Adobe Creative Suite 3 Bible

Adobe Creative Suite 3 Bible
reviewed by Dr. Eric Flescher, Olathe, KS: (dreric1kansas@aol.com)

Authors: Ted Padova and Kelly L. Murdock
Publisher: Wiley Publishing , Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NY 07030
Released: October 1, 2007
Pages: 1296
$45 USA
$54 Canada
ISBN-10: 0470130679
ISBN-13: 978-0470130674

Strengths: Enormous in-depth guide. Screenshots are fairly readable. Introduction to the new application interfaces (except Dreamweaver which did not change) has a good set of toolbox windows. Understanding Version Cue and Adobe Bridge is included.

Weaknesses: Black and white instead of color. Hard to read. Special notes are all rectangular and don’t stand out. Does not talk about MacIntosh users. Mostly text laden. The look of the text is very drab and is some of poorest I have ever seen. The guide structure could use more numbers or something to break up the plethora of text. The Parts of the books (sections) focus on using the Creative Suite tools instead of focusing on the applications.

Novice/Intermediate/Advanced

Rating: 3/5

Web creation and publishing has evolved over the years since HTML was once the only way to publish on the internet. Now there are many new programs, applications, software, and other tools that can help web publishers, novice to advanced. In addition new versions of the software are arriving yearly which can make keeping up with web publishing efforts more difficult. Assistance might be needed to start, develop or advance web building skills, especially to speed up your efforts. If so, Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies, may be a book to answer your learning needs.

Ted Padova, has written Adobe related books while Kelly Murdock has also authored books and worked with web design, graphics and multimedia. They have pooled their efforts to develop a comprehensive huge guide book for computer users who wish to develop graphics and web design while using the six application Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, InDesgn, and Acrobat.

This massive 882 page book includes an introduction, a series of tutorials that span seven sections and a big index. This Black and White tutorials covers nine parts that guide you through 38 chapters. The readings and tutorials are meant for helping to create dynamic websites. Utilizing the latest web design tools, these authors outline a series of tutorials to complete necessary steps to start, develop and finish websites. Along the way, this guide utilizes the six applications, to “ walk “ the web user through the six different applications which most web professionals use on a daily basis. However learning about these applications are scattered throughout the Sections.

Each section of the book is a book in itself. The authors attempt to create an user friendly guide that offers in-depth instruction. But there is much that keeps this from happening for me and possibly others, depending on how you like to learn.

The sections of the book (called Part) are: Getting to know the Creative Suite 3, Getting Started with Design, workflows , working with objects and images, workin with type, Using creative Suite and Microsoft Office, Working in Creative desiggn workflows, Document repurposing, Creative Suite documen delivery workflows and Printing and digital prepress. This method focus is applying skills instead of focusing on the applications themselves. And for the most part, I would applaud this approach but it seems that the way the book is written, make this approach less learnable.

The book is written with a PC computer in mind and includes Microsoft Office. While I use Macintosh that did not bother me. It is the fact that the authors did not include any information about Macintosh users was a little baffling. Screenshots are employed and they are PC oriented. This is fine but there is little or no information by the authors to define how Macintosh users or the PC user who has switched to a Macintosh, can use the book.

Most of the book is text laid out in the paragraphs. Screenshots are readable for the most part with “ Line pointers” used within the screenshots. These help the reader “see” more precisely what the tutorials are targeting during the instruction. But these don’t appear in many sections of the book. This makes the tutorials more difficult to understand, as the reader has to sometimes “fish around”, to find and try to connect between, what the authors are saying and the reader is perceiving. It would have been better if more of the text or information were laid out in Tables and Illustrations form, numbered or something else to cut down all the text.

Conclusions:
While I am sure the authors are very competent, they have created a book that “falls farshort” in many ways. I have designed and created websites for several years. I am always trying to improve my efforts, but when a book makes the job more difficult, instead of assisting how to use the application, there is trouble. When starting out, I found that Dreamweaver was and still is, a very finicky program to understand. In many cases, no matter how much I tried, with the program and using books, I still could not understand and get the job done. It was a combination of the book and the application and perhaps my learning style. Starting out as a novice, at that time, I needed less text, in some cases, better targeted screenshots and better layout of the instruction.
I thought that this book had potential. But the text and how it “looks”, is some of the poorest I have ever seen, for an instructional book. It basically looks, feels and reads like a college textbook instead of a user friendly guide, for website and software application users. Whether you are a PC or MacIntosh user, I feel that you should look elsewhere to find help with the learning and using Creative Suite 3 and its applications.