Reviews for InDesign CS2 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides)

1. Excellent for beginners and experienced users

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2009

   I'm a big fan of the Visual Quickstart format. They are well written, concise, easy to refer to, and they don't mess around with endless text and weak jokes. Cohen's InDesign CS2 is one of the best: it's extremely well laid out so you can use it quickly when working. It also provides a variety of helpful tips.
   Each topic is split into sections: for example, you get `Basic text' followed a few chapters later by `Text effects', and later `Text and object styles' and finally `Typography controls'. It means you can work through the book, learning as you go.
   I have seen Visual Quickstart books criticised elsewhere. Let me be clear: the book is not in a `learning manual' format that takes you through InDesign in easy stages as you might in a classroom. If it were, then it could not be in the `easy to refer to' format which I find so useful. However, a beginner can learn from it. I did!
   It has plenty of layout tips, but if you want to learn how to lay out magazines, newsletters etc you need to buy a relevant design manual.
   It is well worth reading its 550 pages with care as there is much excellent material crammed into it.
   The book is excellent for the beginner and experienced user. I have found it an invaluable investment.