question for indesign users (in windows)

liquidrliquidr
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Unfortunately at work we are bound to Windows machines. Our department was recently approved for upgrades and it has been asked of me to determine our needs.



For those of you that work with Adobe InDesign CS what have you found to be the sweet spot in terms of CPU speed and memory?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    As much memory as you can fit in the machine (I think Windows doesn't recognize more than 2GB). I have 2GB in a P4 2.8GHz. It runs fine, and I don't think the CPU speed matters that much. But Adobe products are RAM hogs, and Windows isn't particularly good at distributing memory, or, for that matter, guarding against memory leaks.



    I'd also recommend getting as big of a screen as you can fathom, and stay away from dual monitors. I make no secret about the fact that I much prefer Quark 6 to InDesign CS, and part of it is because InDesign has Adobe's typical, palette-based GUI. Now, this isn't such a bad thing on the Mac, but in Windows, palettes suck, and you just end up moving them around in that all-encompasing gray box that totally dominates any modern Windows app. So having two monitors doesn't help you that much unless you want to keep Outlook open on the second monitor (which will need to be at least 1280x1024, preferably 1600x1200, to deal with outlook's inefficient GUI)



    The other strange thing about Windows is that it doesn't seem possible to color calibrate your monitor the way it is on the mac. First off, you'll need additional software to begin with, since Windows has nothing built-in. Adobe Gamma comes with Photoshop (and the Creative Suite), and is adequate for people like me, who create documents primarily to convery information, and not to advertise, etc. With that said, Adobe Gamma is worse than Apple's built-in color calibrator, and it doesn't seem to work on more than one monitor. Unless you want to spent $600 or more, just accept the fact that your output will never be perfect.



    I may sound like a zealot, but the truth is that I normally just do my job and don't complain. You can product good work in Windows, it just takes some knowledge of the OS's weaknesses. However, when I get the chance to bash Graphics/Desktop Publishing on Windows, I will. I have been using it for about 8 months now, and I still find myself a good 30mins per day more productive on the mac. If you can pull it off (I did), coax your people into buying you some primo equipment on the premise that "it just won't be as efficient as it would on the mac with out all this." That sad part is that you wouldn't be lying.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    liquidrliquidr Posts: 884member
    Fortunately, one of the main IT guys has taken a liking to me. I think it's b/c I gave him some photography advise. So, it seems I may have a blank check on what I can request for our department. Unfortunately, that doesn't include switching the department to Macs.



    I've begun to think that it would make greater sense if the entire health system migrated to Mac. However, I know the IT guys would flip, and the people holding the purse strings would look at the intial cost of conversion and stamp it out immediately. If I had the know how, I'd do a cost analysis and give it to the CEO personally.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by LiquidR

    Fortunately, one of the main IT guys has taken a liking to me. I think it's b/c I gave him some photography advise. So, it seems I may have a blank check on what I can request for our department. Unfortunately, that doesn't include switching the department to Macs.



    I've begun to think that it would make greater sense if the entire health system migrated to Mac. However, I know the IT guys would flip, and the people holding the purse strings would look at the intial cost of conversion and stamp it out immediately. If I had the know how, I'd do a cost analysis and give it to the CEO personally.



    CEOs are often the problem. They are usually too old to realize that a cross platform network is easy these days (particularly if you have a mac server) and haven't kept up with the times.



    Any way, good luck. We have this IT guy come in from time to time to nurse our Windows Domain, which regualrly causes problems despite its relatively samll size. When the IT guy came the first time to set up the domain, I was still using my mac (I got my PC about the same time), and we shot the breeze a little. The gem that resulted was him saying "Macs are really cool, but I guess if everyone used them I wouldn't have a job." Even so, it's hard to convince CEOs that multi-platform networks are totally fine these days, especially if everyone who not using the main platform is more or less an expert.
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