Adobe InDesign is a leading graphics design software for Windows PC that lets you create and publish books, digital magazines, eBooks, posters, and interactive PDFs. With the InDesign CC on your PC, you can design stunning pages for digital and print publications. Whether you’re making a digital brochure with a team, designing personal business cards, or creating company posters, InDesign is the ultimate layout and page design app for any creation.
It has become the software of choice for both students and professionals. This tool is not only limited to print materials but also helps users to create layouts for websites and mobile apps. It offers extensive tools and capabilities for precise design and seamless integration with other graphic design apps, making it an essential tool for graphic designers and publishers.
Adobe InDesign Features
Below are the most important features that we can vouch for.
- Master page: A true time-saver if your project has multiple pages. The Master page will include elements that you want to appear on every page. Now, you don’t have to do the same work multiple times or copy/paste from page to page.
- Add objects: Easily add anything from page numbers, headers and footers, chapter breaks, images, and any other element that you need to organize your layout.
- Responsive Design: It has a Liquid Layout tool that scales the page based on the size of the display screen. It will automatically adjust all the elements on the page when it’s viewed on a mobile device or change from Landscape to Portrait mode.
- Create sections: You can design your layout however you like with the intuitive section breaks. Add as many as you’d like, whether they are squares, circles, rectangles, octagons, or you just want everything laid out in different columns. The sections are fully customizable.
- Add Tables: You can use tables to organize the content on your page. You can create and design your table or import it from other applications.
Impressive Typography Options
- Manipulate text: Using the Adobe Sensei tool, InDesign makes it easy to manipulate the text however you want. From the basic options like aligning it right, center, or left to more advanced techniques like wrapping it around an image or object.
- Fonts: Not only can you use any of the hundreds of fonts available through Adobe Fonts, but you can also upload your own fonts. InDesign supports OpenType SVG fonts.
- Compatible with multiple languages: InDesign works with texts that go from left to right and right to left. There are built-in language options so you can create your work in Japanese, Arabic, and other non-English characters. Additionally, there is a Glyph panel if you want to add glyphs and special characters to your page.
- Drop caps: Increasing the size of the first letter of a paragraph, or a section is a popular design choice for many brochures and books. InDesign makes it easy to set the first letter or “Drop Cap” size and gives it a nice border with customized corners.
Excellent Editing Tools
- Selection: The black arrow is one of the most important selection tools in the InDesign toolbox. Use it to activate a layer or select an object. Once activated, you can move it around, change the color, shading, or group it with other objects.
- Transformation: You can use the transformation tools to adjust the proportions of an object, change its orientation and size. The geometric information about each object is located in the Transform panel. This information includes values for position, size, rotation, and shearing.
- Drawing and type: You can use the Pen and Pencil tools to add simple illustrations and objects to your layout.
- Modification and navigation: Use these tools to measure objects and make sure that your design isn’t too “busy” or overcrowded.
Add Links for Online Publications
With InDesign, you can easily add interactive hyperlinks and navigation elements to your digital projects, such as web pages, eBooks, and brochures. This allows users to click on content and jump seamlessly between different pages or sections, enhancing the interactivity and user experience of your online digital publications.
- Add Hyperlinks: You can link from specific words or pictures to lead your reader or user to another page within the site or an external site.
- Design Buttons: Whether you want readers to subscribe to your publication or click a button to place a vote, you can add buttons that perform specific tasks with InDesign.
- Bookmarks: If you’re having people download large PDF files, you can add bookmarks to make it easy to navigate to specific pages or text within the document.
- Import links from Microsoft Word: If you did all the writing, including adding links, in Microsoft Word, you’ll be happy to hear that InDesign will maintain the formatting and links, so you don’t have to do the same work twice.
Publish Your Online Work
InDesign enables instant online publishing without the need for additional software or plugins. Your project can be shared via a URL and accessed on various devices. You can easily update your published documents with new media and republish them for seamless content updates.
Additional Adobe Creative Cloud Apps
- Adobe InDesign is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. This means that you can use it with other Adobe products, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects.
- It is constantly being updated with new features and functionality. This means that you can be sure that you are always using the latest version of the software.
- It is a great choice for anyone who needs to create professional-looking documents. It is also a great choice for anyone who wants to save time, collaborate with others, or get creative with their documents.
Adobe InDesign Free Alternatives for PC
Two notable alternatives to Adobe InDesign for PC users are CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and QuarkXpress. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite offers a comprehensive set of design tools and features, while QuarkXpress is a professional publishing software known for its advanced typographic control and layout capabilities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Adobe InDesign Creative Cloud is a professional layout and page design software application that can be used to create a variety of print and digital documents. It is available for Windows and macOS.
Yes, absolutely, you can download the latest version of InDesign as a trial for free and use it for 7 days on your Mac or Windows PC. But to be able to use it uninterrupted even after the trial period, you can subscribe to a Creative Cloud plan.
The installation process is quite easy, simply download the latest version of Adobe InDesign 2023 on Windows 11/10 64-bit. Run the installer setup and follow the onscreen instructions to sign in and complete the installation process.
InDesign and Photoshop are Adobe’s applications, but each serves a different purpose. InDesign is primarily used for layout and design, specifically for print and digital publications. On the other hand, Photoshop is primarily a graphics editor to edit, and enhance images.
Both of these are powerful Adobe applications. However, InDesign is better suited for layout and publication design, while Illustrator excels in creating and editing vector-based graphics and illustrations. The choice between them depends on the specific needs and requirements of the design project.
Adobe Illustrator is widely regarded as the best software for logo design due to its vector-based capabilities, precise control over shapes, and scalability.
Minimum requirement is a PC running Windows 10, 11 (64-bit) or macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or higher having a multicore Intel, AMD or Apple Silicon/M1 processor with 8 GB memory and 4 GB or more storage space. If your system doesn’t meet the minimum, then we strongly recommend you upgrade your hardware. Otherwise, you will face low performance and crashing issues.
Even though it is recommended to have at least 8 GB of RAM for good performance, you can still use this application with less RAM. However, it might not work as well or be as fast. In case you want to use Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom together with it, it is advisable to have a 16 GB memory to ensure smooth performance.
To uninstall the app after your free trial, follow these steps:
1. Type “Add or Remove Programs” in the Windows search bar and press Enter.
2. Locate Adobe InDesign in the list of installed programs and click the Uninstall button.
3. The app will prompt you to save InDesign settings. You can select No.
The Adobe Uninstallation Wizard will then remove InDesign from your computer.
To cancel your account before the end of the 8-day trial, please follow these steps:
1. Log in to your Adobe account.
2. On the menu bar, click on “Plans” and select “Manage Plans”.
3. Click on the “Cancel Plan” button. You can skip the questions and click on the “Confirm” link at the bottom of the page.
Once your account is canceled, you will lose immediate access to InDesign
