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Adobe InDesign is the best print layout tool out there.
Updated January 18, 2020

Adobe InDesign is the best print layout tool out there.

Richard Avenius | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe InDesign

At our organization, we use InDesign as our exclusive tool for creating custom print materials. I am an instructional designer and I use this program to create all of our print training materials like instructor and participant guides, informational flyers, and product documentation. Our marketing department also uses this program to create their print ads, two-pagers, and battle-cards. This tool is fantastic and allows us to quickly and efficiently create custom print documents, layouts, and templates.
  • This tool is really good at creating detailed print layouts in a relatively short amount of time.
  • InDesign allows you to create templates for a host of elements that you will use in the system. Whether it is page layouts, text styles, or even spacing preferences, you can customize and save your settings for all of the elements that you will use regularly.
  • Because Adobe provides separate programs for vector creation and picture editing, InDesign is fairly light in this kind of functionality. While this makes complete sense from a business standpoint, it is a little frustrating to have to go to a different program when I need to edit pictures and vector images.
  • The snap-to-grid and snap-to-line functionality in InDesign can be a little annoying. While it is sometimes very helpful, often the logic behind these functions force the lines that elements that you are trying to align into very different places. You can turn this logic off, though, if need be.
  • Adopting this tool in our department has allowed me to more quickly and effectively meet our aggressive deadlines and keep up with our very quick development cycle.
  • Using InDesign has allowed us to quickly and effortless share tools, elements, and assets between our marketing and training departments. Because of this one tool, we are able to facilitate cross-departmental efficiencies and improve the speed of our business.
This product sits head-and-shoulders above a product like Microsoft Publisher. The layout of Adobe InDesign is far more intuitive, the functionality of the tool is far more robust, and the sheer efficiency of it's interface is lightyears ahead of what Publisher offers. As just one small example, selecting multiple objects in Publisher requires you to completely surround them all with the selection field. While this may not sound like much of a challenge, depending on the size of the objects that you are creating and their location on the page, this can really slow down the creation of your layouts. In InDesign, this process is as simple as creating a field that touches all of the elements that you want. Again, this may not seem like a big deal, but it is indicative of InDesign's commitment to speed and efficiency. A commitment which Publisher doesn't seem to have.
Truthfully, I have never really had to reach out to Adobe regarding support of this particular product. It is a well-established tool and seems to be part of a pretty steady and well-understood review cycle. With that in mind, we did consider using Adobe's learning management tool Captivate prime for awhile, as well as their learning content creation tool Captivate. Unfortunately, trying to set up some time to speak with their sales and support group made us feel like we weren't their largest priority.

Do you think Adobe InDesign delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Adobe InDesign's feature set?

Yes

Did Adobe InDesign live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Adobe InDesign go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Adobe InDesign again?

Yes

Adobe InDesign is an incredible print design tool for experienced designers and developers. It lets you create custom layouts quickly and effectively...if you are familiar with the tool and understand the underlying logic of Adobe systems. If you have the time to devote to learning how layering works and how all of the small simple creation tools can be combined to create more complex elements, you will find this to be maybe the most helpful tool you can use.