Linux Graphics Software

Want variety? How about 2,000 borders, 1,000 animals, 2,000 cartoons, 1,000 signs and symbols, 1,000 decorative caps, and much more? You'll even get 5,000 24-bit color photographs, perfect for all kinds of presentations.

Version 1.5 includes numerous fixes and enhancements. A major under-the-hood improvement is the official support of MacOS 9. Since OS 9 is a bridge to the anticipated OS X, this update paves the way for an OS X native version. Some important and more obvious features were added as well: text on a curved path, built-in trapping, vertical justification, a free-transformation tool, precise numerical transformation options, and a pencil and erase tool for creating and editing paths, to name a few.

Adobe spent several years developing InDesign, incorporating the best features from its own application, PageMaker, and those of the competition (namely, Quark). In fact, InDesign is built to go head-to-head with the firmly entrenched Quark, something PageMaker could never quite pull off. Toward that end, InDesign boasts many Quark-like features, including an easy way to toggle many of the keyboard shortcuts into Quark shortcuts. This goes a long way toward easing the transition for an experienced operator, and a quick transition means less downtime and faster turnaround for projects.

In a further effort to ease the learning curve, every word from the manuals is included in the software's online help, in addition to a list of keyboard shortcuts and tips.

However, there are still some missing features for what is supposed to be a comprehensive application. Notably, InDesign has no facility for creating a table of contents or an index. This is a critical flaw for any designer working on a large, multipage document such as a book or manual. For lovers of Adobe software, the ray of hope is InDesign's flexible plug-in architecture. There is bound to be a third-party developer who will fill this feature gap, if Adobe doesn't get to it first.

Eye-catching features such as transparency and blending are combined with more mundane--but important--abilities such as table of contents and index generation, to make this a more complete and rounded product than earlier versions. It also benefits from integration with other Adobe products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, and Acrobat. Adobe maintains a consistent user interface across the range, easing the learning process.

The heart of a desktop publishing product is typography, for which InDesign is second to none. The software offers fine control over drop capitals, kerning, tracking, justification, and scaling. OpenType fonts offer advanced features such as contextual alternative characters, which automatically insert ligatures or other special glyphs according to their place within a word. The paragraph composer optimizes spacing and hyphenation for an entire paragraph, retrospectively reformatting earlier lines as you type.

A great feature of InDesign is that imported graphics remain editable. For example, InDesign has its own excellent tools for drawing shapes and paths, so you can import an Illustrator drawing and continue to work on it. The transparency options not only let you control opacity, but also offer special effects such as drop shadows, feathering, and multiple blending modes such as soft or hard light. InDesign has complete support for professional printing standards, but Adobe also delivers on cross-media choices, such as PDF, HTML, and SVG, which is an emerging standard for Web graphics. There is also an option to import, export, and edit XML, with exciting possibilities for repurposing content.

• 10,000 super-cool graphics are jammed onto one CD-ROM at an incredible price
• Previews of all images
• Free technical support

On the surface, Dreamweaver is an easy-to-use Web-page editor and site design tool, supporting all basic page elements. However, it has enough depth to build sophisticated sites with features such as forms, Flash files, frames, cascading style sheets, and ActiveX and Java controls, just to name a few. It offers WYSIWYG editing as well as access to HTML source code.

In version 3.0, editing HTML files has been improved with added support for styles, and an HTML source code inspector, which can be docked (like a Window palette). HTML code can be block-edited in this window as well, by selecting entire lines and dragging them to a new destination.

URLs in imported Flash movie files can now be edited in Dreamweaver 3.0, making it easier for a site administrator to change links in Flash files. Synchronizing local and remote site files works in both directions, ensuring that the latest version of a file is saved on both local hard drives and remote servers.

A history palette has been added as well, and all file editing is recorded and listed. Actions can be undone (like multiple undo) and saved as an action for reuse on other files.