Welcome to the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Bible — your comprehensive guide to working with the complete suite of Adobe's Design Suite Premium imaging programs. In this book, we make an effort to help you understand the design and productivity features available from all the Creative Suite 5 (CS5) programs and how the documents you create from the individual applications work together to help you publish content for print, screen, Web hosting, and CD-ROM replication.
Much has changed from the earlier Creative Suite programs to the newest incarnation of the Creative Suite. Adobe has made a large investment in supporting interactive features in the CS5 products — particularly with Adobe InDesign CS5. In an effort to keep traditional users interested in new product features, Adobe has devoted equal investment for print professionals.
So why would we spend time covering subjects that are individually treated in other Wiley Bible publications? That's a good question, and the answer should be clear to you before you walk out of your local bookstore with this sizeable volume. It's true that there is a Wiley Bible covering each of the individual programs mentioned in this book. These other works are comprehensive and teach you about almost every tool and feature related to the specific programs.
This book is much different from the other Bibles. Our primary focus is to cover workflow solutions for independent designers and members of design teams working in agencies, publication houses, and any firm related to publishing for screen, print, or Web. Therefore, we don't go into minute detail on each program, and often we point you to one of the other fine Wiley publications to amplify your learning.
We assume you have some experience in at least one of the programs covered in this book. You may be a designer who works religiously with Adobe Photoshop, QuarkXPress, or a non-Adobe program. Or you may work with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, but know little about page-layout programs. You need to know essential methods for integrating application documents among the CS5 programs. Perhaps you don't need to know every aspect of Adobe InDesign, but you want to create sophisticated layouts using many outstanding type features and want to know how to import images in your designs, prepare interactive documents, or import Adobe Flash files.
If you're switching from another program or you want to add one of the CS5 applications to your design toolbox, this book helps you understand the relationships among programs and how to seamlessly integrate files among the most sophisticated suite of software applications ever developed for creative professionals.
As we said, the focus is on workflow solutions. In this book, you learn how to set up the CS5 applications for workflow environments, step through the creative workflow process, and get to productivity without having to master every feature in a program. The tools and tasks related to office workers and business professionals have been left out. Rather, the emphasis is on complete coverage of tools and workflows to help creative professionals get up to speed fast.
The Adobe Creative Suite 5 Bible is made up of 36 chapters in nine parts. Unlike other comprehensive computer publications that target beginning users, this volume assumes you have some basic knowledge of at least one imaging program like Photoshop, an illustration program, or a layout program. We further assume you know something about user interfaces common to imaging programs that use palettes, menus, and tools. And we make the assumption that you know some aspects of the professional printing market for commercial prepress and printing.
Because you have some knowledge of computer programs similar to those found in the Creative Suite, you can jump in anywhere and learn about any feature set. In most chapters, we include a discussion concerning the integration of the CS5 programs. Therefore, a chapter dealing with text includes text handling not only in InDesign, but also in Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Acrobat. Rather than think of the programs you want to learn about, search more for the techniques and features you want to learn.
To give you a broad idea of how the programs work together, we recommend you look over Chapter 2, where we provide steps you can replicate to produce a design piece using the CS5 programs. Chapter 3 helps you understand the interoperability of the CS5 programs.
Apart from Chapter 2 and the specific features you want to learn, keep in mind that this book, like other Wiley Bible publications, is a reference work. Keep it handy as you work in the CS5 applications, and refer to the index and contents when you need help working on a task or trying to further understand one of the programs.
What would a Bible be without icons? The use of icons throughout the book offers you an at-a-glance hint of what content is being addressed. You can jump to the text adjacent to these symbols to help you get a little more information, warn you of a potential problem, or amplify the concept being addressed in the text. In this book, you'll find the following icons:
Warning
A caution icon alerts you to a potential problem in using one of the CS applications, any tools or menus, or any issues related to exchanging files between programs. Pay close attention to these caution messages to avoid some problems.
Note
A note icon signifies a message that may add more clarity or help you deal with a feature more effectively.
Tip
Tips help you find shortcuts to produce results or work through a series of steps to complete a task. Some tips provide you with information that may not be documented in the Help files accompanying each of the CS programs.
Note
Walking you through steps and techniques in a linear fashion is almost impossible for a suite of programs. The applications have so many interrelated features that covering all aspects of a single feature in one part of a book just doesn't work. Therefore, some common features for commands, tools, actions, or tasks may be spread out and discussed in different chapters. When the information is divided among different parts of the book, you'll find a Cross-Ref icon that refers you to another part of the book covering related information.
