Story Editor

Enter, edit, and style text in the new Story Editor, an integrated word-processing view that helps you edit text efficiently across text frames and pages. As you work in Story Editor, the changes you're making appear in your layout. Also view and apply XML tags in the Story Editor. Customize the Story Editor by setting preferences for font, font size, font color, line spacing, background color, and other display options. (See About the story editor.)

Separations Preview palette

Avoid costly mistakes before they appear on film or press using the new Separations Preview palette. Print professionals can now visually check single or multiple plates, preview what's overprinting, and view ink limit warnings. (See Previewing color separations on screen.)

Flattener Preview palette

Prevent problems and produce better printed results: use the new Flattener Preview palette to highlight and evaluate on-screen how transparency flattener presets affect transparent objects. These include drop shadows, feathered objects, transparent Photoshop or Illustrator files, and the text and graphics that interact with them. Then apply your selected transparency flattener preset to your print settings. (See Using the Flattener Preview palette.)

Performance enhancements

Experience much faster performance when zooming in or out of pages, scrolling with the grabber hand, wrapping text around objects, and importing Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Word or Excel files.

Bleeds and slugs

Specify bleed and slug areas--sized independently for each page edge--during document setup (slugs typically contain job details and approvals). Set whether bleeds and slugs appear in print and PDF output. (See Starting a new document.)

Document presets

Save commonly used file settings, such as page size, columns, and margins, as document presets--similar to Printer and PDF Export presets--which you can quickly select when you open a new file. (See About InDesign styles and presets.)

Nested styles

Apply complex text formatting quickly by defining character styles and nesting them within paragraph styles. The nested styles are then automatically applied to the appropriate run of text whenever the paragraph styles are applied. For example, nest a style to quickly set drop caps or inline headings in paragraphs. (See Applying nested styles to a paragraph.)

Enhanced text import

You can place text without formatting. You can also select a preference option to determine whether placed text is linked or embedded.

New Info palette

Use the new Info palette to view text statistics, such as the number of characters, words, lines, and paragraphs in a text frame, or the amount of text oversetting a frame. Also view the actual and original resolution of images you import and resize, as well as their color space and type. (See Using the Info palette.)

XML validation through DTD support

Verify that imported XML documents are valid using the new support in InDesign CS for DTDs (Document Type Definitions). When an XML file violates a DTD's ruleset, Adobe InDesign catches what's invalid, displays the errors for you to review, and helps you fix them. (See Using a DTD to structure XML content.)

Mapping character styles to XML tags

Map character styles to XML tags--as easily as you map paragraph styles to tags--to quickly style imported XML documents or to add structure to styled documents. (See Mapping InDesign styles and XML tags.)

Measure tool

Quickly calculate the distance between any two points on a page using the new Measure tool, which is similar to ones in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. The new Info palette reports the measured distance. (See Laying out pages with precision.)

Workspace management

Customize your InDesign workspace to suit your creative workflow:

• Use the Control palette to format text and edit objects efficiently with the context-sensitive, dockable Control palette. (See Using the Control palette.)
• Save palette locations as custom workspaces, which you can load at any time. (See Saving custom workspaces.)
• Dock palettes in collapsible palette bays that tuck along the edge of your window.

Pathfinder commands

Quickly turn several individual shapes into a compound shape with the Pathfinder palette. For example, use Exclude to create a compound shape by subtracting any original shapes that overlap. (See Working with compound shapes.)

Usability enhancements for text and graphics

Double-click a text frame to switch instantly to the Type tool and make changes to the text. Maintain a text selection as you move a text frame or another object. View text composition changes as you resize or move a text frame with dynamic text preview. Work visually to resize and even distort text--simply press the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) key as you interactively resize a text frame. Alt+double-click (Windows) or Option+double-click (Mac OS) a linked graphic to open and edit it in its original program, and then update your InDesign file.

Running headers and footers in tables

Set up running headers and footers for your tables. InDesign will then automatically add headers or footers to tables in multiple linked text frames. (See Working with headers and footers in a table.)

Enhanced text wrap

Control whether or not text wrap settings apply to text and graphic objects on hidden layers. Also control whether text wrap affects all of the text frames in a stack or just ones beneath the wrap object. (See About wrapping text.)

Stroke style editor

Use the Strokes palette to create striped, dotted, and dashed stroke styles, and apply them to underlines and strikethroughs, as well as to lines and paragraph rules. Also export stroke styles for use in other documents. (See Defining custom stroke styles.)

Mixed ink support

Combine two inks--such as a spot color and a varnish or a spot and a process color--to broaden the range of colors available in a two-color print design. Set up a mixed ink group in which the base swatch is a parent to related swatches. Editing the base swatch then automatically updates the related swatches. (See Creating mixed ink swatches and groups.)

Color swatch enhancements

Add multiple swatches to the InDesign Swatches palette in one quick step. (See Importing swatches.)

User-specified glyph sets

Organize the glyphs you use frequently into sets that you can easily access in the popular Glyphs palette. Then browse and insert glyphs from these sets more efficiently. (See Creating custom glyph sets.)

Direct export of Adobe PDF files

Export Acrobat 6.0 (Adobe PDF 1.5), 5.0, and 4.0 files directly. Even export InDesign layers as PDF 1.5 layers without flattening them. Fine-tune PDF-based printing workflows using InDesign CS software's built-in support for internationally recognized PDF-X/1A and PDF X/3 standards. (See Exporting a document or book to Adobe PDF.)

Authoring of richly interactive PDFs

Produce richer PDF experiences for your audience: Embed movies and sounds, add bookmarks, and create interactive buttons that play back movies and sounds, turn pages, and more. (See About interactivity.)

Enhanced support for Photoshop (PSD) files

Import native Photoshop CS files with transparency. Place and print duotone, tritone, and quadtone PSD files, as well as PSD and TIFF files containing spot channels. (See Importing Adobe Photoshop (.PSD) files.)

Enhanced support for XMP (eXtensible Metadata Platform)

View and track metadata for imported text and graphics files more efficiently using the easy-to-use, customizable File Info dialog box or the Links palette. For example, easily access the rich data embedded in new Adobe Photoshop CS files. (See Adding metadata to documents.)

Package for GoLive command

Use the Package for GoLive command to export InDesign pages or books for easy repurposing in Adobe GoLive® CS layouts. InDesign automatically generates a structured PDF file along with supporting XML files. When you drag objects from the PDF into a GoLive layout, GoLive retrieves the associated XML objects. Character or paragraph styles convert automatically to cascading style sheets. (See Working with InDesign and Adobe GoLive.)

Adobe Version Cue

Use Adobe Version Cue™ features in Adobe InDesign CS to increase your productivity when you work alone or collaborate with others. You can integrate InDesign design management into your existing workflows within and across the Adobe Creative Suite applications. The InDesign features in InDesign CS are compatible only with the Adobe Version Cue Workspace, which is a feature that is available only as part of the Adobe Creative Suite. (See Working with Adobe Version Cue managed projects.)