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Anonymous

Question

Abode language questions--opinions needed on if language settings matter

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
June 9, 2022
7 replies
1059 views

Hi, I am considering getting a copy of indesign, which I haven't worked with before.

How important is it that the language settings actually be in a language I fully understand? Are the icons and UI overall pretty intuitive, which would make the language essentially irrelevant?

I hate the subscription software systems. I ain't interested. I've been avoiding them for years by using other software, but I need ID for a class I'm taking (no, the school doesn't have a free or trial version that will work for this). On top of that, I've had issues with the newer versions of some Adobe products crashing my systems and I don't want tyo deal with that, so I'm looking into trying to find an older version of ID on disc that I can use for this. I don't care if there's no customer support for it--I've found most customer support to be largely useless anyways.

Because the disc copies haven't been made in some time, they're harder to find where I am and I may need to consider getting one that seems to have limited language settings and may not be in my native language. Is this a big deal? Will this still be useable?

This topic has been closed for replies.

C

chanzubair248116324htb

Participant

I do agree with Argus24796926o4o0

Chan Zubiair

A

Anonymous

Alright, this is clearly just not the best place to go to get a straight answer. I don't see a way to remove the post or close the issue, so I'm hoping that just marking something as correct will close this.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

>>Alright, this is clearly just not the best place to go to get a straight answer.

Your language question was answered (at least, in my opinion) in the first post. It was your other comments that contained inaccurate (and somewhat long-winded) statements that extended the conversation.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

rob day

Community Expert

but I need ID for a class I'm taking (no, the school doesn't have a free or trial version that will work for this)....To get the programs I need through an Adobe subscription would cost at least 300 EUR EVERY MONTH.

If you are enrolled in a university this is the current student pricing for the 20+ Adobe apps—US $20

A non student can get ID for US $21. ID plus Photoshop for $31, or all apps for $55

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

This is from the Adobe website:

<snip>

Creative Cloud for Individual “All Apps” Plans

Previously £70.80* (€69.99 excl VAT) will be £74.39* (€73.49 excl VAT), per month
NO price change for anyone on a prepaid annual plan

</snip>

I believe that comes to about $78 US. Of course, other countries may add tax, but I thought the point of the euro was that it was constant throughout the participating countries.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Peter Spier

Community Expert

I also hate the subscription model of software distribution, but I live in the real world, too. The reality is that Adobe programs are not intuitive and you need to be able to understand the dialogs, so you will want a language you can read.

Another reality is that there probably are NO copies of older Adobe software available in any language at this point that are actually legitimate and registerable/activateable, in any language. There are plenty of counterfeits, though. No legitimate reseller has had stock to sell for nearly twenty years, and purchasing a "used" copy and license transfer is doubtful.

I don't know what the costs are for european subscriptions, but 300 euros/month seems pretty high. In the US a full annual subscription is about $55/month paid monthly or $600 if paid anually for ALL programs. Month-to-month plans are about 50% higher, but still far below what you quoted.

As to your performance issues, I would guess they are related to your system specifications, which you have not provided, and what else you might be running concurrently. Adobe programs do require significant system resources.

Diane Burns

Inspiring

Can you be a litle more specific about what language you are talking about?

You can set your Creative Cloud preferences to the language you prefer (Preferences > Apps > Language drop down) so the UI will be in that language. Or are you talking about the program being able to handle a specific language?

Diane Burns

Inspiring

Also, if you have a LinkedIn Learning sub, I have this course, much of still which is relevant. https://www.linkedin.com/learning/indesign-multilingual-publishing-strategies/introduction?u=2125562

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

I would recommend that you download InDdesign for evaluation for the trial time. So you can have a look better than we are able to describe it.

When you use InDesign for a class you are as far as I know enabled to get a price reduced EDU version. For that you have contact an Adobe Reprenstative in your country.

