Hi
First time posting here, I think.
I use InDesign for a small community magazine that returns all profits to the community. We were battering on using CS6 (and doing very well) on a PC that was about ten years old. It worked perfectly until an involuntary Windows upgrade gave us the dreaded blue screen of death. We managed to save most of the data files we used (some we had backed up, others we hadn't) but the machine was pretty much fried - we simply bit the bullet and bought a new Dell. Couldn't find the disks for CS6 so thought it was time we upgraded to CC.
First disappointment was the cost. According to the ads we'd be able to pay a cut-back price for just InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator (maybe Acrobat, but using Reader is probably enough for us) but were quite shocked to find it would cost us slightly more for those three alone than it would for the whole package, most of which we don't need. That was allayed slightly by the cut-price Black Friday deal we found but there's still a bad taste in the mouth.
Second disappointment is the performance of InDesign. So far, in the four weeks I've been using it, we have a continual problem with text frames going blank when characters or words are highlighted. This can quite easily be resolved by moving the frame handle and dropping it back into place - but that's not the point. Not only is it a real irritation - not to mention a distraction - but why is this happening on top-flight software on a brand-new machine? (Please don't give me the old Mac vs PC argument. I spent all my professional career using ID on both Macs and PCs and found there was little difference in the performance of either.) A glance through the discussion boards tells me that this seems to be a problem that has existed for some time, yet obviously hasn't been resolved.
There is also a bizarre issue of page numbers not displaying on pages that have a tint-panel background. Doesn't matter what I do, they just don't show. Again - why is something so rudimentary such a problem?
I may be a dinosaur to many of you here but I spent a long time working on software that was three or four versions behind the latest release, simply because it was tried and tested and could be relied upon to be dependable in network-based systems that were seriously deadline-oriented. The problem with text displays alone would have had our office flooded with Adobe reps dedicated to soving the problem, which shows you how big a company it was.
But I'm not in that world any longer and Adobe's dedication to the user seems to have ebbed away, somewhat. We still have deadlines, though and if we don't make them we still have printer's bills to cover. This doesn't inspire confidence or make me feel that I, as a user, particularly matter.
Which brings me to my question:
Where is the value for money in what we have? I've found the CS6 disks and could go back to that version - except that we've signed up to CC for a year, so that's not an option yet. But these niggling problems just make me feel that there will be others that I haven't come across yet, but which might seriously affect production at a crucial time.
This CC package may be ideal for a large agency with multiple users - in fact, I'm sure that's what it's aimed at. But we are spending a lot of money (for us, anyway) just for access to software that doesn't seem to work properly. Where is the thought for the smaller user who might struggle to find the resources to pay that kind of money? Are we not wanted on board?
It doesn't feel like it. Convince me I'm wrong.
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