Any warnings against producing my magazines in Illustrator?

[Chris P. Bacon]

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?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Clancy's Bar, Third and Main, Tuesdays at 6 until closing.

😄

[Laubender]

Hi @Chris P. Bacon ,

InDesign does not share its 6 composition engines, the paragraph composers, with Illustrator.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[SJRiegel]

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@Chris P. Bacon wrote:

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

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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]

• 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. Bacon]

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.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I frequently write material directly in InDesign, without using InCopy or any other 'story' tool. But then, I am both a writer and designer and often can't really separate the two skill sets in developing a project.

If you work similarly, I'd suggest doing away with all writing/story tools other than something like Word to write first drafts, then use ID's (good but not excellent) editing tools after import. Completely separating the writing and layout is for team development and projects where the two tasks are completely distinct.

Illustrator and Photoshop have absolutely no such tools and editing more than about 100 words in a block is a tedious grind.

[chrisg11235813]

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%.

[Barb Binder]

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...

~Barb

[Eugene Tyson]

Seems to me

Create the 'painted' layouts in Illustrator

File>Place in InDesign

[Chris P. Bacon]

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]

Export the inDesign file as a PDF, then place that PDF file into illustrator as a reference (which you will delete later). But this is a cumbersome workflow.

How much of the body copy is being affected by the graphics?

Are the graphics interacting with all of the text, or just specific areas?

For example, if only the title/header of an article is changing the graphics, do that in illustator, do the majority of the body copy within InDesign.

[Chris P. Bacon]

I am trying to keep text and graphics totally separately in the 2 apps to avoid confusions.

All text are affected by the graphics, because it's a text on graphics layout, a bit like comics, but it's infographics, not comics, in a free scrapboard layout that is unique to every page. 

Exporting things for every modification even for the slightest (that would be very easy if both the text and graphics is in Illustrator) is difficult.

Basically, i want to paint my whole magazine in Illustrator, that would be the most fun and the best looking.

By the way there is the Esko OCR plugin  for Illustrator, that will re-convert outline text into type, seamlessly (I tested it), and it perfectly matches the fonts too, from the cloud. 

That means that I could indeed do both text and graphics in Illustrator, then place it into InDesign, and "upgrade" the text after. But that still doesn't solve the issue that when I am editing the graphics, I don't see the text in Illustrator.

Placing the PDF of the page in Illustrator how can that help that?

I will try.

[Robert Tkaczyk]

Then you have only one solution - mockup text in Illustrator and finish in InDesign...

[Chris P. Bacon]

When you place text with graphics as .ai into InDesign, what option you have for the text format in InDesign?

"mockup text in Illustrator and finish in InDesign" I was thinking about this

[Chris P. Bacon]

Sorry, that text plugin is for Illustrator, I was wrong. But I did test it.

We would need that plugin for InDesign.

Because with OCR, you can.

But question is:

can you export the text from Illustrator as outlines into Indesign, if you save the whole page as AI and place it into InDesign?

But that plugin is for Illustrator, we would need it for InDesign. 

And what I mean it, "upgrade" the text with an OCR plugin after the magazine is done, so you know that no changes will be made.

[Robert Tkaczyk]

Can you show example page?

I think you are overcomplicating things...

[Chris P. Bacon]

Plus images. Images also in custom shapes. And some blend modes between them. Lots of brush use.

[chrisg11235813]

you could always use the page rulers to determine how big to make the graphics. Or you could get the measurements of the the text box from inDesign and use that info to determine sizing in illustrator.

Is there a reason why you need to update the graphics before the story is complete?

I get doing a proof at the end of a first / second draft. If the text is getting updated that often, it might be more efficient to wait until a more finalized version of the text is complete before creating/editing graphics.

[Chris P. Bacon]

The reason of changes is simply that's how it works...you are constantly making changes until it's done, both to the text and the graphics, in my case in a text ON graphics layout, the 2 have to seamlessly work together.

[Robert Tkaczyk]

You can export PDF from InDesign and place it in Illustrator...

As stated already - if each spread is a separate entity - with text not flowing between spreads - you should be OK.

[Chris P. Bacon]

It seems that text frames can be seamlessly copied from InDesign into Illustrator by drag-and-dropping them, so editing the graphics (while looking at the changed text) now is solved.

Now I want to see how does text created in Illustrator drag-and-drops or within an .ai placing arrives into InDesign.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Yes I will definitely have to ask what they have to say.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Yes and Illustrator also supports parent artboards just like parent pages in InDesign.

[Chris P. Bacon]

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

[chrisg11235813]

inDesign will accept placed .ai files.

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