Good of you to give your insight into Quark / InDesign, and I’m glad you like my blog. It’s certainly a commitment keeping it updated, so I know how you feel with your own.

The LinkOptimizer plugin sounds like a great one, so thanks mentioning it.

I would like to do some work for cancer organizations but right now I think it would be to much to handle while we are dealing with everything. I would encourage every designer to find a worthwhile non-profit cause to do work for. I would like to help organizations that deal with childhood cancer’s. All of the people and organizations that helped and help us are VERY APPRECIATED!! The emotions that I feel for those that have helped us are so strong that it has made me cry at times. To raise a little awareness here the Ronald McDonald House is a great organization here in the U.S. Before my daughter was diagnosed I had heard of it but honestly I had never really paid attention to just what they do. They are located near hospitals and provide a “home away from home” for families of seriously ill children receiving treatment at nearby hospitals. I am divorced and my ex lives in another state so when my daughter was diagnosed in my state while with me for the summer my ex stayed there and when my daughter was transfered to a hospital in my ex’s state I was able to stay there while she went through her induction phase of treatment.

David
Nice designs. It is very important that these materials are easy to understand and that you can find answers to questions quickly. When my daughter was diagnosed they gave us a stack of booklets and information that would fill a book bag. It’s all so overwhelming to deal with trying to get up to speed with all of the terms and info on the cancer and dealing with the shock that it is happening to you or your family member at the same time. It is also good that they are easy to understand to raise the awareness of the public.

I use InDesign now but started on Quark while in school. I love InDesign and it keeps getting better. It is a big plus that Adobe makes it and the rest of what I use because they keep integrating them more all the time. Also being able to purchase it bundled with the other programs is great. I know Quark is under new ownership now but they never were very great at listening to their customers because they were the almost a monopoly for layout software. For that alone I don’t really want to support them. Adobe seems to be committed to innovating and improving.

A GREAT plugin that I found for InDesign is Zevrix’s LinkOptimizer. A HUGE timesaver!
http://zevrix.com/linkoptimizer.html

–From their website–
“LinkOptimizer is a utility for Adobe InDesign that reduces the size of linked images by eliminating excessive image data.”

How does LinkOptimizer work?
LinkOptimizer will automatically reduce the image resolution, scale and crop the images in Photoshop according to their dimensions in the InDesign document and the target resolution specified, and reimport them to InDesign at 100%.

LinkOptimizer lets you backup original images linked to InDesign document before the processing.

In addition, LinkOptimizer can:
•convert image colors to CMYK, RGB or Grayscale,
•apply sharpening filters during processing,
•flatten images or merge visible layers,
•run Photoshop Actions during processing.

By the way nice blog David. I just started mine a little while ago and just lately I have had a hard time updating it so I hope it does get more attention in the future but right now I’m just trying to keep up with everything.

Lauren, it’s definitely an advantage having InDesign’s commands similar to Photoshop and Illustrator. They all tie together nicely.

Renata, Robert, seems you both have a similar impression of InDesign as I do.

Didik, Thanks for the compliment.

Alex, I’ve not used, nor come across Scribus before. Is that what you’re using?

I would love to find out what you think about it, and see this program with the eyes of someone who is a professional in the field.

InDesign helps me a lot in creating company profiles or magazines layout. The features are easy to use, simple, and applicable with other Adobe programs.