Inspiring

Answered

Any warnings against producing my magazines in Illustrator?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
November 17, 2022
13 replies
19222 views

Apart from the lack of the grid system (which I abandoned, I am going to paint my layout in Illustrator) what can InDesign in terms of magazine production, that Illustrator can't?

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Correct answer Laubender

Hi @Chris P. Bacon ,

note, that the feature to copy/paste formatted text between Illustrator and InDesign is a new feature with InDesign 2023 and Illustrator 2023. You are still on InDesign 2022 and Illustrator 2022.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

I will have to create the whole mag in Illustrator, and after it's finished I will need to move it over to InDesign frame by frame, and do the blending in InDesign.

Like that I it will be like the whole thing was created in InDesign, and I can use the options that are only available in InDesign, and import it afterewards to PDF from InDesign.

So that I will get a "live" document in InDesign in the end.

Because I need live frames and live text anyway to create my ebook versions with interactive HTML5 from indesign.

But if anyone knows better, the thread is open.

Gusgsm

Inspiring

Hi,

It's not really a question of what each programme "can / cannot do". It's a "could do if there were no other way (but I'd rather not ) / usual workflow for thousands of professionals in the industry". Some of us could be absolutelly clueless, but almost all of us? I think the explanation must be somewhere else.

The main issue is text-related, dealing with pages and flow of texts. InDesign is way better and easier to work with in this.

As long as you give PDF files to the printer , you can design a magazine even with Photoshop, if you feel like it, but it'd be some kind of an achademic exercise or show-off operation just for the sake of it.

A real magazine (for instance a weekly thing of one hundred pages or more) with Illustrator? Please, kill me. I am sufferings just by thinking about it.

Best regards

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

If I move over all frames frame by frame after I am done with it in Illustrator, into InDesign, then it's like if it was created in InDesign.

So far as I know, there is no option to move all frames over at once so that the frames will be separate in InDesign too.

The graphics part of it must be created in Illustrator, because InDesign doesn't have the tools like brushes and graphics effects to work with.

Gusgsm

Inspiring

If you feel more at ease sketching with Illustrator, it's your take (not that InDesign is sooo different to do that, anyway), You could even sketch by hand in paper (not joking).

Afterwards you can place those sketches in a layer at the bottom, make them 50% oppacity and block the layer. So you can redraw and make the good (native) InDesign elements above and discard the layer. I have done that many times with pieces of PDF from our archives. It's a fast way to preview where you want to get at in complex designs.

One tiny detail worth mentioning is that choosing a difficult (uncommon) way of working implies not only extra effort while doing the work but a severe reduction of viable solutions when you have to redo something; a change in the project, a detail that does not work as desired, whatever... it will happen. And when it happens the selection of a suboptimal tool for the job will bite you.

That said, learning the basis of InDesign and how to feel at ease with the day to day workflow is priceless. You'll save yourself hours of work. Really. Illustrator is a beautiful programme, but when it comes to assemble different pieces, InDesign is the mothership that runs in circles around Illustrator and Photoshop. Because it was designed precisely for this.

Has it been mentioned that the way InDesign deals with color and inks is better (much easier) as well?

L

Laubender

Correct answer

Community Expert

Hi @Chris P. Bacon ,

note, that the feature to copy/paste formatted text between Illustrator and InDesign is a new feature with InDesign 2023 and Illustrator 2023. You are still on InDesign 2022 and Illustrator 2022.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

Ah, then it's solved.

Thanks for the heads up.

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

No, I did not find the solution. Need OCR outline to type converter for InDesign, not for Illustrator.

chrisg11235813

Participating Frequently

inDesign will accept placed .ai files.

if you won't need to adjust the text, you wont need to make it live in indesign.

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

I do need to adjust the text.

I want to export a real InDesign professional type documetn with real text with InDesign capability.

OCR seems the only solution.

.ai will not preserve the text as outlines (or will it?)

But SVG will.

After that I just need an OCR program made for InDesign, to reconvert the outlines to type.

There is one already made by ESKO, for Illustrator, and it's amazing, I have tried it, you get back the perfect original type, everything is automatic, font matching and sizing.

Barb Binder

Community Expert

Fascinating thread with one correction: Illustrator now supports basic bullet and numbered lists.

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/bullets-numbering.html

So @Chris, you're asking a group of experienced InDesign experts what they would do and I think they've shared some insightful answers.

