A Brief History of InDesign
InDesign 1.0 was released way back in the spring of 1999, so it is 15 years old this year!
Since those humble beginnings, there have been 15 versions of InDesign released that contain new features. I put together a PDF called A Brief History of InDesign that shows the name of each version, the version number, whether or not the version introduced a new file format, some of the new features in the release, and additional information.
The current naming system of new releases is confusing. The latest version of InDesign is named “InDesign CC 2014.1”. Tip: You can tell exactly which version you are running by choosing About InDesign from the InDesign menu (Mac) or Help menu (Windows). This will display a “Build number” which is currently at 10.1.
For more about the fascinating history of InDesign, see Page by Page, Ten Years of Designing with Adobe InDesign by Pamela Pfiffner, and James Wamser’s excellent guide to the new features of InDesign CS3 through the latest version.
Great, Keith! A very handy resource!
It would be great if you could try to update this as time goes on. With the CC scheme of doing things, it’s getting harder and harder to remember what was added when.
In 15 years, we already have a rich history for our favorite application.
OpenType support was already there in v1
optical kerning was also there in v1 !
optical margin alignment was also there in v1 !!
New features of v1.5:
– Resizable Tools panel
– Updated shortcuts
– Origin of rulers is customizable
– Pencil tool
– Free Transform tool
– Links management when the document is opening
– PDF presets
– Enhanced copy/paste
– Name of swatch reflects the % of each value
– Swatches drag and drop
– Find Font…
– Previous/Next Page anchors
– VERTICAL JUSTIFICATION !!!
and dozens more…
Because if you really want to know every single feature that appeared in each version of InDesign, you need to read them in the French language as they are all listed here : https://www.branislavmilic.com/indesign and look in the yellow column on the right side.
Thank you for the great reminders, Keith! How fun to look back. Time has really flown by. I doesn’t seem that long ago that I was invited by Adobe to come in to look at a secret project they were working on codenamed K2.
Time flies too fast.
15 years…
“InDesign 1.0 was released way back in the spring of 1999, so it is 15 years old this year!”
InDesign was announced in spring but released on 31 August 1999
I just knew that some of you with a better memory than I would make some “suggestions”! Based on comments and corrections from James Wamser and Branislav Milic, I’ve updated the PDF, and also added a revision date to the upper-right corner to make future maintenance easier.
I was fortunate to get a copy of the beta when it was “K2” in early 1999, and was immediately smitten. I’ve been in love with InDesign since it was just a little caterpillar! ;-)
There were initial complaints because you couldn’t print directly to a non-PostScript printer (big deal; make a PDF and print from Acrobat), but that was fixed in 1.5.2.
And, best of all, I know a whole bunch of wonderful people I would have never met, but for our shared love of InDesign. How cool is that?
I started using InDesign in 2006, and I needed to find a way to use it, InDesignSecrets was a site I found while looking up tutorials. And I visit here everyday now, even lucky enough to have a couple of articles published here. Although I am in Ireland and not met anyone here yet, I have a feeling I will someday :)
Too bad it does not go back to Pagemaker and the competition with Xerox’s Ventura. Oops this post kinda dates me.
It’s worth noting that 1.5 was released mainly as a way to salvage 1.0, which showed amazing potential but was hobbled by a number of issues. And it wasn’t until 2.0 that native OS X support arrived. Using 1.5 on a Quicksilver G4 emulating the Classic OS was a painful experience to say the least. When the installer disks for 2.0 arrived in our production house it was exactly like Christmas morning.
Can I translate it to latvian with reference to this post and put it on my blog?
I started off with Aldus’s PM 3.0, and then upgraded after they sold up to Adobe. But when no new releases appeared after 6.5 I didn’t realise that Adobe had abandoned even the name, and that InDesign was PM’s successor. Consequently I never bought a copy and am still not an InDesign user. Even were I not retired, I’d never sign up for Adobe’s rental program (that’s just a leeetle bit too predatory for me), but finding an older copy of ID at a price I can afford (I just do pro-bono work these days) seems to be quite difficult.
Could someone tell me which was the first version of ID to have comprehensive tools for designing layout grids? Having been an old-school ruling-pens-and-rubber-cement commercial artist, I was used to doing things the hard way. But computers seem to have spoiled me, so I’d rather not carry on doing grid frameworks by hand.
Meg,
So far as I know, InDesign has had ruler guides and document grids since its inception in 1999. You can still purchase InDesign CS6 (which is NOT subscription-based) by calling Adobe. See this link: https://www.adobe.com/products/cs6.html?promoid=JOLIS
Thanks, Claudia! I phoned them, and, saddeningly, it turns out that they want more than $600 for it (I stopped listening after “six hundred”, so it might really be $699) which is far too high for someone who no longer gets an income from her work :-)
I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on ebay.