Learning Indesign

I'm on the 17th hole of my career and have a part-time sports editor job where I just email stories to the editor. I've had a full-time job offer or two, but they entail using Indesign to do pages 2-3 times a week. For someone who hasn't done layout in a while, is bad on computers and has not used this system, how difficult is Indesign to learn? Is it possible I'll just never grasp it?

 

It's not terribly difficult to learn the basics:
• Black arrow tool moves stuff around.
• White arrow tool moves pictures around.
• T-tool draws text boxes and lets you work with words.
• Rectangle tool draws picture boxes.
• Magnifying glass zooms in, CMMD/Apple + 0 zooms all the way out.

If you've used Quark back in the day, most of it is just figuring out a few differences between the programs. If your paper has any style sheets or templates for you to work with, that can probably help you figure out the mechanics of it while cutting down the number of options you have to deal with.

 

It's easier than pasting up waxed copy and cutting rubylith.

 

This. If you've used Quark, you can do InDesign. Just need to translate a few terms from Quarkspeak to InDesignspeak. A lot of the keystrokes are the same in both systems.

 

InDesign is Quark on steroids, and it's the most user-friendly system I've come across in 20-plus years.

 

Agreed. Took little time for me to learn it.

 

Yeah, it's not tough. Plenty of online tutorials and message boards, too.

 

When my shop made the switch, there was a hilarious training CD that promoted InDesign over Quark. Guy did everything but say "This function is so much better that what Quark does, Quark runs away crying to its mother."

 

I spent considerable time paginating with both of them. And there's no comparison.

 

Quark is a V-6 Camaro. InDesign is the ZL-1 Camaro, a fire-breathing, supercharged beast that makes other muscle cars wet their pants.

It's not too hard to learn. I was trained on Quark and learned InDesign on my own. As far as ease of use and stability, InDesign can't be beat. Once you learn the tricks, it's a quantum leap better.

 

Now THAT sounds like the video I referenced earlier.

 

It's pretty much the only service — other than water, sewage and garbage pick-up — that could quadruple in price and I'd still happily pay for.