Hello! I am a new forum member. I came to the forum searching for information on using Adobe Creative Suite for Macintosh with the intention of using this program to self publish a local kids tabloid that covers local interest and goings on in the Elko area. Has anyone ever used this program, and if so, how do you like it? I have not purchased it as yet, but am thinking hard about it.
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Adobe CS is an amazing package, but seriously expensive. The DTP part of it is InDesign, which you can get on its own for much less if you don't need Photoshop. That said, and I mean no offence here, the fact that you're calling CS a program and asking for opinions on it suggests that you probably should start out with something a bit simpler.
Hi
Richard's absolutely right. If you're using a Mac running OS X, get yourself a copy of the brand new iWork, which includes Pages, intended for exactly what you want to do at a fraction of the price ($79.00), and much more easily. You're probably entitled to buy it at the educational discount. Or, you could use the templates that come with AppleWorks, if you already have AppleWorks.
But I think you'll really like Pages.
Richard's absolutely right. If you're using a Mac running OS X, get yourself a copy of the brand new iWork, which includes Pages, intended for exactly what you want to do at a fraction of the price ($79.00), and much more easily. You're probably entitled to buy it at the educational discount. Or, you could use the templates that come with AppleWorks, if you already have AppleWorks.
But I think you'll really like Pages.
A very long winded thank you, and general info
Many Thanks! I am a complete novice with Macintosh and Apple programs. I am switching from a PC over to a Mac in hopes that the Mac will be less labor intensive in maintanance issues. My current PC is bug ridden and takes more of my time to keep running than I spend on my actual work. I am looking at a Mac laptop, and was advised to look at Adobe Creative Suite for it's desktop publishing features. If I can do the same work and illustrations with iWork or Office 2005, then I would definitly prefer to keep costs down when purchasing the new system. I just am unsure which Mac program will allow a news paper style layout with photos coming in from a digital camera. I am currently scanning everything in and then cutting and pasting. A digital camera would come with the laptop, as per my husbands urging. I have never used a digital camera either. So all of this is new territory. I have used PC's for twenty plus years, and haven't even thought about Macintosh. I am trusting my advisors however, who know much more than I. I am not a publisher by trade. I am actually a Psychologist entering into unknow territories with the newspaper thing. It is a non-profit project that my critique group members felt was interesting and would be fun to try. The issues would be free to the two Elementary schools in our area. I run a critique group and have a non-profit corporation called "Writers In The Sage". We are trying to get our web cite online, but that is another story. I do have a blog at blogger.com, should anyone wish to see what sorts of things my critique group is up to. THe critique group is in the process of dying, so I am sorry, but there won't be a group for much longer due to lack of authors in our area. I thought reaching out to Elementary school kids and giving them a newspaper that they could have their works published in as well as having a newspaper that was geared toward them would be fun. The kids could submit articles and stories as well as have a source for local geology, history, flora/fauna information. I have done layout work during my college years, so I have a little experience there, and worked on Macs at that time, but we're talking 10-15 years ago. I am sure Macs are different now. Just the fact that they have laptops now! WoW! Anyway, this was a long way to justify my coming to these boards for advice. I thought it I went to the people who are actually in the field and doing the work, that I could get some pretty helpful advice. THanks for your time, and please excuse my long entry. I will keep all others to a discrete minimum. Thanks. Ursula Stanton, President, Writers In The Sage, Inc.
