Little Bundle of Joy
There's been a recent arrival into my family recently, bringing all sorts of joy and warmth. My little bundle of software by Adobe was delivered yesterday, and included InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, GoLive and some other little extras. We're having a gift exchange in sign language class on thursday, and I've made a mix cd to include in my gift and I had just about finished with making the linernotes the manual and long way (which of course has its own merits and resultant style), so once I got the software I went to work doing on the computer what I had just done by hand.InDesign. Having had like two years' break from using Quark, I would probably have to spend mega time just finding where everything is again anyhow. So I pretty much feel like I'm using a QuarkXpress where all the shortcuts and locations are different. Both programs pretty much do the same thing anyway, don't they? I guess it makes sense that they are so similar. If there are any Graphic Designers reading who have used both, which do you prefer and why, or do you even have a preference anymore?
So I got the 英語版 English version of the package, and most of the programs support Kanji and kana without a hitch. I guess it makes sense which one doesn't. Can you guess? Yes, InDesign. So if I want any Japanese to be displayed I need to trace it in Illustrator and import the EPS. Bleh. Of course I don't regret getting the English version, because Japanese menus would slow everything up to no end. When learning a new program that does something I already have customs regarding, trying to decode the Japanese would make my brain explode and the brain juice would wreck my laptop. So maybe in the future I'll have to look into getting Japanese character support for the program. Surely they offer some kind addition. But I'll bet it costs as much as my Educational Edition of Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium cost. Which was 約５万円 (about $500) for $3000 of software, if you can believe it. But I doubt there is any such edu discount on something so specific, or the edu discount wouldn't be all that much. And now I have no excuse for not having a digital camera.
Having recently cracked the outside screen on my cell phone, it's about time I looked into getting it upgraded anyway. Perhaps I have enough points now to get my next one for free. Then I could add ichiman or so to that maybe and get one with an okay camera? It would do well to be looked into.
On the topic of digicams, I saw an 8 mpxl camera the other day, which would mean that they are now at about half the resolution of a normal 35mm film. Probably a 5 or 6 would be enough for me anyways; which would be well supplemented with a medium format camera
I guess it depends on what I can get for how much.
I don't really have the cash to throw to a digicam right now. Sigh, I gotta replace the front tires on my car as well as a few other things... at least I shouldn't have to buy winter tires, given that we normally only get a few days of snow all year. Of course that means no driving into the west or tokushima or north of Japan or over any mountains during the winter for Matthew, but really, is that all so important?
posted by Fletcher @ 5:22 p.m.
9 Comments:
Matt, yeah, InDesign sucks that it can't support Japanese characters, but I am almost 100% sure there is an add-on for it. I emailed the company about it a good while back, but can't remember what they said... maybe they just told me to buy the Japanese version. I wanted to edit Team Taught Pizza on InDesign, but had to change tack when I found out I couldn't input the Japanese translations. How annoying. And if you were fretting over translating Japanese menus in the Japanese version, imagine how I'd be!
I'd love to play on all that software sometime, though... Just to get an idea of all that power
I'm not sure it's power as much as convenience. Like, you could do a lot of the stuff by hand, and maybe it helps to know the manual way. It's just that it wastes a lot less paste-up paper and so forth, and saves your brain from the rubber cement fumes, and then of course there is the accuracy. You can control a lot on your own with it, too I suppose, rather than having to send stuff to a typographer etc, or doing the manual typography yourself (kerning, leading, what have you). So it's mega convenient. When I was first learning Quark sometimes all the new computers were full and I had to use a Mac Classic (black and white, four inch screen, perhaps the first portable computer?) and it worked fine. Effectively the programs still do much the same stuff, just of computers that can display more (fewer greeked lines of text, fewer pics replaces with grey boxes). So powerful seems a little strong. But the convenience, oh the convenience. Come feel the convenience and control of a proper program and save yourself from Desktop Publishing (aka Hell?).
Power..．convenience. Yeah, ok. I just heard that there's SO much you can do with these packages. I mean, it would have saved me a world of headaches: you try wrestling 400 poages of Word text, written on 10 different computers (all of them PCs) on to a Mac, and then you'll have an idea of what I went through. That's more convenience than power, sure. I'd just love to see what it was all capapble of!
Yeah, that was insane what you did. No grids, no templates, no flowing text in boxes, perhaps no syle sheets, and a program as appropriate for laying out a book as an elephant is the appropriate tool for cutting out tissue paper stars. Given the massive handicap you had, the fact that you pulled is off looks like a miracle but probably felt like migraine.
If I had to choose between making a book in Microsoft Word or making it manually, I'd probably go for manually. Even if I had to make 3000 copies, manual could be far less frustrating. Holy crap I can't even begin to imagine doing that Team Taught Pizza the way you did. I hope they lined your pockets with gold for that.
Haha, not gold, no, but thanks for the props!
I am looking forward to dropping all that on my Mac! Dad
Tough beans Dad, they have a lockout so that you can only use it on one computer. When you upload the software onto your computer you need to register the code right away and activate the software through Adobe, otherwise it all becomes unusable after thirty days. So if you want it you'll just have to buy it for yourself.
Shucks!
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