Save cash and buy CS3?

[joshima]

Hi Guys,

I'm not a designer, I'm a freelance editor.

I'm replacing my Mac and thinking of buying CS5 while I'm at it. Will that cause me any issues when working with designers who have created inDesign files in CS3?

In terms of my work flow, the designer creates the page in CS3 and loads it onto their FTP. I download, make text changes and put it back on the FTP.

Conversely, if I stay on CS3 and they all eventually upgrade to CS5 am I going to be in a position where I'm difficult to work with?

I'm honestly quite unsure about what to do! I was hoping to buy a cheap-ish Macbook so I'm not desperate to fill it with both CS3 and CS5, but at the moment it feels like that's the best option.

Any help very much appreciated,

Thanks

Josh

 

[btbrossard]

Conversely, if I stay on CS3 and they all eventually upgrade to CS5 am I going to be in a position where I'm difficult to work with?

If you have to go back to a designer and say "hey, I don't have CS5...", it doesn't exactly present a very professional image.

Exporting to an .inx (interchange) file is certainly easy to do, but its another hoop for someone to jump through when sending you files.

 

[FourCandles]

...
I'm replacing my Mac and thinking of buying CS5 while I'm at it. Will that cause me any issues when working with designers who have created inDesign files in CS3?

In terms of my work flow, the designer creates the page in CS3 and loads it onto their FTP. I download, make text changes and put it back on the FTP.
...

You should be able to open the ID CS3 documents without any issues, but ID will then need to convert the document to CS5 in order to save any changes (see below).

...
I'm honestly quite unsure about what to do! I was hoping to buy a cheap-ish Macbook so I'm not desperate to fill it with both CS3 and CS5, but at the moment it feels like that's the best option.

ID CS3 and CS5 will run quite happily on the same machine. You will need to be careful when opening a document by double-clicking in the Finder - it seems that there is a bug causing documents to open in CS5 irrespective of what your default "Open with..." settings are (see this thread).

...
Exporting to an .inx (interchange) file is certainly easy to do, but its another hoop for someone to jump through when sending you files.

INX shouldn't be necessary to open CS3 documents in CS5 (see above). Bear in mind also that INX was replaced in CS5 with IDML (InDesign Markup Language). However, as with INX, it only "saves" back one version, i.e. ID CS4. So the OP can't use this to save a CS5 document back to CS3, unless they also have access to a copy of ID CS4 with which to open the IDML file and then export it back again via INX.

 

[macstudent]

If you are a freelance editor, I would save yourself some money and just buy InCopy. This way your designer can work in the layout and share the stories that you need to edit via dropbox or email.

You can open the stories (called assignments), edit them and the changes will update on the designers machine.

The only problem is that you will have to use the same version of InCopy as the designer's version of InDesign. Purchasing older versions of software can be quite difficult. You might look on ebay.

 

[Hermes Monster]

Hope I don't sound dumb and I'm not missing something, but the solution seems obvious to me..


Buy CS3 now, so you're in tune with the designer...and then upgrade to CS5 when they do? CS3 is cheaper than CS5 and when the time comes you can buy upgrade versions of CS5, which is much cheaper than the full priced package. All in all it should cost near enough the same price