From Xara to Indesign ?

[mwenz]

Am I the only one here that thinks InDesign is a very weird choice for anyone as a poster designer?

I dunno if you are the only one. But for myself, I don't find using a layout application an odd choice at all. I would have likely used PagePlus from the start myself, or QXP. If I had control of what I used that is. ID would have been fine, though.

Maybe the better route to Indesign from Xara is via PDF and Photoshop or Illustrator?

AI will not maintain layers. Cannot recall about PS for sure, but I don't think it does either.

But here is the point wherein I usually throw in that I try to use the application that I need to return work in from the beginning. An exception would be that I'll still most often do as much work as possible in XDP, even if that means getting it into the required applications at some stage to be finished off in those other applications.

[Albacore]

Like Mike I think ID is a great choice for posters. ID makes great PDF's even better than Illustrator but a few drawing tools missing just like P/Plus. The control you have assembling drawings to be printed on press size sheets is superb. Some folk like to use Acro Pro to do this job I always liked to do it still in ID.

[stephane_fr]

I made a few tests of conversion AI -> ID (importing an AI file in an Indesign work) and even here the import gives a unique layer file in ID. Awful thing... :/

[Albacore]

Stephane when you use the words "Awful thing....;/" do you mean the bounding box around your drawing? Thats just a clipping mask or a clipping path you can do something with the path but not the mask through the Object Menu. Other things that might be of help is to just copy and paste from Illy into ID don't Place the file. Remove any RGB effects like shadows, complex fills and bevels as ID gives up the ghost when it comes to those things. If your file coming into AI has a huge number of nodes on line paths again the filter will say no thank you and reject the file.

The way I used to get files from Illy into ID was to use the copy & paste method but I did it using layers in ID. I take the background in --> new layer, bring objects/shapes -->new layer, bring in the text and place it in a text box or boxes. OK it's a bit more work but you get a cracker of a PDF when finished. One last thing if when you brought the file in and if you got a message like "this file will be turned into an EPS file" which again once in it can't be edited. I would just say OK to it then do a ctrlZ to get rid of it cos if my memory is OK there was no cancel with that message. Repeat again from Illy just copy and paste it into ID, Stephane.

[behzad]

Suggest to your client to pay you to make the changes