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chriscorbin

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 17, 2007
257
0
Vallejo, CA
never thought i would be saying this, but my mother wants to learn Adobe InDesign. She saw an invitation that someone made for a party, she asked the person how it was done and they said InDesign, so my mother is under the impression that the program is soooo simple a baby could do it, well sh is bugging me to teach her, i told her to start with pages, then move to photoshop and we would talk after that. long story short i need a good book somthing along the lines of:InDesign for complete computer challenged morons,kindergarten edition. anyone have a good book, keep in mind my mother is computer-retarded and i know a little indesign(much more comfortable with photoshop and illustrator)

also is starting her off with pages the right thing to do? and eventually moving to photoshop later because its easier to learn IMHO?

any advice would be helpful
 

grabbins

macrumors newbie
Sep 11, 2007
1
0
Durham,UK
Video Podcasts?

You could always try 'The Adobe Creative Suite Podcast' on iTunes for tips with InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator etc. The videos tend to be short and sweet and they are really usefull. Ive learnt soo much from these and I thought I knew all I needed to know. They got both CS2 and CS3 stuff so should be fine either way. Its cheaper than a book =]
 

adrianblaine

macrumors 65816
Oct 12, 2006
1,156
0
Pasadena, CA
Learning InDesign just to do invitations and such is a little overkill. I don't doubt that your mom is able to learn, but I don't envy you doing the teaching.

I taught an introductory class to InDesign, and I did notice that those in their 40's and older had a harder time grasping everything. Pages, especially the new version with the layout mode, would be great to start off with (and maybe stay there), but I don't know if Photoshop would be necessary. In some cases the two are similar, but in the end they are very, very different and may make things more confusing when switching over to InDesign.
 

p0intblank

macrumors 68030
Sep 20, 2005
2,548
2
New Jersey
InDesign is a complicated application. I highly recommend The Print Shop for Mac if your mom will only be designing invitations. InDesign is more of a professional page layout application.
 

jonnylink

macrumors 6502
Jul 15, 2007
256
0
Pages is a good place to start. It isn't very difficult and she'll get to understand concepts like styles. I don't know what kind of person your mom is, but from what you've said I don't think she'll need more than that to do what she wants. Indesign is very powerful but not easy to jump in and use and all that power will be wasted at the expense of a much more complicated setup.
 

TheAnswer

macrumors 68030
Jan 25, 2002
2,519
1
Orange County, CA
If this is geared towards invitations and small items, I'd actually start her with Illustrator.

InDesign has many features that will just be wasted on her, and I'm guessing that most of what she wants to do is something Illustrator could handle. Just offer her Illustrator as a stepping stone and promise to teach her InDesign, but only if she ever decides to typeset a book or layout a 16+ page brochure.
 

chriscorbin

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 17, 2007
257
0
Vallejo, CA
If this is geared towards invitations and small items, I'd actually start her with Illustrator.

InDesign has many features that will just be wasted on her, and I'm guessing that most of what she wants to do is something Illustrator could handle. Just offer her Illustrator as a stepping stone and promise to teach her InDesign, but only if she ever decides to typeset a book or layout a 16+ page brochure.

good idea, I am better with AI anyway and i think its a little easier to learn
 

puckhead193

macrumors G3
May 25, 2004
9,570
852
NY
isn't their a free trial for 30 days... download it and when she see how overwhelming it looks she'll get over it ;)
 

ezekielrage_99

macrumors 68040
Oct 12, 2005
3,336
19
InDesign is a complicated application. I highly recommend The Print Shop for Mac if your mom will only be designing invitations. InDesign is more of a professional page layout application.

I agree, InDesign is a professional application and therefore it has a professional learning curve, it's not as easy as other applications out there.

My mother is a principal of a school and decided to learn InDesign, she found it very difficult in learning it. She now uses Pages, it looks great, way easier to use, has some very nice looking templates and you can save as a PDF which is good when it comes time to send something to the printer (I know there will be some graphics people out there cringing at the thought of that).

From my experience get her to looks at Pages first, you can always learn more if you like something but you will be discouraged if you start at the hardest application and can't learn it.

:apple:
 

klymr

macrumors 65816
May 16, 2007
1,451
103
Utah
InDesign CS3 classroom in a book

or CS2

photoshop, pages and indesign are not parallel programs; tho pages is in some ways a very limited template based indesign. they all do different kinds of things. if she wants to learn indesign, she should start on it.

I will second the CS3 Classroom in a book. If she is serious about learning it, it's gunna be worth the $35. It is a full color book of a a few hundred pages and also comes with a CD full of lessons and such. It really is worth buying I (although I haven't done more than crack the front cover). I had to buy the CS3 books for PS, AI, and ID. We are currently about halfway through the AI book. They are extremely basic, but very helpful.
 

lschaaf

macrumors newbie
Sep 15, 2007
2
0
InDesign is confusing! My opinion and then help needed myself!

Okay, I'm a 40yo mom who likes to think I'm pretty computer-savy, and though I have the CS2 suite, I think both InDesign and Illustrator are hard! Not that I don't use them for for my business, but I'm always having to contact my graphic designer, or google, or refer to my jumbo sized manuals for help everytime I have a new project. If she's just doing invitations, I definitely think Pages or another layout program would be sooooo much simpler for her and she could accomplish it in under an hour, vs. the long learning curve for the Adobe products and then having to call you everytime she wants to do something similar!!

Now, while I'm here... I'm trying to create a catalog and had the layout done by my designer, but can I drag text into a frame and have it automatically resize and change the font? I figured out how to do the .jpgs, just clicking the fill frame button, but since I want to change the font and font size, I didn't know if it was possible (I have over 150 text blocks for the catalog, each one in an individual Publisher file) Thanks!
 
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