InDesign CS2: Clumsy and Inconsistent

But still a huge improvement over Quark XPress 4.1.

The day finally came that my office joined the 21st Century. While the majority of us have been piloting flying cars in outer space for the last 7 years while wearing silver suits that are just a tad too baggy round the legs and drinking our food through some kind of futuristic space straw, everyone around me has been stuck sitting at desks operating the archaic OS9, because it's still considered a print industry standard. No more though - we are at last in the process of upgrading to OS X (that's pronounced OS ten, just like its cousins Windows tempy and Linyaten) bundled with the complete Adobe Creative Suite CS2. And the single most significant application among them as far as my own workflow is concerned is InDesign, Adobe's direct challenge to Quark.

For the past few weeks I've been exploring InDesign, trying to work out how we can get it to work for us, and my conclusions are double edged. On the one hand it is a huge improvement over even the latest version of Quark which has all the elegance of Quark 4.1 run in Classic. Simple features such as transparency and drop shadow support, the story editor, tables, nested objects and object styles have been a constant source of bewildered stares as the people around me try to figure out how they ever worked without them. On the other hand, there are numerous inconsistencies and issues outlined below that can be both frustrating and baffling, and I would really like to see improved on by CS3. (As CS3 is already available, I invite comments from people that have direct experience).

Page Jumps
Trying to keep track of all the "see page xx" references can be a colossal task that the software should really be doing for you. It's a logical extension of the index and contents feature and should be included. A $200 USD third party plug-in that does this and nothing more is quite insulting.

Table styles
I like the way that InDesign interconnects paragraph and character style sheets, and object styles are a gift from the heavens. Adding table styles to the collection would be perfection.

Table borders
These are confusing as hell to set. It's like they copied Excel, but deliberately sabotaged the interface to avoid software patent infringement. I've been fiddling with these for nearly a month and still cannot do the simplest thing without a lot of trial and error.

Table cell auto-expansion to accommodate anchored objects
Doesn't happen. Anchored objects in table cells just hang over into the next cell below, meaning you have to set the cell height manually. Once you do that, you may as well throw the whole idea of consistency of appearance out the window.

Text wrap on anchored objects doesn't work within table cells
It just doesn't. Why does Adobe think that images anchored within tables should be exempt from text wrapping under all circumstances? Does having text appear behind graphics so it cannot be read satisfy some need I haven't thought of?

Text wrap on anchored objects doesn't affect the line it's anchored to
The help files mention this is the case, but doesn't explain why. I for one cannot think of a single situation where this would be useful, but without even having begun serious production I have come across countless situations where the text wrap becoming effective from the line it's anchored to would be essential. Instead I have to find workarounds, which I shouldn't need to do.

Text wraps around embedded clipping paths beyond the boundaries of the container box
WTF. That's all I have to say on the matter.

Object styles apply to grouped items individually
They should apply to the group as a whole. This seriously detracts from the value of object styles.

Missing features from paragraph styles
Too many to mention all, but stroke settings on outlines, stroke colour on automated bullets/numbering, and removal of settings from child styles (e.g. a font is set in a child style, but you want to remove the setting so the font reflects that of the parent style) are at the top of my list.

Expand appearance
Entering Illustrator territory here, but InDesign could use this too, especially as it supports converting text to outlines.

Half-hearted support for callouts
We've got the lines and the little circles to go on the ends, but there's no way to put a white outline around it.

Edit original doesn't work properly
If the original is an image file associated with Preview, then that's the application it opens with. There should be a choice of application to edit with. Furthermore, if you edit original with an embedded file using say Photoshop, hitting save brings up the Save dialog. You cannot save it back into the document.

Phantom fonts
Mysterious non-existent fonts that appear in Preflight as problematic but are not detected by the Find Font feature. Woooooooo! These are especially apparent when pulling data in from Quark 3J. Likewise non-existent fonts that can be freely used, and it doesn't tell you they're non-existent until you go to package it. Wooooooo!

Doesn't play nicely with Illustrator CS2
When exporting a page as EPS, white boundary lines appear around objects requiring raster effects.

Still no view orientation
This actually applies to Photoshop and Illustrator too, and I've been asking for this feature now for years. Why is there no way to orientate the view? Often when you're working on a package design, large sections are upside down because of the physics of expanding a package into a flat sheet. I don't want to do large sections of design work standing on my head. Allowing the view angle to be changes is as obvious as having a zoom function.

These are just for starters. I'm sure I'll be expanding this list before too very long.