InDesign for Proposals?

[TigerGirl7]

Hi,

I've been using Adobe Illustrator to create proposals, some of which are 20+ pages. It's a painfully long process, but I do it this way because it looks ten times better than in Word. It has a very customized look. When I'm done with all the pages, I save it as a PDF.

Would InDesign be better/easier to use?

An example of a detail that requires a rediculous amount of time is opening each page in Illustratror and pasting the client's name and the date of the proposal in a special location at the top of the page. If I could automate this somehow by only having to type this information in once, that would ber perfect. Does InDesign have this capability?

Cheers!

 

[apepp]

...yes, master pages will work for you and not only this but indesign is better at page layout when dealing with multiple page documents...

all the best,
andrew

 

[apepp]

...just to add, you can also have multiple masters dealing with different sections of a document if you wish...

all the best,
andrew

 

[apepp]

...I view indesign as a multiple page illustrator with a few extra bells and whistles, a great program, so if you know illustrator well, you will find indesign not so much a big step...

all the best,
andrew

 

[apepp]

...it's pdf export functions are fantastic too...

andrew

 

[jmgalvin]

Yeah - indesign will make life easier for multipage docs.

If you're familiar with the illustraor interface, you'll pick up indesign in no time.

Repetitive feature, like the client name, etc. are easily handled by either the Master Page feature if ID or the Library feature.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[rossmcd]

I concur - Indesign is far superior for multi-page documents. Multiple master pages and styles are a godsend.

If your proposals do not contain high resolution graphics - and you're a Mac user - then suggest that you also consider Pages (the Apple equivalent to MS Word). It does not pretend to have the rich functionality of Indesign but is simpler and has a nice feature of multiple pre-prepared templates (e.g. can create one for quote page, one for terms and conditions, one for ....). Note that Pages converts all images to 72dpi so if you are using complicated layouts or high res graphics then ignore Pages and choose Indesign.

Good luck
Ross