I am not an absolute neophyte to DeskTop Publishing having used Microsoft’s Picture Publisher, early versions of Quark Express and Adobe Pagemaker from time to time. But for a project I needed to come up to speed in InDesign and real Soon NOW! So I went down to the World Largest Bookstore and scouted around – I really should have gone to Barnes and Noble, Powell’s or Amazon because all of these bookseller sites have excellent rated book reviews of even the most technical or esoteric of books. In contrast, WLB’s stock of books on Adobe InDesign was short but I decided to take a risk on ordering the higher priced spread (full disclosure I get free review copies including this book, but I was time limited so I could ill afford a mistake)- so it was to be Deke McClelland’s InDesign CS3 One on One partially because its included CD promised to cover the Bridge CS3 and Photoshop CS3 integration and partly because I like the layout of the topics in the book with beautiful, full color illustrations.
Now I did not know that Deke has had such a distinguished publishing career – especially on Adobe Creative Series products. But I needed to come up to speed quickly on some relatively specialized topics while getting my basic InDesign and DTP skills refreshed as well. For example, I was used to text-flowing and control from Framemaker and Pagemaker days. Ditto for simple kerning and paragraph control. But I was a bit worried that Deke would blow by the basics and get right into intermediate or advanced topics right away.
Not to worry, Deke is really a master teacher. The getting acquainted to InDesign dominated the first few chapters of of the book. These sections review all the tools and dialogs available in InDesign with a little extra emphasis on what is new or updated. As well, the first few examples are down to earth basics with emphasis on text layout/flow and Master Page control. At the same time Deke shows off clever tricks using InDesign even in the the early examples.
What was really impressive to me was how well each topic was illustrated with screenshots and overall design templates and tips. By skimming through the first 4-5 chapters I was able to get up to speed very quickly just reading the book and doing a selected few exercise in InDesign where I wanted to tryout some publishing variations. But the gradual step up and the chapter on Bridge and Photoshop CS3 were just what the doctor ordered. And the included CD had some wonderful live tips – I was surprised, normally I am not enamored of CD content(I think of it as the stuff that didn’t make the cut for the book proper).
In sum, Deke’s InDesign CS3 One on One more than met my needs. And I am a traget hard to please: not a beginner, but not a pro either. I have already returned to it for additional tips and recipes. My only concern – $55 is a bit stiff but I found it on Amazon for $35. While there I looked up a reference made by a good friend on Real World InDesign CS3 – and it also was getting rave reviews. So it appears there is a wealth of good InDesign books. No small blessing for hard working DTPers.