually only work on one page in isolation. For this kind of document I would usually use Adobe Illustrator and not a layout program. The place where you really need layout is for multipage documents with a lot of text that flows from page to page (magazine articles, newsletters), and with book-length documents where organizing the work and using stylesheets becomes critical. Chapter 11 deals with a book-length document, although it doesn't deal with these issues.

A related weakness is that the focus is on specific features and not the overall look. The book is tactical rather than strategic. You can argue that strategy is a designer issue and not part of learning the program, but I would like to have seen more emphasis on planning the document and setting up styles. In most cases you start out with an existing layout and start populating it with content, and never deal with the overall look of the document.

The CD-ROM includes the lesson materials, and a few short video tutorials from lynda dot com. One minor gripe is that, unlike other CIB books, this one does not give the estimated times for each lesson.

Overall I felt the book was lightweight. I certainly did not get the in-depth knowledge that I got from working through the Photoshop CIB book. However, it does give you a good survey of the program's capabilities, and is well-organized and well-written.

I know a thing or two about tutorials/manuals for I often test them as a beta-tester. The following comments are for all five of the CIBs. Yes, I have worked though each one.
As a bare start its ok but its just too much of a skimpy overview for the high price its requesting. This book should have been a PDF, unlocked, with the software. If you want a good intro at a reasonable price, don't buy this book. As for its content, I have found errors that should have been found long before it got to print. If you really want it, than wait a few more months for an updated edition. As for the pdf version, stay away from that too. Its DRM settings are overly restrictive, i.e., only 30 text selections over 30 days. There are much better books coming soon at the price with respect to its in-depth coverage. So buy them. :-)

I'm rating this book a bit higher than the other reviewers because it is fitting my needs. I have no previous experience with PageMaker and only the most fragile grasp of desktop publishing principles. Therefore, I need a book that says "This is the text tool. Click on the text tool. This is how you view panels. Click on the panel." Even InDesign for Dummies is too advanced for me since it assumes the user has some experience with Adobe products.

So this book does exactly what I need it to do -- it provides lessons made up of simple bits of info and hands-on step-by-step instruction.

I purchased this book to learn Indesign CS3. I should say that I know Photoshop quite well so I have a good feel for many of the basics of the program.
I tossed up whether to buy this book or another quite good book on the same topic. I went with this book as I thought that as the author was Adobe, it would be the better of the two.
How wrong I was. This book is very poor. It is full of mistakes that waste so much of your time trying to determine if is you that have made a mistake in following the instructions, or if the book is at fault. After many wasted hours I can confirm that the book is full of errors. Adobe must have quickly pulled this book together from a previous version (CS2) without checking whether it is still relevant or correct for CS3.
There are much better books out there. I am going back to buy that other book. This book is going in the trash!

I've used "class room in a book" for lots of different softwares that I've learned over the years. I've always enjoyed using the format to learn a software. I only wish they would come up with "class 2", "class 3", etc. for the next stage of learning. It's a good book and worth it's cost for sure! Only be sure that you need "basic" understanding of whatever course you are buying because that's what these books deliver.

I can ignore the grammatical errors and even the mistakes. However, the CD that comes with the book is missing Lesson 11 on Long Documents. I sent back the first one I purchased to the vendor and received a new book - and it is still missing Lesson 11.

We're not talking, mispelling words here, we're talking BIG errors in copy. Instructional errors. On one early lesson, we're told to open a file they supply on their accompanying disk as Lesson 02>example_page.html, which DOES come on the disk. Then, a few pages later, we're told to go back to what we were working on in our last exercise, but if we closed it, to open recent>example_file.html. Did I miss something? Where did example_file.html come from? According to their illustrations, it looks like they are referring to the one called "page.html", yet we're left hunting for "file.html". Eventually one realizes, after some head-scratching and checking their disk, that there is NO example_file.html, only page.html. Wow! is this a huge proofreading error or what? And this is only in Lesson 2. I'm ready to send the book back to them and ask for a refund. One wonders how many more huge errors are to come in the next 200 pages. Web design is about being accurate, and I am also well-versed in InDesign, so this is inexcusable. (and some prior web experience) They also do not provide diagrams showing the names of all the icons they refer to in various "panel groups" or "status bars" etc. etc. If the reason for omitting them is because Mac and PC interfaces are very different, then publish two books. Maybe Peachpit has a good one for Mac users....