Customer Reviews

Adobe InDesign CS4 Styles: How to Create Better, Faster Text and Layouts

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is now my authoritative reference for anything to do with InDesign styles. I'm always amazed at how much I don't know about this program after years of using it, and this book serves the intermediate/advanced InDesign user quite well. I hadn't even noticed grep styles in CS4 and I saved lots of work just reading the one chapter. There is additional online content too: Stroke Styles is the most thorough treatment of that subject I've found to date.

The book is really a great value if you have some InDesign experience. If you're new to InDesign, you should remember to get this book after you get comfortable, but there's too much assumed knowledge for the true beginner.

Michael Murphy is an experienced designer and an Adobe Certified Expert in InDesign. I have followed his video podcasts at www.theindesigner.com since early 2006 and benefited considerably from his comprehensive tutorials. Naturally, when his book, "Adobe InDesign Styles", was announced I had high expectations that it would prove to be a valuable resource. I was not disappointed.
Mr. Murphy's credo is that advanced planning, organizing and building effective InDesign styles -- especially nested styles -- will save time and money and lead to greater creative freedom. He makes his case in chapter after chapter, by taking the reader step by step through well-chosen, real-world examples. In the chapter on GREP styles Murphy not only sheds light on a new InDesign feature -- admittedly difficult for most designer's to comprehend -- but goes on to parse and build some very practical examples ready to put to work in any number of InDesign documents.
"Adobe InDesign Styles" was written for intermediate to advanced users, so Mr. Murphy does not spend time on the basics, however I would suggest new users consider its purchase for two reasons: Michael Murphy's writing is clear and easy to follow and his argument for planning and organization will serve beginners well in avoiding bad habits and sloppy technique.
Web designers often speak of "best practices" when it comes to coding, Michael Murphy's book is the "best practices" guide when it comes to InDesign styles. I highly recommend it for all level users.

Steve Bretschneider
Principal,
Steve Bretschneider Design

Discovered this book when visiting his website (the indesigner). I was impressed with the training material was providing. I have been equally impressed , if not more, by the quality of the material in the book. This is from my stand point an essential tool any graphic designer or Indesign specialist starter or intermediate should possess... Way to go Michael Murphy... This book saved me so much time!

For anyone who uses InDesign for typesetting, this is an indispensable reference guide. I consider myself very well versed in the program, but within moments of scanning through the book, I found several tips and procedures that I didn't know about.

Michael Murphy is the genius behind theindesigner.com, and his book is as well thought out, thorough, and expertly presented as his video 'how-to' blog. Murphy manages to perfectly balance presenting things in a clear manner without talking down to his audience.

This book has earned a place on my reference shelf next to Robert Bringhurt's "The Elements of Typographic Style" and Mitchell & Wightman's "Book Typography: A Designer's Manual'.

As an author myself (Photoshop CS2 - Tamil Language), I observe the teaching methodologies of various authors, I am amazed by Michael Murphy's style of teaching. His podcasts are awesome, one cannot find a better way to learn and harness the power of Styles in InDesign without the aid of this book. I strongly recommend this book for Indesign users and even for advanced users alike.

Dave Vasudevan
DigiSlate.com

I've been reading through this online at Safari Books Online, and only got through about 25 pages before I realized that I had to own this book in physical form. Not since "Real World PageMaker 4: Industrial Strength Techniques", by Olav Martin Kvern and Stephen Roth, have I found a book as useful as this book on styles by Michael Murphy is. It's not so much that it deals with the software; updates and upgrades provide publishers the opportunity to put out "new, improved" texts that simply build on previous editions and discuss new features of the software. No, this book is good for all time. There is information that will help users of many different page layout applications--not just ID and not just CS4--through their various versions.

I purchased this book as a companion to a more general book on Indesign CS4. If you want to learn basics about Indesign this book is not for you, but if you want to specifically learn about the power and time saving capabilities of styles then buy this book! The layout is easy to follow, the text is simple yet informative, and the examples help you see how to put what you learn into practice. I hadn't even read half of the book and I was already becoming more productive. This book isn't for everyone, but if you want to utilize some of the more powerful features of Indesign then buy it...you won't be sorry.

This book is great for anyone needing to set up documents properly in InDesign. I purchased it to help me at work with laying out a newspaper, which requires sorting lots of information from a variety of sources, stylizing lots of text in different ways and then adapting much of that content from the publication to the web. Its a great book although a little too technical for the new user of InDesign.

Michael Murphy's Adobe InDesign Styles definitely picks up where other InDesign CS4 books leave off. The book's 11 chapters start off nice and easy, teaching the fundamentals of creating and managing paragraph and character styles. Further along, object styles, nesting and table styles are covered.

I personally felt a bit overwhelmed with the chapters covering GREP styles and dynamic content, but then again I am a more visually-oriented person. It's good to know where they are in the book though, and I'll know where to dig in again when the time comes.

Murphy's book also covers best practices for creating layouts that can be readily exported for Dreamweaver, by way of XML files. When a new topic (such as CSS Styles) is introduced, a list of further reading is included. For a book of its size, I felt I'd learned quite a lot of valuable information for my time and money.

Recommended for intermediate to advanced InDesign users.

WOW! If you're even a casual user of InDesign, this book will help you work smarter. It's not easy going for the novice but if you've got ongoing projects, using styles is FAR more intelligent than taking an older file and hacking it up again. The (short amount of) time spent with styles will pay big dividends and this book - visually and intellectually appealing - will convince you.