Upgrading from Prior Versions of InDesign

Actually, all installations of InDesign CS are new installations. The installer creates a new folder and places your new copy of InDesign in it ‚ regardless of whether you were using a previous version of InDesign. The only difference between purchasing a new product and upgrading is the price you pay for the software.

Installing new software has its good points and bad points. On the plus side, your existing, earlier-version copy of InDesign is available for future use. You never know when you'll need it ‚ for example, for that new client who has no intention of upgrading to InDesign CS yet ‚ so it's worth keeping on your machine or at least storing on a CD or Zip disk. The drawback is, of course, that you need space in which to store this old software.

For Mac-based organizations that have Mac OS 9 ‚ based systems, or that want to run Mac Classic mode from Mac OS X for compatibility with other software (including plug-ins), having both InDesign CS and an earlier version is a good idea. After all, InDesign CS does not run on Mac OS 9 or earlier.

A bigger drawback to the fact that InDesign CS requires a new installation is that InDesign CS won't have any of the custom settings you've selected in your earlier version of InDesign ‚ you often don't realize how many preferences you've set over time until you switch to a new version of the software.

If you did put some effort into customizing InDesign, when you start using InDesign CS, do the following:

• Reset your preferences in the Preferences dialog box (InDesign ‚ Preferences on the Mac and Edit ‚ Preferences in Windows, or z +K or Ctrl+K).

• Copy any color swatch libraries from the previous version of InDesign (as well as from Adobe Illustrator) to the Swatch Libraries folder in the Presets folder in your InDesign application folder.

• With no document open , set any preferences such as style sheets and color definitions that you want to be used in all future documents. You can also load such settings from other documents using the Load menu option in the various panes' palette menus .

Although the customizing process can be tedious , it's definitely preferable to performing repetitive tasks such as creating the same style sheet for each document.