The Go-To Software for Designing Intricate and Complex Documents
Updated January 20, 2024
The Go-To Software for Designing Intricate and Complex Documents
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is currently being used in our company to create and/or receive design files for our clients' direct mail needs, this mostly includes forms and envelopes. We also use it to create the copy decks for the direct mail we send out. The software is only used by our Marketing and Lettershop departments. The reason we choose Adobe InDesign over other products is because of it's complexity and because of its standardization in the industry. As far as complexity goes, we have found that other products just don't seem to compare when it comes to the amount of things the tool itself can do. We use it for aspects such as mail merge, layering, shared libraries, master pages, and much more. When it comes to standardization in the industry, you really aren't going to find a more standard product used for design than an Adobe product. It makes it much easier to work in a agency setting, like we do, when you use the same products as your clients.
- Layering - When comparing to products like Microsoft Word, the layering becomes a big plus for Adobe InDesign. Layering allows you to turn "on" and "off" certain aspects of your document, such as if you wanted to show what a direct mail piece looks like with just the art work showing and then again with sample data showing by just the click of a button.
- Master Pages - Again, when comparing to Microsoft Word, master pages in Adobe InDesign takes "styling" just a little bit further. It makes it much easier to create certain multiple styles that you can easily apply (or not apply) to various pages. Such as if you wanted the page number and company to show on certain pages, and not on others.
- Cloud Libraries - This is a GREAT feature for companies who have multiple employees working in the software. When one employee adds an element to a Cloud Library, every other employee has access to it as well. This doesn't just pertain to images, like you would think - you can add things like styles, whole paragraphs (such as boiler plates), fonts, brand colors, and more. The great part is, you also don't have to be working in an online browser in order to access them.
- Crashes - It is almost understandable because of how large the software is, but we have had issues with the product crashing randomly, more so than others software we use.
- Incompatible Versions - Recently we have had some issues with opening files from other organizations and getting a message stating that their document was made with a "newer version" than ours and that it's incompatible - even though we don't have any pending updates to our software. It can be confusing because now that the Creative Cloud version exists, it seems like there should no longer be error issues for "newer" versions (such as InDesign 5.1, or InDesign 6.1, like there used to be - now it's just InDesign CC going forward with no newer versions.) So this error message, in theory, shouldn't be happening.
- Complicated - Again, it is understandable because of how complex of a tool this is, but this is not a tool you are going to be fully able to train a coworker on in a week. In fact most people who have used it for years still probably only use about 10-20% of the tools features. This type of software, unlike Microsoft Word, is usually only used by people who work in field of design/creative, so you wouldn't expect every employee to be able to use it.
- Adobe InDesign has helped us to keep up with our clients. Our marketing company focuses more on data and less on creative, so before we started using Adobe InDesign we were behind the curve when it came to assisting the clients with the creative aspects of their direct mail. Now that we use "industry standard" of design tools, we are able to better assist the clients with their creative needs.
- Adobe InDesign has also helped us be more efficient when creating copy decks for our programmers at our lettershop. Using layers and other aspects that weren't available in tools like Microsoft Word, has made the process of bringing a letter from inception to creation and has caused less "back and forth" between the Marketing department and the Lettershop department when it comes to small details such as font size, placement, etc.
- The only negative impact I can think of, is that once we started using a more intricate tool like Adobe InDesign, there were some members of the Marketing and Lettershop departments who didn't come from creative backgrounds and had a harder time learning the tool. This learning curve obviously caused some time constraint issues and, for a while, the use of multiple softwares at once to be able to accommodate everyone.
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