InDesign and InCopy 5.0.4 updater

Adobe has released two new updates to the CS3 versions of InDesign and InCopy. The updates bring CS3 up to version 5.0.4. The updaters are available on the downloads section of Adobe's Web site.

InDesign CS3 5.0.4 updater (Macintosh)

InDesign CS3 5.0.4 updater (Windows)

InCopy CS3 5.0.4 updater (Macintosh)

InCopy CS3 5.0.4 updater (Windows)

According to Adobe,

"The 5.0.5 update is a CS4 compatibility update, containing fixes that address known issues with CS4 to CS3 Export to INX (Save Back) workflows. This update also provides key fixes in the areas of File Size, Hyphenation, Performance, Anchored Objects, Character Alignment, Step and Repeat, Indexing and Table of Contents, Text and Fonts, Dictionaries, Color, Scripting, Import/Export Graphics, InDesign Interchange files (INX), XML, Library files, Printing, and others."

Keep in mind that this is a "cumulative" update, which contains all the previous 5.0.x updates. So the release notes for the updater details all the items fixed not only by this updater, but all the previous updaters. Nevertheless, there are a number of bug fixes detailed in the 5.0.4 release notes that are not listed in the notes for the previous updates. So this is probably an update worth downloading and installing, even if you've previously installed the 5.0.3 update.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 now shipping

According to Adobe, Adobe Creative Suite 4 began shipping yesterday (October 15). You can read the official press release here. I expect that its the US English version that is shipping now. Often, versions localized to non-English languages ship later than the English version. But I don't see any information in the press release about this.

Three great typography videos

There are hundreds of typography-related videos on YouTube and elsewhere. Here are three that I really like:

This video about Typography from the Vancouver Film School is a nice explanation of the mechanics of typography in a brief under-two-minute format.

The Typolution video features an amazing use of typefaces as graphics.

ABC is in Spanish, but its still largely understandable for English speakers, and very clever. It animates the Bauer Bodoni typeface to make the alphabet memorable.

Enjoy!

Shopping for a new computer?

If you use Adobe Creative Suite and are contemplating the purchase of a new computer, here's something you need to be aware of:

Today, even "low end" computers often have sufficient horsepower to adequately run Creative Suite programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. But before purchasing a new computer, be sure to read the system requirements for Photoshop CS4 closely. Among the various requirements listed, you will see the following language for both Mac and Windows computers:

Some GPU-accelerated features require graphics support for Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0.

These "GPU-accelerated features" in Photoshop CS4 are really cool, such as extremely fast and smooth zooming in and out, "toss physics" (a neat way to quickly pan across a large image), arbitrary view rotation, high quality pixel rendering at odd zoom percentages, and, in Photoshop CS4 Extended: fast, accurate rendering and display of 3D images.

As far as I know, Photoshop CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, After Effects CS4 and Premier Pro CS4 are the only programs in the Creative Suite that take advantage of OpenGL 2.0. But its possible that in the future other components of the Creative Suite may take advantage of this capability. So even if you don't use Photoshop, After Effects or Premier Pro, it would be best to have a video circuitry that supports OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0. To determine if the video card in your computer supports this technology, you may need to visit your video card manufacturer's Web site and read the fine print.

Keep this in mind as you evaluate new hardware.

(You can learn more about OpenGL here and here. A table showing support for OpenGL on various Macintosh video cards is here.)

Snap guides to objects in InDesign

Everyone knows that you can snap InDesign frames to guides, by simply dragging an object close to a guide. (Of course, View > Grids & Guides > Snap to Guides must be selected for this to work). But did you know that you can also snap guides to frames? You can, and this is really handy sometimes. Here's the trick:

First, select the frame you want to snap a guide to. Next, drag a guide near the selected frame edge, but then make sure that your cursor actually touches one of the selection handles on the frame. When you do this, you will feel the guide "snap" to the edge of the frame. If the "snap" is too subtle for you to feel, choose Preferences > Guides & Pasteboard and change the Snap to Zone to a larger value. This will increase the "power" of the magnetic attraction between guides and objects.

New in CS4: The new "Smart Guides" in InDesign CS4 (improved in Illustrator CS4) will make many guide-based tasks obsolete. The more I work with Smart Guides, the more amazed I am by how well they work. This is a feature that you'll need to see to appreciate, but it allows you to almost effortlessly align the edges of frames without using Guides or the Align panel.