Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing (DTP) application produced by Adobe Systems. Launched as a direct competitor to QuarkXPress, it initially had difficulty in converting users. In 2002, however, it outsold its competitor, partially because it was first to release a Mac OS X-native version. Also, InDesign CS and CS2 were bundled with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat in the Creative Suite.
InDesign can export documents in Adobe's Portable Document Format and offers multilingual support that Quark users can get only by purchasing a much more expensive "Passport" version. InDesign was the first major DTP application to support Unicode for text processing, advanced typography of OpenType fonts, advanced transparency features, layout styles, optical margin alignment. The cross-platform scriptability using Javascript sets it still apart. Finally, it features tight integration and user interface similarities with other Adobe offerings such as Illustrator and Photoshop. |