With a CC Subscription you have access to all available installer languages. Text languages are a different thing. You need to download and install the languages of your desire. A bunch of languages is installed, but sometimes tools for that language are only installed if the installer is used for that language extra. E.g. German is included in all Western Languages, but the DUDEN spell checker and hyphenation dictionary, which is superior to Proximity or Hunspell is only installed with the German installer. Or if you need Arabic or Hebrew you need to install one of them to get the RTL functionality with one of Adobe's World Composer.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Based on viewing screen shots from InDesign using other languages, I would say it would be difficult to understand how to use InDesign set to another language. However, if you typed your message yourself, without help of translation software, you should be able to run an English language installation.

I hope when you say "getting a copy" you mean "purchasing a legal copy". Aside from subscribing, the best you will find is a legal version of CS6, which may or may not run on your computer. Read this web page for info on legally purchasing an older copy:

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/transfer-product-license.html

Regardless if you like it or not, you will be dealing with customer support to transfer and activate the software.

Finally, if your school is _requiring_ InDesign, I must assume it is a graphic design school. There is no other reason to _require_ InDesign. Most Adobe products are subscription based, with a discount for education usage. (This may vary in your country.)

Presumedly, you don't already have a subscription to the Creative Cloud. Is the software crashing your system legitmate copies downloaded directly from Adobe?

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

A

Anonymous

Beware, my essay.

I definitely HAVE tried Adobe products directly from the Adobe site, but I’ve had some issues with them. It’s like the program just uses too much RAM or something. The last product I tried was the free trial of PS (which I tried on both my work and personal computers). When the program wasn’t outright crashing or freezing, it was still horribly slow, even when I was working with single layer smaller images, so I’ve since been using paint.net for all my graphic stuff that doesn’t require any vector formatting.

I’m a scientist. I have ZERO education in the areas of graphic design. But I’ve somehow (I guess because I’m the person willing to learn??) ended up working on a massive amount of other things that are very much not labwork. In addition to being the science guy, I am now also the general graphics, technical writing, tech illustration, advert, film/ animation, social media, R&D, applications, and GUI dev guy. And the Guy Who Knows How to Keep the Office Plants Alive. To get the programs I need through an Adobe subscription would cost at least 300 EUR EVERY MONTH. That is INSANE. I’m not doing it. The very thought of doing it makes me want to quit and go farm potatoes for the rest of my life and/or commit murder. Since I’m the only person doing all of this, my office has little incentive to spend a lot just for me to do my job. Jobs. Whatever. I couldn’t even get them to order me a decent monitor to work on and ended up just buying one myself after three years. I’ve been making due with alternative software, since I don’t have anything from Adobe right now, but some of it’s just…not good for certain applications. I write a lot of our technical manuals start to finish, and I’m sure everyone who has ever dealt with MS Word knows the horrors of moving a single image.

Since I’ve been doing so much of it, I figured it would be a good idea to take some classes in graphic design on my own just to get better at it, but the class is requiring a program like ID (no discounted software is offered to students). It listed Scribus as a very cautionary alternative, but the program is just too limited to be useful for what I need. I was looking into buying old (non-subscription) Adobe programs, because I figured it might be worthwhile at this point, and I’m the only person at the office who would need to use it anyways, and I stumbled on the old unused CS5/6 options, which it looks like would run on my system. This seems like it would make a lot more sense, as it has most of what I need and wouldn’t cost thousands of dollars a year and all of my rage. The problem is that the ones I can find available are in other languages. I speak a few languages, but nothing fluently outside of English, which is where my question is coming from. I really don’t want to have to spend a massive amount on these subscriptions, and I don’t want to have to deal with being online constantly to get work done. The free trials could potentially work just to get me through a week of classwork, but I don’t see the point of them if I’m never going to use the programs after the class. I want to just get a program and stick with it and be able to use it whenever and however I need.

I don’t find going through customer service for setup, I just have never gotten much help with any CS when it comes to actually solving problems after that, so ongoing support isn’t super important to me.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I hope the essay makes you feel better, but it doesn't change reality. You could always use other software.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

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