Adobe InDesign supports creating digital and print documents such as flyers, stationary, posters, and other types of media, with rich graphics, images, and more. Adobe InDesign is available standalone or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite collection of media management and creation products.
$31.49
per month
Formstack Documents
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Formstack Documents (formerly WebMerge, acquired by Formstack April 2019) is an online service that automates the document creation process. It allows users to create customized PDF and Word documents for contracts, applications, government forms, and more.
Adobe InDesign is very well suited to image-heavy publications, such as children's books, cookbooks and coffee table books. It gives you almost complete control how to arrange these elements, and to be able to tweak them with precision. The software is an absolute necessity if one is developing interactive eBooks, especially for the Apple iTunes store. Unless coded by hand, I am not aware of any other tools to handle this. It is a powerful toolset, and can take on most anything publishing related that you throw at it. I personally have found that it doesn't do too well with reflowable eBooks (like for Kindle Amazon), but it retains that capability.
[Formstack Documents (formerly WebMerge) is] well suited for a mid-size organization that has multiple data inputs and needs to provide structure and professional document generation. As helpful as it is, the cost would prevent smaller businesses from realizing the cost savings that a larger one will.
Customization - With Adobe InDesign, as well as many other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, I can fully customize my workspaces and save different workspaces. This makes it easy to navigate through my project and have the panels and tools I need easily accessible and configured based on my project needs.
Styles - Adobe InDesign has character styles, object styles, and tables styles. This speeds up my workflows and allows me to easily apply the same format across multiple elements. This is super helpful, especially when working with length documents.
File compatibility - I can easily export my files into so many different file types.
The Book feature - This feature is really helpful when creating books or very long documents with multiple sections.
Ordering the pages with dragging is a bit counter-intuitive
The "Links" section needs improvement - it might be very beneficial to have the links displayed (and saved) in the "links" sections for dragging and reusing without having to re-insert
I think the relinking option works well - Would it be possible to the automatic relink to work even if file was renamed? A prompt will be [shown] to the user to help them approve or disapprove of this action.
We've had some issues with document formatting when the Formstack document comes through. Nothing outrageous, but it has been very inconvenient and annoying.
The Formstack website is not attractive or user friendly.
I think it could be clearer to Formstack users that it is a tool that needs another tool, not a tool all its own.
I've had great experiences with the product and plan to continue to use it. It has been my go-to product for designing and creating materials. I have had great luck with it and have been able to create all of the needed marketing materials that have been requested for our company.
If you know what you are doing it is an amazingly granular and powerful application. You can control pretty much any aspect of the design and layout of your documents and make changes globally and rapidly. But, if you don't know what you are doing...you will be staring at your screen in bewilderment for a long time. You can learn it, but be ready for a hefty time investment.
Adobe support is ok but not great. Chat support often doesn't initially understand the question at-hand and it takes awhile to get to the right agent. Phone support has long wait times, and though I've had more luck there, it does take quite a time investment if you are looking for help. However, Adobe does have some online learning solutions available as well as a knowledgebase for frequently asked questions. If you're looking to learn how to use the platform, there are lots of resources which can typically be found in a few Google searches. If you have a technical issue with the system, that's going to be a bit more of a time investment as far as getting a tech's assistance to resolve the problem.
Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- I'd consider Office to be the first step and [Adobe] InDesign to be the final product.
Each of the programs above answered a specific call to action. While each addressed a small portion of our need, they never quite fit the bill for what we needed. It was actually a representative from three of the ones above which selected WebMerge. They wanted to sell their product, but knew that we would be unfulfilled if we went with them
Adobe InDesign has allowed us to tackle more projects in the same amount of time because of how well it integrates into our group's workflow.
For awhile, we struggled only with a slowdown in digital guides. Because, as I mentioned earlier, there is not a clear way to combine individual documents into one document quickly, some editors were forced to spend a long time transferring each page into the final document that would be used with Publish Online. We have since found a workaround that does not include using Publish Online.
The return on investment has been very good. It's very cost effective product. Our service team is on the phone and it takes away from the customer service if they are having to input the same information on applications. Web Merge eliminates additional key strokes while giving customers more time to run their business.
