Adobe CS Shortcomings
Published November 20, 2003
Quark did the same thing. For Student Publications I ordered a lab pack 15 seat license of Quark 6 which came with no printed materials what so ever. I cannot find a manual for purchase on the Quark site. Quark 6 online help is in the Help Viewer, just like the Macromedia apps help files are.
I am already disappointed in Adobe for not including printed manuals. This is not like them. But of course this is a growing trend that only irritates customers. I wonder why developers like Adobe, Quark, and Macromedia, etc, etc, don't seem to care.
UPGRADE COST?
Also, if you do the math on the upgrade you will be scratching your head. $169 a piece for the new Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign (the three apps in the Standard CS suite) is less then the upgrade cost of $550.
CS INTEGRATION?
These apps are supposed to be even more integrated as ever. First they need to be consistent, then they can be integrated.
The new features in Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator are great and in some cases numerous, but I am not going to talk about them. I think Macworld did a great job of explaining the "best of" the new features. I might highlight some of my favorite new bells and whistles, but I am not going to go in-depth on anything.
Adobe claims that the new Adobe CS is integrated more then ever. There are some glaring omissions IMO to this integrated package Adobe calls Creative Suite.
Lets start with the New Document dialog. Photoshop and InDesign allows you to make custom document sizes. Which is nice, now you don't have to edit a text file to make a custom entry in the Preset drop down menu. But there is no such custom preset feature in ImageReady or in Illustrator. Why not? I am not seeing integration here.
The Keyboard Presets editor in Photoshop is really nice. It allows you to change keys for the menus, tools, and even the palettes. You can also save out an HTML file of the shortcuts (although it tries to open this file in InDesign CS, I do not understand that). The HTML file that is exported is nice though. This Summerize feature is not in InDesign, Illustrator, or ImageReady. Illustrator will export a very poorly formatted text file. InDesign exports a better formatted text file.
Ken Edwards is the Gaming Editor at Blogcritics, and calls Breaking Windows home. Ken works part time for Student Publications at BGSU as the Webmaster and System Administrator. He is also a freelance web developer.
![Adobe Creative Suites Premium 1.1 [Old Version]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41TJCB22D4L._SY90_.jpg "Adobe Creative Suites Premium 1.1 [Old Version]")
- Adobe CS Shortcomings
- Published: November 20, 2003
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- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Software
- Writer: Ken Edwards
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If you like your keyboard shortcuts, don't buy this program. None of the Windows function shortcuts (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+S, etc.) work.
Huh? Control+S works just fine! A friend owns the PC version, and it does, in fact work. Why those standard ones would not work is beyond me.
Well actually it is not beyond me. I know that if you decide to install on of the PC kracks for the Adobe CS suite, you loose a lot of keyboard shortcut functionality. I have read this on a couple message boards.
I don't want to point fingers, but I do want people to know this is not a flaw with the applications. The first pdx crack out basically disabled the control key.
Wow, isn't google a good friend ;)
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Hey, thanks for the review. The new stuff seem pretty neat. Makes me want to dive in and give it a whirl sometime. It's always handy to read about the negatives of a program. Looking forward to your next continued review.