Adobe InDesign

Score8.9 out of 10

773 Reviews and Ratings

What is Adobe InDesign?

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.

Categories & Use Cases

Desktop Publishing

Verified User

Engineer in Research & Development (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use InDesign very often in my job as researcher in the field of architecture. I use it as the main layout software for tables, projects' documentation files, books and papers layout and slides for video presentations . It's the main alternative to Office Suite and it's much more intituitive and useful for one main reason: it allows to insert easily not only images (jpeg, png and similar format) but also pdfs. This is fondumental for architects, since the majority of us elaborates projects on design programs (such as CAD softwares) which print drawings on a vectorial pdf format. But there are also some criticalities, such as the not really user-friendly panel.

Pros

Insertion and management of images and pdf files.
Creation of interactive pdf files.
Creation of interactive indexes
Creation of grids for the layout of images beyond texts.
Print of vectorial pdf files and great managment of the images quality

Cons

User interface (where to find specific commands, options etc)
Make some specific option more easy to use and visible (such as the creation of footnotes)
Creation of a more efficient and interactive way to create images' captions
Improvement of the interface that allows you to insert a PDF file consisting of many pages (it would be nice to be able to choose which page to insert more quickly and interactively, selecting them individually without having to specify from the outset which and how many pages).

Return on Investment

-20% time used to create interactive pdf
+10% graphic rendering of the final designs
maintenance of the original data quality

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Powerpoint, LibreOffice and AutoCAD

Other Software Used

AutoCAD, Revit, Blender, Adobe PhotoShop, Agisoft Metashape, ArcGIS

Maria Clara Daly View profile

Interactive Communications Director in Marketing at Love & Company (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

Merges seamlessly with other Adobe products.
Robust and versatile in ability to create character and paragraph styles which helps with overall document changes if needed.
Great ability to render images at high or lower resolution while working on projects which helps dramatically with load speeds for larger publications.

Cons

Font activation and preview can sometimes be a bit fussy depending what you're using for font management.
So many new features are regularly rolled out (not a negative) that I find myself often having to ask Google where to find one of my libraries or settings when a new iteration is rolled out. Consider this a semi-negative.

Return on Investment

Ability to have our files accepted at a broader variety of printers.
Ability to sometimes skip printing entirely due to being able to create interactive PDFs, saving on printing costs.
Stopped using online flipbook software in favor of robust PDFs, which was a cost savings to our agency as well as clients.

Alternatives Considered

QuarkXPress

Other Software Used

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator CC, Twilio SendGrid Email API

Verified User

Director (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Adobe InDesign has been used for years as a go-to page design tool in our newsrooms. Following system changes, it has been successfully integrated with various content management systems and utilized for both newspaper and magazine design work. It is now primarily used for more complex magazine design work, since it has greater flexibility than the page design software embedded in our content management system.

Pros

InDesign is excellent at creating impactful page designs.
It gives great flexibility over the handling of images, including cut-outs.
It's excellent for headline and text editing on the page.

Cons

InDesign integrations with third-party systems can operate more quickly, but depending on the integration, saving and loading may be a bit slower.
The handling of cutouts imported into InDesign is good, but creating cutouts within InDesign could be quicker and easier.
Adding and removing pages from multi-page documents could be smoother.

Return on Investment

It has helped us win multiple awards that have referenced the quality of our page design.
It has enabled us to produce high-end magazines that have attracted big-name advertisers.
It has required us to pay for more licences than we would ideally like to enable people to view and edit pages.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Canva

Other Software Used

Canva, Google Drive, Intuit Mailchimp

Verified User

Employee in Research & Development (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Adobe InDesign to create slide decks, pamphlets, flyers, pretty much anything a pre-existing client or potential customer might see. Adobe InDesign gives you improved control over type, type placement, image placement, and general formatting compared to rival products. My business specifically had an issue with mismatched templates in the workplace and we were able to create a template in Adobe InDesign for everyone to use moving forward.

Pros

Strong use of the grid system
Easy image placement
Great formatting for multi-page layouts

Cons

Large amount of features
Photos need to be manually embedded
Some lag with larger documents

Return on Investment

Adobe Indesign improved efficiancy through the Adobe Creative Cloud, allowing for seamless collaboration
Adobe InDesign is apart of the Adobe Creative Cloud, since we already use other Adobe products it's a no-brainer to use InDesign as well.
Advanced settings for exporting both print and digital documents saves time with finalizing and sharing documents.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Google Slides, Canva, Microsoft Powerpoint and Microsoft Publisher

Other Software Used

Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator CC, Google Slides

Verified User

Manager in Marketing (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Adobe InDesign for a number of design jobs, including brochures, booklets, programmes, catalogues etc, for internal and external use.

Pros

Able to design down to minute details
Cross platform use with other Adobe products is great
Adobe support centre and online communities are great for if/when you get stuck

Cons

I have found a few bugs in recent years
Broken image links are the bane of my life when working on other people's files

Most Important Features

Intuitive Design
Works well with other Adobe products

Return on Investment

Helps us with marketing to external customers

Alternatives Considered

Canva

Other Software Used

Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator CC, Canva