Many Thanks! I am a complete novice with Macintosh and Apple programs. I am switching from a PC over to a Mac in hopes that the Mac will be less labor intensive in maintanance issues. My current PC is bug ridden and takes more of my time to keep running than I spend on my actual work. I am looking at a Mac laptop, and was advised to look at Adobe Creative Suite for it's desktop publishing features. If I can do the same work and illustrations with iWork or Office 2005, then I would definitly prefer to keep costs down when purchasing the new system. I just am unsure which Mac program will allow a news paper style layout with photos coming in from a digital camera. I am currently scanning everything in and then cutting and pasting. A digital camera would come with the laptop, as per my husbands urging. I have never used a digital camera either. So all of this is new territory. I have used PC's for twenty plus years, and haven't even thought about Macintosh. I am trusting my advisors however, who know much more than I. I am not a publisher by trade. I am actually a Psychologist entering into unknow territories with the newspaper thing. It is a non-profit project that my critique group members felt was interesting and would be fun to try. The issues would be free to the two Elementary schools in our area. I run a critique group and have a non-profit corporation called "Writers In The Sage". We are trying to get our web cite online, but that is another story. I do have a blog at blogger.com, should anyone wish to see what sorts of things my critique group is up to. THe critique group is in the process of dying, so I am sorry, but there won't be a group for much longer due to lack of authors in our area. I thought reaching out to Elementary school kids and giving them a newspaper that they could have their works published in as well as having a newspaper that was geared toward them would be fun. The kids could submit articles and stories as well as have a source for local geology, history, flora/fauna information. I have done layout work during my college years, so I have a little experience there, and worked on Macs at that time, but we're talking 10-15 years ago. I am sure Macs are different now. Just the fact that they have laptops now! WoW! Anyway, this was a long way to justify my coming to these boards for advice. I thought it I went to the people who are actually in the field and doing the work, that I could get some pretty helpful advice. THanks for your time, and please excuse my long entry. I will keep all others to a discrete minimum. Thanks. Ursula Stanton, President, Writers In The Sage, Inc.
Hi
Definitely look at the link I put up regarding the Pages program in iWork. It's much easier to do what you want with Pages than it would be with MSWord/Office 2005. You would need to be running Mac OS X 10.3. If you have an officiall Apple store in your area, go there, and ask questions. They'll show you Pages. They'll show you how to use a digital camera. The digital camera is a breeze, and the Mac will make it much much easier to use it, and there's software called iPhoto that comes with your Mac to allow you to copy/download from the camera, and then sort, edit, print, etc. your images.
Definitely look at the link I put up regarding the Pages program in iWork. It's much easier to do what you want with Pages than it would be with MSWord/Office 2005. You would need to be running Mac OS X 10.3. If you have an officiall Apple store in your area, go there, and ask questions. They'll show you Pages. They'll show you how to use a digital camera. The digital camera is a breeze, and the Mac will make it much much easier to use it, and there's software called iPhoto that comes with your Mac to allow you to copy/download from the camera, and then sort, edit, print, etc. your images.
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I think iWork 05 is your best bet for school projects, tabloids, newsletters, etc. Get the iLife 05, which includes the nice iPhoto. iWork also creates PDF files, so you don't need to get Acrobat.
I think for your purpose, Adobe Creative Suite is an overkill. Unless you're doing full page layout, typesetting, and graphic illustrations, you really don't need it. If you are doing extensive desktop publishing, InDesign is the bomb.
I think for your purpose, Adobe Creative Suite is an overkill. Unless you're doing full page layout, typesetting, and graphic illustrations, you really don't need it. If you are doing extensive desktop publishing, InDesign is the bomb.
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If there are any local community colleges in your area, they may offer classes in one of many publishing programs out there. I haven't played with Pages yet, but I had thought it was mostly a word processing program (Appleworks 2), not really a periodical design program. Such programs are good for small publications that one prints from home, but they're not all that practical if you're exporting the whole thing and shipping it to a printer. Some printers will charge you more if your files aren't Quark/Publisher/InDesign (i.e. print ready with embedded fonts, etc.)
If you're looking to design a physical newspaper that will have more than four pages (and you're not printing from home), I think it's a good idea to invest in the Adobe Creative Suite. I still prefer Quark over Indesign, but it's a good program, and its sole purpose is to create publications exactly like the one you described. Plus, you'll have Photoshop, which you'll need.
If you're looking to design a physical newspaper that will have more than four pages (and you're not printing from home), I think it's a good idea to invest in the Adobe Creative Suite. I still prefer Quark over Indesign, but it's a good program, and its sole purpose is to create publications exactly like the one you described. Plus, you'll have Photoshop, which you'll need.
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The view from a media professional –
On the whole, Creative Suite is a far better buy than Quark. For the same amount of money (around $1000), you get four applications, including the essentials like Illustrator and Photoshop. Besides, I have never encountered a company that hates its customers as much as Quark does. God help you if you ever need help from them.
But as was said, unless you're really going to be making use of it, either one is a lot of money. Also, Nav is right – most print shops will either charge you extra or not accept your job at all if you're not using one or the other. Even Publisher is usually a problem for most print shops.
Just my 2¢.
On the whole, Creative Suite is a far better buy than Quark. For the same amount of money (around $1000), you get four applications, including the essentials like Illustrator and Photoshop. Besides, I have never encountered a company that hates its customers as much as Quark does. God help you if you ever need help from them.
