Full agreement on this. Adobe has always made their product versions difficult and confusing to understand.

What makes it further strange is that my ID 5.5 Ver 7.5.2 does NOT show an update is available.

Hmm, maybe your not using the software for what its designed for. Small things, what are those? I have been building books for more than 20 years and find that InDesign has aided me in more ways than any of the other software of its type. Yes, I have used them all, the few (or only one) that is out there.

If you are having trouble or time consuming experiences using it, then maybe you should choose software that is designed to do the ... little things ... that you require done.

As far as price, look at the cost of the other software available in its category.

A Twisted : If InDesign is giving you such a headache, check out the 'Similar Software' bar just above the 'Reviews/Comments' on this page (or just below the InDesign product description by the time this post has turned over to another page).

Maybe one of those apps is more suitable for what you need to do.

As I wrote, and as Kobalt indirectly confirms, is the lack of alternatives that forces us to use inDesign: i’ve already tried other software and there we go from bad to worse. Yes, I’m using inDesign to design my first professional book: there’re also people who are starting from scratch out there :-)
It's an arabic language manual: many professionals are working on it with a lot of effort, hard work and commitment, so I don’t understand why you are so prone to judge it as a “little thing”.

We spent a lot of money to buy inDesign, as well months to study how it works. And exactly as Rsoldin suggests, it seems written 20 years ago. Computers, software, and Mac OS evolved a lot since then. Now, it’s a year I'm working with inDesign. Despite I’m 70% satisfied with the result and accepted all the compromises due to the software's limitations, after a lot of sleepless nights and blood, I feel I have the right to curse Adobe for its low quality software and horrendous user interface. It’s slow, crashes often, bugged, it misses basic features, it’s inconsistent and hard to use. I understand many old professionals want to keep their hard gained experience as an advantage on others younger publishers, but this doesn’t help to make a friendly community or a better software. It just gives Adobe a reason to keep their prices so damn high for such low quality products.

Twisted, I wasn't saying that the software is 20 years behind, I was stating that I have been creating books (designing and composing) them for 20+ years. I think InDesign is very much on top these days. I used the other big layout program for many, many years--since it was the only one available--through most of my career until InDesign was released.

I am a book production specialist and after reading your last statement here, I think you are using ID for things that can be done outside the software. You are creating one book (your first), there are many frustrating things in creating your first book, I deal with first time authors understanding for hat they need to do.

What I think you should do is concentrate on your book material (content) getting it just right...use a word processor...then contact a professional book designer and have them do the work that InDesign is designed to do. People just don't seem to get it, InDesign is a tool for book production and other things, its not a word processor. It has the story editor that can handle text changes and allow people to work together on the same book, but its not made for writing a book. Use a word processor, then use the import feature to get it in to InDesign. Then the magic will begin for design and layout.

Thank you again for your time answering me, but I don’t get why my review should become a discussion about my project. I understand many people confuse word processors with desktop publishing tools, but this is not the case. We are not writing the book with InDesign. I’m designing its layout since professionals are not wise enough to understand how an arabic manual should be made. They need to know the language and the method we developed to teach it. They need to know arabic typography. Are you, as professional, ready to learn arabic to write our book? It needs years.

So I know I’m using the software as it is designed for, as Adobe publicize and as the manual teach me. I know what I’m talking about, as designer, author and Mac OS developer.

By saying it is on top these days, you confirm again my review: is the lack of alternatives that makes InDesign a good tool: but sorry, this is not enough for me, in 2011 and for that price. This could be because the market for this kind of software is old and outdated, or the user community is made by old people, so Adobe customers are content with what they have: they don’t have the flexibility to change their approach.
I’m not. I’m young, fresh and new. So I’m asking for a better designed software supporting my creativity, my knowledge and my needs. Software that follows the right HIGs and helps the not-yet-professionals to become professionals, by exploiting the last technology developed in the recent years. With recent developments in this area, it is time for Adobe and professionals give way to innovation, instead of fearing an honest opinion on the status quo.

@Rsoldin, for someone who has been doing books for 20 years, I'm not sure why you are saying there was only one page layout program. Before there was InDesign there was PageMaker. That was the first one. Then Quark came along and took over. But there was also FrameMaker, which was made for large documents.

But probably most documents done in these kind of programs are single pages, or small booklets. I've done everything from business cards to large books in the big three, PageMaker, Quark and InDesign.

I still like Quark better for many things, but ID is good also. But it's not the only option, and not "the best" either.

I would have a qualified Mac tech survey your environment. Clearly something isn't right. Not sensible to blame Adobe, as we've got tons of production departments who have successfully transitioned from QuarkXPress to InDesign. Hint: stable, up to date Macs with lots of disk space and lots of RAM and stable/fast network...pretty standard stuff, look at that all first.

No kidding! Thanks Shock-J, I didn't even KNOW CS 5.5 existed! I have CS5.

Corrected. Thanks!

what's wrong with Export to Indesign Exchange format? I can't say much in this release is extremely compelling - I don't need the Flash stuff but the performance is the same for me.

You can change the screen updating in the PREFERENCES. THen the performance is the same as in CS4.

I ran into this problem, too and wondered at first. CS5 can use instant redraw for everything but on recent video cards it makes no sense … yet.