Explore more creative possibilities and experience new levels of productivity using Adobe InDesign CS3 page layout software. Built for demanding workflows, InDesign integrates smoothly with the Adobe tools you use every day, streamlines repetitive tasks, reliably outputs pages, and offers powerful features for creating richer, more complex documents. 
Design and produce professional page layouts. |
Import and place several files at the same time with the new Multi-file Place feature. |
In the new InDesign CS3 workspace, you can collapse panels as horizontally labeled icons. |
Add gradient stops to create a feather effect. |
Explore new creative possibilities
Discover a world of design possibilities with InDesign CS3. Expanded creative tools and options allow you to experiment quickly and flexibly and create sophisticated effects for text, images, and objects from within your page layout application. Apply effects such as inner glows and bevels without having to update linked files. Finer transparency control allows you to apply transparency independently on an object's stroke, fill, or content. Fade objects into the background using gradient feathers. And set beautiful typography using professional tools.
Be more productive Boost your efficiency through new and enhanced productivity tools that make it faster and easier to lay out, export, and print graphically rich pages. Support for styled tables and table cells as well as a host of powerful layout features, including an expanded Find/Change feature, allow you to easily apply global formatting and consistently edit text and objects. And work efficiently thanks to tight integration with other Adobe tools and technologies; native file format support; and consistent, reliable Adobe PDF output.
Automate routine tasks Save time and money by automating production workflows using InDesign CS3. From robust long-document support to flexible XML import, InDesign offers powerful features that minimize repetitive tasks. Streamline the creation of long documents with features such as advanced bullets and numbering, as well as running headers and footers. Accelerate routine tasks by writing scripts, and generate layouts from XML content with flexible and robust script-based rules.
Audience benefit
Graphic designers
Discover new levels of creative freedom and productivity with Adobe InDesign CS3 software. Tightly integrated with the Adobe applications you use most, InDesign CS3 delivers efficient production workflows and a more fluid creative environment for designing professional layouts with sophisticated graphics and typography.
Adobe PageMaker users
There's never been a better time for PageMaker users to switch to Adobe InDesign CS3 software. With its built-in support for familiar PageMaker features, such as multiple undo, robust style support, flexible gradients, easy table creation, and more, InDesign CS3 brings you a new level of creative freedom and productivity. It's also packed with features to help smooth your transition, including support for converting PageMaker 6.0-7.x files, a set of PageMaker compatible keyboard shortcuts, and popular PageMaker features such as Data Merge and Print Booklet for imposition. With an exclusive upgrade price for licensed PageMaker users, InDesign CS3 delivers superb functionality at a compelling value.
Print service providers
Adobe InDesign CS3 software addresses the needs of print professionals worldwide for reliable, consistent output controls. Encourage your customers to preflight and package their InDesign projects to help ensure smoother handoffs. Prevent costly errors on press by evaluating and adjusting separations, overprint, and transparency flattener settings onscreen. Then use print presets to output files more efficiently. Easily set up high-end Adobe PDF-based print production workflows, automate processes using JDF, and provide Adobe PDF export presets to customers to get the best results. With InDesign CS3, you can exercise exacting control over your print production workflow.
IT professionals and developers
Invest in Adobe InDesign CS3 software for professional page layout to help streamline production, reduce costs, and increase quality in your publishing workflows. Tight integration with other Adobe applications and built-in support for native Adobe file formats helps shorten production cycles while better supporting all-digital workflows. InDesign snippets, style sets, custom workspaces, and other resources allow teams to work more efficiently and consistently. Flexible XML import and export controls, plus robust scripting support, lay a strong foundation for automating workflows and efficiently publishing to multiple media. Join leading publishers and design organizations worldwide in achieving higher productivity with better quality and lower costs using InDesign CS3.
The Effects button is one of many new options included in the context-sensitive Control panel (above) as well as being available in the Effects panel itself. |
Top Ten New Features
Creative effects and controls
Design compelling page layouts that include transparency, creative effects, and gradient feathers. Since effects are live and nondestructive, you can experiment with ease. Apply effects independently to an object's stroke, fill, or content.
Productivity enhancements
Perform a variety of tasks more efficiently using new and enhanced productivity features, including Multi-file Place, Quick Apply, faster frame fitting, and the visual Pages panel.
Table and cell styles
Quickly and consistently format tables using table and cell styles. Even use regional cell styles to apply unique formatting to specific areas of a table, such as its header, footer, and body.
Robust long-document support
Maintain consistency and streamline the production of long documents using advanced bullets and numbering, running headers and footers, and synchronized master pages.
Advanced Find/Change on text and objects
Apply changes to text and object attributes across one or more documents. Include master pages, footnotes, and locked or hidden layers in a search; save search settings for easy reuse; and perform grep pattern-based searches on strings of text.
XHTML export
Enable multiformat publishing, including print-to-web workflows, by exporting Adobe InDesign content as XHTML. Edit the exported content in Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 software (available separately) and automatically format it using cascading style sheets.