But as was said, unless you're really going to be making use of it, either one is a lot of money. Also, Nav is right – most print shops will either charge you extra or not accept your job at all if you're not using one or the other. Even Publisher is usually a problem for most print shops.
Just my 2¢.
Writersinthesage said she wanted to know about Adobe's Creative Suite
The Adobe CreativeSuite is fabulous. Really. Super programs, all of them. But unless you've got lots of money, for software, and for printing, and lots of time to learn not only about layout, design and typesetting, not to mention writing and digital image manipulation, and unless you can make money with the tabloid, it's probably not the way to go, or at least not starting out. Especially not starting out on a new OS.
QuarkExpress is well, not the worst piece of software I've ever seen, and it still is a major force in publishing. But it too is expensive, the company is run by people who make Microsoft look like Quakers, their idea of tech support includes frequent reptitions of "gee, I don't know," and it requires a hardware dongle, a security device that makes sure Quark got its money from you. Quark also has a steep learning curve.
iWork 05, which includes Pages, is $79.00 retail, and the educational price is $49.00. Pages is not AppleWorks 2; it is in fact inspired by Pages from the old NEXT OS, which Apple bought. You can read about iWork 05 and Pages here. Pages is a word processor with a crucial difference; it's designed to use templates. There are a number of templates included with Pages that were created by professional designers. The templates can be mixed and matched, and they can be modified. The consist, in broad terms, of text boxes, where you can type your text, or drag and drop it from another program, and of image placeholders, or boxes, and you can drag and drop images, even images from iPhoto (free with any new Mac, and dead easy to use with digital cameras).
If you're going to print at a Kinkos or service bureau, many of them already have iWork 05 for the simple reason that Apple made an deliberate effort to place copies. But even if they don't, you can save a .pdf file from any application in OS X and bring that in.
Finally, I'm serious about visiting an Apple store. They'll let you look and touch and try out, and will do their best to help you decide what's best for you and your purse. And they offer free training, including training meant for people switching to the Mac. You can see demos of Pages, and of the Adobe Creative Suite.
The Adobe CreativeSuite is fabulous. Really. Super programs, all of them. But unless you've got lots of money, for software, and for printing, and lots of time to learn not only about layout, design and typesetting, not to mention writing and digital image manipulation, and unless you can make money with the tabloid, it's probably not the way to go, or at least not starting out. Especially not starting out on a new OS.
QuarkExpress is well, not the worst piece of software I've ever seen, and it still is a major force in publishing. But it too is expensive, the company is run by people who make Microsoft look like Quakers, their idea of tech support includes frequent reptitions of "gee, I don't know," and it requires a hardware dongle, a security device that makes sure Quark got its money from you. Quark also has a steep learning curve.
iWork 05, which includes Pages, is $79.00 retail, and the educational price is $49.00. Pages is not AppleWorks 2; it is in fact inspired by Pages from the old NEXT OS, which Apple bought. You can read about iWork 05 and Pages here. Pages is a word processor with a crucial difference; it's designed to use templates. There are a number of templates included with Pages that were created by professional designers. The templates can be mixed and matched, and they can be modified. The consist, in broad terms, of text boxes, where you can type your text, or drag and drop it from another program, and of image placeholders, or boxes, and you can drag and drop images, even images from iPhoto (free with any new Mac, and dead easy to use with digital cameras).
If you're going to print at a Kinkos or service bureau, many of them already have iWork 05 for the simple reason that Apple made an deliberate effort to place copies. But even if they don't, you can save a .pdf file from any application in OS X and bring that in.
Finally, I'm serious about visiting an Apple store. They'll let you look and touch and try out, and will do their best to help you decide what's best for you and your purse. And they offer free training, including training meant for people switching to the Mac. You can see demos of Pages, and of the Adobe Creative Suite.
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Printing?
Writer
Are you printing it off yourself or are you going to use a printing company? If you're going to use a Printer you want to check with them also. Between the two of you, you can figure out the easiest way to get your newsletter files to them in a form that they can easily access.
Faye
Writer
Are you printing it off yourself or are you going to use a printing company? If you're going to use a Printer you want to check with them also. Between the two of you, you can figure out the easiest way to get your newsletter files to them in a form that they can easily access.
Faye
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