Adobe InDesign was created as the successor to the aging Adobe PageMaker. InDesign supports features such as XHTML exporting, professional typographical controls, and long-document support.

By 1998, much of the professional market had migrated from PageMaker to rival Quark XPress 4.1 due to PageMaker’s comparative lack of features. At that point, Quark announced that it wished to purchase the rights to PageMaker and then discontinue it to avoid breaking US antitrust laws. Adobe rebuffed the offer and started work on a program that was independent of PageMaker; this program was released in 1998 as Adobe InDesign 1.0.

InDesign is also available for Windows.

InDesign 1.0

The first release of InDesign, in August 1999, was much anticipated for months before its release, subsequently many were disappointed by its lack of some PageMaker features. Despite its lack of some PageMaker features, InDesign did have features, such as a frame-based approach to page layout, a Bézier tool, clipping paths, and gradient fills, that PageMaker lacked.

InDesign 1.x requires Mac OS 8.5, 48 MB of RAM with virtual memory on (96 MB RAM with virtual memory off), a PowerPC 604 processor, 130 MB of available hard drive space, a display with 832 x 624 resolution, a CD-ROM drive, and a PostScript Level 2 printer.

InDesign 1.5

InDesign 1.5 was released in Spring 2000 and added several new features, including text on a path, vertical justification, built-in trapping, eyedropper tool, enhanced color controls, pencil tool, printer and PDF export styles, PDF scripting, free transform tool, and plugin manager. It also loaded more quickly.

InDesign 1.5 has the same requirements as version 1.0 and was available as a $99 upgrade for owners of the earlier version.

InDesign 2.0

InDesign 2, released in January 2002, was the first version with Mac OS X support. InDesign 2.0 introduced XML support, OpenType support, long document support, tables, and transparency controls.

InDesign 2.x requires Mac OS 9.1, 128 MB of RAM, a G3 processor, 120 MB available hard drive space, a 256-color display with 1024 x 768 resolution, and a CD-ROM drive.

InDesign CS

InDesign CS (October 2003) had several improvements to the second incarnation of InDesign. New features include enhanced PSD support, drop shadows, control palette, story editor, nested styles, improved XML import/export, and document presets. InDesign CS PageMaker Edition 3.0 differed from InDesign CS in that it included preinstalled PageMaker plugins.

InDesign CS.x requires Mac OS X 10.2, 128 MB of RAM, a G3 processor, 250 MB available hard drive space, a 256-color display with 1024 x 768 resolution, and a CD-ROM drive.

InDesign CS2

InDesign CS2 (May 2005) introduced drag and drop text, object styles, anchored objects, the Transform Again commands, multipage PDF import, WYSIWYG font menus, text wrap for inline objects, and PSD layers support.

InDesign CS2.x requires Mac OS X 10.2.8, 256 MB of RAM, a G3 processor, 870 MB available hard drive space, 1024 x 768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video, and a CD-ROM drive.

InDesign CS2 Server was released in October 2005, following the Initial release of InDesign CS2. InDesign Server is a modified version of InDesign that is used on servers to create client-server solutions that use the InDesign plugin technology.

InDesign CS2.x Server requires Mac OS X 10.3 Server, 512 MB of RAM, a G3 processor, 575 MB available hard drive space, and a CD-ROM drive

InDesign CS3

InDesign CS3 (April 2007) was the first Mac version to include native support for Intel processors. Improvements in InDesign CS3 are table styles, regular expression support, XHTML export, support for automated commands, and a new user interface.

InDesign CS3.x requires Mac OS X 10.4.8, a G4 processor, 256 MB (PowerPC) or 512 MB (Intel) of RAM, 1.6 GB available hard drive space, 1024 x 768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video, and a DVD-ROM drive.

InDesign CS3 Server (May 2007) added native support for Intel processors. New features in InDesign CS3 Server are support for Java APIs and support for Microsoft Windows services.

InDesign CS3.x Server requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 Server, a G4 processor, 512 MB RAM, and 1.6 GB available hard drive space.

The first version of this FAQ was written by Matt Pearce in 2008.

Sources/Further Reading

• Adobe InDesign, Wikipedia
• InDesign User Group
• Quark vs. InDesign
• InDesign Challenges Status Quo, Karen Charlesworth, MacWeek, 1999.09.09. “…InDesign 1.0 is more unstable than you’d expect. There are quite a few bugs, although Adobe will presumably fix these shortly….”
• Adobe Isn’t Making Many Friends, Steve Wood, View from the Classroom, 2000.03.20. “Last week Adobe created a furor among InDesign users by attempting to charge $99 for the InDesign 1.5 upgrade just a few months after the initial release of the product.”