Intuitive and customizable workspace
Work in an environment that makes it easier to be productive. Keep just the tools, panels, and menus you use most at your fingertips, and dock self-adjusting panels out of the way when not in use to free up your workspace.
Placed InDesign files
Reuse layouts by placing INDD files in another InDesign document. Links remain intact, and InDesign automatically notifies you of updates to the linked INDD file.
Rule-based layouts from XML
Use scripts that apply rules to automatically build page layouts and format text and graphics from XML content.
Automation through scripting
Automate tasks by writing scripts in JavaScript, AppleScript, and VBScript. Attach a JavaScript to a menu command so it runs automatically when the command is chosen, and protect scripts for commercial use through enhanced JavaScript.
Create XHTML files for product listings and more. |
You can select the objects you want to export to XHTML, if you don't want to export an entire document. |
Inspect and manage XML data with the Structure pane. |
Additional Features
Extensive integration
Work smoothly with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, InCopy, and Dreamweaver software; enjoy consistency by using shared presets and color settings; work more efficiently with native file format support; and easily publish to multiple media.
Reliable prepress and printing
Have confidence in your output. Get accurate, consistent results every time you print using sophisticated preview capabilities, exporting reliable Adobe PDF files, and sharing custom presets.
Professional typographical controls
Compose beautiful typography using professional controls including the Paragraph Composer, OpenType fonts, drop caps, glyphs, and optical kerning and margin alignment.
Full-featured tables
Create richly formatted tables. Import tab-delimited text files and styled Microsoft Word or Excel tables, or build tables in InDesign. Apply a wide variety of formatting options manually or using table and cell styles.
Smart text handling
Control your text with intelligent text-handling features including the ability to import styled text from Microsoft Word files, apply complex text wraps around objects, and comprehensively replace fonts.
Scripting and extensibility
Accelerate and simplify workflows by automating processes using scripts and extending the capabilities of InDesign using the ExtendScript toolkit.
Creative effects
Apply new visual effects, such as inner glow or bevel and emboss, using an interface that's consistent with Adobe Photoshop to specify offset, angle, and other options. Apply effects independently to an object's stroke, fill, and content.
Gradient feathers
Create beautiful effects by applying masks that contain gradients so the objects fade into the background. Customize options such as gradient angles and fade rates, all within Adobe InDesign.
Adobe-standard user interface
Get up to speed quickly with familiar commands, tools, panels, and keyboard shortcuts.
Backward compatibility
Open QuarkXPress 3.3-4.1x files, PageMaker 6.0-7.x files, and files created in earlier versions of Adobe InDesign in InDesign Interchange (INX) format in InDesign CS3 to keep working with legacy files.
Adobe Photoshop and Adobe PDF layer support
Control the visibility of layers in imported Photoshop and PDF files. Experiment with design options or use multiple variations of a file in your layout, all while linking to a single file.
Adobe PDF file export
Use built-in Adobe PDF export presets--or create custom presets--to consistently and reliably create Adobe PDF files for electronic review or final output. Create ISO-standard PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3 files for high-resolution CMYK printing, as well as PDF/X-4 (draft) files.
Table and cell styles
Quickly and consistently format tables using table and cell styles. Even use regional cell styles to apply unique formatting to specific areas of a table, such as its header, footer, and body.
Multiple Undo/Redo
Experiment freely and retrace multiple steps using the Undo and Redo commands.
High-resolution graphics preview
Display graphics in high resolution for precision work or to preview the graphics within your layout. Easily switch back to lower resolution view for faster onscreen display.
Enhanced Control panel
See more options in the context-sensitive Control panel, including transparency, text wrap, and rotation. Customize the panel to show the options you use most frequently.
Custom print presets
Define and share custom print presets among service providers and customers for a fast, reliable way to print jobs that require consistent settings for many print options.
JDF integration between Adobe InDesign and Acrobat
Pass JDF job information to Acrobat with Adobe PDF files that you export from InDesign. Print service providers can then streamline prepress and print processes using JDF automation.
Output previews
Prevent mistakes from occurring on press by checking plates, overprinting, and ink limits, and help ensure the best results when printing transparency effects using output preview panels. Use Overprint Preview mode to proof spot-color effects and overprint settings.
Preflight and packaging
Avoid delays and costly production errors by preflighting documents to check for problems. Then package them for print or web handoff or export them as Adobe PDF files.
Consistent color
Synchronize ICC-based color management settings across Adobe applications to achieve consistent color onscreen. Exchange swatches across the components of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design software.
Flexible XML workflows
Use XML rules to dynamically generate documents with formatting and graphics based on imported XML, and apply XSLT style sheets when importing or exporting XML content.
Automation through scripting
Automate tasks by writing scripts in JavaScript, AppleScript, and VBScript. Attach a JavaScript to a menu command so it runs automatically when the command is chosen, and protect scripts for commercial use through enhanced JavaScript.
ExtendScript utility
Use the ExtendScript toolkit to create, edit, and debug JavaScripts in InDesign.
