Real World Adobe InDesign 1.5: Industrial-Strength Page-Layout, 1st edition
Authors: Olav Martin Kvern
Venue:  (2000)

From the Book:I admit it. I absolutely refuse to stop and ask for directions. I'm a guy, so it's probably part of my genetic makeup. The way I see it, if you make enough right turns along the way, you're bound to get where you are going-or at least back to where you started. Yes, I understand that this strategy doesn't always yield the most direct, efficient, or scenic route to my destination, but there is a sense of pride and self-reliance in finally figuring out how to get to your destination on your own. And yes, it drives my wife crazy. But even with this admission of guilt, there are times that the most intrepid explorers should look to an expert to assist us in finding whatever it is we're looking for. It's times like these I wish Olive Kvern would write Real World Frequent Flying. Or Real World Japanese Food. Or Real World Retirement Planning. I know if I had such a guide written with such clarity and insight, it would certainly make the process of needing to stop and ask directions a more pleasant one. As it is, graphic designers and production artists the world over can be grateful that Olav's experience lies in the realm of professional publishing and not (necessarily) in the matters I mentioned, because this book contains a treasure trove of information to help you take the absolute fullest advantage of the creative freedom afforded by Adobe InDesign. In short, this book contains directions that are worth stopping and asking for. It should come as no surprise to you that Real World Adobe InDesign is an expansive look into how Adobe InDesign functions and how you can make best use of it to produce beautiful pages. To say that Olive understands the skills used everyday by publishing and graphic design professionals is an understatement"guru" is the word that more readily comes to mind. His excellent works, Real World PageMaker and Real World Freehand, are studied and used daily by thousands of grateful designers to help improve their work and their workflow. Olav is no newcomer to page layout software, and he's no newcomer to Adobe InDesign either. He has been involved with InDesign from the earliest stages of its development in its pre-beta stage long before InDesign 1.0 shipped. As a product manager for InDesign 1.0 and 1.5, 1 can tell you with no uncertainty that Olav's feedback to our development team shaped many of InDesign's capabilities. Olav has produced in Real World Adobe InDesign a comprehensive guide that helps you get up to speed quickly with InDesign's new features. Olav's easy, conversational style of writing is both engaging and thorough, making Real World Adobe InDesign as useful a starting point for beginners as it is a reference for experts with years of ink under their fingernails. At Adobe, we think so much of Olav's talents that we contracted him to write the excellent InDesign Scripting Guide that ships with every version of InDesign worldwide. Suffice it to say that Olav is one of the world's true experts in the area of using Adobe InDesign in a professional publishing environment. In creating Adobe InDesign 1.5, we endeavored to bring a tool to the graphic designer and production artist that would offer power, flexibility, precision and quality in a way that takes full advantage of modern computing power-and tear down many of the barriers that existing software has imposed on the elegance of graphic design. For the literally thousands of features Adobe InDesign has introduced to the world of graphic design and production, Real World Adobe InDesign will expose to you the best ways to take advantage of them. I believe that the information in this book will allow you to unleash the creative potential of InDesign-and of yourself-in ways that have been impossible before now. This much I can say: Real World Adobe InDesign has earned its place-not on my bookshelf-but right beside my mouse. I am certain it will do the same for you. Wishing you the best and brightest realization of your creative dreams, David Evans Senior Evangelist, Adobe InDesign Adobe Systems, Inc. Seattle, Washington