To simplify your journey through the Creative Suite applications, the book is broken up into nine separate parts. The 36 chapters address features common to creative production workflows. These parts are covered in the following sections.
Part I: Getting Started with Workflow Solutions
To begin, we offer some basic information related to the Creative Suite Premium Edition. We give you a tour of the programs in the form of steps to produce design pieces and teach you how these applications work together to help you publish your content. You learn how to set up the work environments in all the programs and understand the different user interfaces both common and unique to each program.
Part II: Getting Started with Design Workflows
Design workflow is a broad term and may mean different things to different people. This part clarifies the meaning of workflow solutions as they apply to creative professionals and the CS applications, as well as introduces you to tools for versioning documents and creating consistent color across the CS programs.
Part III: Working with Objects and Images
You have basically three elements used to communicate messages in artwork. Images, objects, and type constitute the content of your products. In this part, we focus on objects you might create in Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop, as well as images that are edited in Photoshop and imported into other CS5 programs.
Part IV: Working with Type
Setting type and working with type as text and objects are standard design practices everyone uses. With many features for setting type in the CS5 applications, this part offers you a glimpse into how you can use the programs to implement these impressive features.
Part V: Using Creative Suite and Microsoft Office
Whether Microsoft Office is part of your design toolbox or you acquire files from clients who provide you with Office documents, it's hard to talk about layout and design without introducing Office files. This part covers working with files that originate in Office programs and end up in one or more of the CS5 applications.
Part VI: Integrating Creative Suite Documents
The CS5 applications offer you tools to create artwork. Bringing together the documents created in each of the individual programs into single files and portfolios is what you'll find in the chapters in Part VI.
Part VII: Preparing Documents for Deployment
Among other things, you'll want to know what options you have for securing your files and for optimizing files for efficient distribution and what sources are available to you for sharing files. This part covers many issues related to preparing files for deployment.
Part VIII: Deploying Documents
After you prepare files for deployment, it's time to exchange, review, and share files. With many new options for sharing, you'll want to carefully look over the Web conferencing and sharing opportunities available with Acrobat.com that we cover in this part.
Part IX: Printing and Digital Prepress
Printing files is still a major function of every creative professional's workflow. This part covers printing to composite printers and preparing files for commercial printing.
About every five minutes, new products and new upgrades are distributed. If you purchase a software product, you can often find an updated revision not too long after release. Manufacturers are relying more and more on Internet distribution and less on postal delivery. You should plan on making routine visits to Adobe's Web site as well as the Web sites of manufacturers of third-party products. Anyone who has a Web site will offer a product revision for downloading or offer you details on acquiring the update.
With newer releases of computer software, it's essential that you have an Internet connection. The CS5 programs routinely prompt you to check for updates over the Internet. To optimize your performance with all the programs, you should run the software on a computer that has an Internet connection.
Adobe Systems maintains a comprehensive Web site where you can find information on product upgrades, conferences and seminars, aftermarket books, help and technical support, as well as tips and techniques. Visit Adobe's Web site at www.adobe.com for the latest news related to all the CS5 applications. Be certain to look over Chapter 6 where you can find easy access to Adobe's Web pages carrying tips and techniques from within Adobe Bridge.
Regardless of whether you purchase the Creative Suite or individual applications, Adobe Systems has made it possible to register the product. You can register on the Web or mail a registration form to Adobe. You'll find great advantages in being a registered user. First, update information will be sent to you, so you'll know when a product revision occurs. Second, information can be distributed to help you achieve the most out of using all the Creative Suite programs. By all means, complete the registration. It will be to your benefit.
If, after reviewing this publication, you feel some important information was overlooked or you have any questions concerning the Creative Suite programs, you can contact us and let us know your views, opinions, hoorahs, complaints, or provide information that might get included in the next revision. If it's good enough, you might even get a credit line in the acknowledgments. By all means, send a note. E-mail inquiries can be sent to:
Ted at [email protected]
Kelly at [email protected]
You also can find us on Facebook.
If you happen to have some problems with any of the CS programs, keep in mind, we did not engineer the programs. Inquiries for technical support should be directed to the software manufacturer(s) of any products you use. This is one more good reason to complete your registration form.