Illustrator vs InDesign for laying out a simple picture book?

[karenf1]

With the Artboards feature now available,  should i still use InDesign to create a layout  for a simple children's picturebook with a small amount of text per page? Is there anything that I don't see? It would be much easier for me to stay in Illustrator. My plan is to create a a pfd book and an ebook for sure - and possibly, later a printed book. I'm completely stumped about how to make the right choice. BTW - I don't plan to produce the ebooks via InDesign but through a simple iPad App that just allows you to lay in a picture and put the text over it. Thanks so much for any insights into this. I'm using CS4.

[Jacob Bugge · Accepted solution]

Karen,

There is nothing wrong in creating the book with the help of Illy only.

You may read on here, in this recent thread:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4665276#4665276

[karenf1]

Jacob- thanks for your speedy & helpful reply! I am reading the thread you reference. It's full of great info. I noticed this comment:

"So long as the page count is modest, and your artwork is built with reasonable efficiency, there's no reason why you can't do the whole document in Illustrator "

Would you have any reccomendations on when you've left "modest?" My books will be approximately 32 pages.

And one last question: are there text styles you can set up in Illy" and is tehre anything like Master Pages?

Again, many thanks!

[JETalmage]

Would you have any reccomendations on when you've left "modest?" My books will be approximately 32 pages.

You start to exceed "modest" when your document:

• Needs over 100 pages (Illustrator's Artboard limit).
• Contain a large number of (often oversampled) linked raster images. (Many, if not most, users very often needlessly oversample raster images.)
• Contain a large number of very complicated vector graphics. (Think highly-detailed metro road maps or something.)
• Contain large amounts of long threaded text stories.
• Contain a large number of live raster effects.

The document you've described so far does not sound like that. But you've provided very little information about the actual content. ("Picture" doesn't tell anyone anything; doesn't even indicate whether you're talking about raster images or vector graphics.) So long as your "pictures" are reasonably optimized, you'll most likely be fine. Nothing you've described so far would cause me to hesitate to build the whole document in a drawing program—but that's based on how I envision what you've described, in the context of how I would typically build it. Without knowing the specifics, one can really only advise you to start building the file and see (learn from experience). If performance becomes a hindrance, you may be making the 35 pages too complicated to work efficiently in a single drawing program file.

You can easily and quickly test. Simply build one Artboard containing the typical kinds and number of objects. Duplicate that Artboard 34 times. See if working in the file becomes burdensome, performance-wise.

And one last question: are there text styles you can set up in Illy" and is tehre anything like Master Pages?

That's two questions. 😉

Yes, Illustrator provides both Character- and Paragraph-level Styles. (See the documentation). It's handling of Styles is worse than InDesign's, but probably tolerable for what you've described.

Illustrator's text handling in general is sub-standard (no proper Paragraph Rules functionality; no in-line graphics; wonky Styles inheritance behavior; stupid selection behavior), but one tolerates that stuff whenever working in Illustrator, regardless of page count.

There are no "Master Pages" per se. But you can set up one Artboard containing the objects you would ordinarily populate "master pages" with, and duplicate the Artboard as many times as needed. Then start adding page-specific content. As in InDesign, you can utilize Layers and or object locking so that working on top of the "master page items" does not become cumbersome.

Also see the documentation and acquaint yourself with Symbols. You can create all the objects you would consider "master page items," store them as a Symbol, and simply position Instances of that Symbol on all your pages. A Symbol is actually stored in the document only once, and is just referenced for its additional positions (and other transformations). Edits to a Symbol automatically cascade to all its Instances, much like master page items in a conventional-wisdom page-layout program.

JET

[karenf1]

There's one feature InDesign has that would be helpful if I end up producing a print book from this document. That's the In Position - so that the pages get placed in the right order for a printer to do the "mechanical" and get the 2 sided pages printing properly. Is there a way to do that with Illustrator too? Just for clarification - could i set up 2 side-by side 8.5 x 11" pages and on some pages where there were a spread - the In Position feature would allow the printer to create a book from the document.

Again thanks so much for your help!

[W_J_T]

karenf1 wrote:

My plan is to create a a pfd book and an ebook for sure - and possibly, later a printed book. I don't plan to produce the ebooks via InDesign but through a simple iPad App. I'm using CS4.

If your already familar with each program then there is nothing wrong with leveraging both if required or desired.

karenf1 wrote:

There's one feature InDesign has that would be helpful if I end up producing a print book from this document. That's the In Position - so that the pages get placed in the right order for a printer to do the "mechanical" and get the 2 sided pages printing properly.

Any "Commercial Printer" worth their weight will have the ability to impose your compositions regardless of pagination, spreads, crossovers, etc.. This is true for traditional prepress going to film, plates, gravure, etc… using imposition software, most all modern day digital prepress workflows have imposition integrated as part of their front-ends and can make custom imposition templates or apply existing ones that are right for the job. Digital printing is the same wether its simple duplexing or more complex imposition these systems have these capabilities as well right within the front-ends of the systems or as additive aspects of the workflows. Any good printer will handle this for you on their end and actually prefer to do so in most cases.

[karenf1]

Many thanks. This is the answer I hoped for. It allows me to "pick & stick," moving forward feeling I'm making the right choice, one that won't bite me in the butt later - requiring hours of redos. I will do the whole book in Illustrator on 11x17 artboards ( for an 8.5 x 11" book with several 17x11 spreads, and let the printer create the films etc. as they see fit. And in the meanwhile - this will allow me to use this for an ebook without having to do a spearate document / mechanical. I'm truly grateful for you generous help which "unstumped me!" Again, Many Thanks!

[karenf1]

A heads up. No Go on using Illustrator for the layout if you are only in CS4. you will be unable to change the order of the Artboards and you will be really unhappy when you've wasted all your time on setting up the document and find you are Shoot Out Of Luck - when you want to do that. Very dissapointing.

[karenf1]

In addition, if you change the layoutof your artboards, say, from grid to top to bottom - even if you check "move art with artboard" all locked items remain in their old place! Yikes that's dangerous! I hope Adobe has changed that "gotcha!" I haven't tried it yet - but i wonder if the same goes for locked layers & their content?