InDesign Help

Two weeks ago we posted an article on InDesign CS3 Leopard Compatibility. While the amount of outright bugs in InDesign CS3/OS 10.5 is minimal I think it’s a good idea to discuss possible problems people may have.

First off I would highly recommend not upgrading your OS if you have any mission critical work that has to be done. This should go without saying, but unfortunately many people have to be reminded of this. If you have a big print job due tomorrow you shouldn’t make any hardware or software upgrades, ever. We even recommend against minor changes or installing small pieces of software when you’re on a deadline and installing a new OS is definitely a big change.

If you rely on Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader at all you probably shouldn’t upgrade. Adobe is predicting a patch to be available early next year for the Acrobat family of products. Installing Leopard will also mean you will eventually have to switch over to Acrobat/Reader 8.12 as past versions have no updates planned.

If you use InDesign CS2 we advise against installing leopard. If you have CS2 on a backup machine and can afford to lose the program then go ahead but do not install it if you absolutely need it to work. CS2 came out years before leopard, it is no longer being updated and no longer qualifies for free support from adobe tech. While CS2 qualifies for paid support, $39 an issue, leopard compatibility is not supported. We’re not saying CS2 won’t work on your machine, but don’t count on it.

If you are using InDesign CS you will most likely not be able to run it on leopard. Adobe does have fairly reasonable upgrade prices, so that may be something to look into.

If you are using a prerelease or beta version of InDesign, this will probably not work with leopard.

The recommended method for install is to do a clean install, that is reformat your drive, install leopard then install InDesign CS3. We strongly recommend this method for installing. If you choose not to do this you should at least uninstall InDesign and reinstall after updating the OS. If you are still left with problems then I would take a look at reseting your preferences. If you continue to have problems, then it’s time to do the recommended installation method.

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