It seems like you have already made up your mind, but it might be fun to go ask on the Illustrator forum and see what they have to say. Some of us work on both forums, and perhaps we can agree to observe and not repeat what we've already said, but I suspect the bias may change if you ask over there. I'll admit that I'm curious.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/ct-p/ct-illustrator?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all&lang=all&tabid=discussions

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

Seems to me

Create the 'painted' layouts in Illustrator

File>Place in InDesign

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

That's what I am supposed to do, but issue is that after I will have to adjust the graphics to the ever changing text dimensions or layout through the work, not the other way around. And I can only adjust the graphics by "edit original" in Illustrator. But there I don't see the text. So how will I adjust it then?

The graphics doesn't change much or if it does, not its dimensions.

But the dimensions of text can change if it's a text on graphics layout, and unless I stick with predefined text lenghts, I am unable to see the text change Illustrator, so it will be difficult to adjust the graphics to it.

I think then I should copy the text object from InDesign and temporarily paste it inti Illustrator but I am not sure that works.

Is it possible to link text objects so that I could drop them into my InDesign package and then I could retrieve them also from Illustrator?

chrisg11235813

Participating Frequently

If you are not concerned with consistancy of layout from one spread to the next, you could create every spread, or certain spreads in illustrator. I would still combine everything in indesign, it would be easier than trying to manage pages in Acrobat.

But the consensus seems to be that inDesign is the best way to work with multipage projects -- I agree 100%.

S

SJRiegel

Legend

@Chris P. Bacon wrote:

what can InDesign in terms of magazine production, that Illustrator can't?

It can create indexes and tables of contents.

It has page-numbering and parent pages.

It has margin and bleed settings designed for publications (inside/outside).

It has align toward or away from spine for text. It has the ability to create tables. It's pages pallet and page arrangement is designed for publications; facing pages with cover pages.

In Summary, InDesign is purpose-built for creating publications; Illustrator is not. You are using a hammer to pound in a screw. Sure, it sort of works, but it's a lot more trouble, and the final result is less secure.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

InDesign has also a baseline grid.
InDesign has a Preflight Panel.
InDesign has automatic bullets and lists.
InDesign has GREP and nested Styles.
InDesign offers facing pages.
InDesign text design is based on Paragraph Styles, Illustrator is mor based on Character Style. InDesign's Paragraph Styles are far more developed.
InDesign can use content with different color modes, Illustrtor can link to different color modes too, but not as generic content.
InDesign can cooperate with InCopy, important for magazines.

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

InCopy is nice, but TiddlyWiki and TiddlyMap is nicer.

But that's a bit of a dilemma for me, maybe I will come back to InCopy.

You have a huge advantage if you write your final text in InDesign, because all those hours staring at your work will give you new ideas for the appearance (fonts, graphics) of your document, that has nothing to do with text.

Those hours in InCopy will lock you only into the text.

Writing looking at the physical size of your document, I see it as a potential for inspiration more than looking at the isolated InCopy interface, because graphics and text need to work together.#

Maybe InCopy is better for less graphical publications.

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

Is Illustrator able to justify text with the same effectivity as InDesign? Especially full justification with no distortions. I already found my prefect recipe for that in the settings in InDesign, can I import it into Illustrator?

rob day

Community Expert

Is Illustrator able to justify text with the same effectivity as InDesign?

It has the same justification settings, but maybe the question should be what are you doing in Illustrator that can’t be done in InDesign?

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

Brushes, shape manipulation and masking are what I need, maybe 3D simulation would also be useful for graphics.

InDesign cannot do that.

Great, if it has the same justification capability as InDesign, I will work with Illustrator instead.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

In my opinion Illustrator should not be used for page layout for anything other than simple flyers/banners/etc.

InDesign is the page layout tool and has far more typographical features, page management, parent pages (formerly master pages), running heads, automatic page numbers, footnotes, endnotes, etc.

Illustrator has very little or none of these long document features.

If you find Illustrator easier to use, by all means create a layout there - but try to recreate that created design in InDesign.

Good luck

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

Page layout can be hand painted using brushes, in Illustrator, because once you drop the grid, you don't have anymore the requirement of "order".

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Illustrator is for vectors, Photoshop is for bitmaps - InDesign is for bringing it together surrounded by text.

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