InDesign 2 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide, by Sandee Cohen.
412 pp. Peachpit Press, 2002. $21.99.

Sandee Cohen’s InDesign 2 Visual QuickStart Guide is a great place to start if you’re new to InDesign 2.0. It’s also a handy quick reference for more experienced InDesign users.

This affordable guide to Adobe’s state-of-the-art page design software follows the familiar Visual QuickStart format, with succinct step-by-step instructions in the outside column and black and white screen shots, illustrations and text boxes in the inside column of each page.

It’s easy to find a topic in the index, table of contents or thumb guides on the edge of each page, then dive in. If you prefer, you can work more methodically through chapters which begin with the basics of document setup and working with text, objects and graphics, then move through color management, output options, exporting and the new enhancements of InDesign 2.0 including layers, transparency, feathering and drop shadows (used in the illustrations for this page).

It’s hard to go wrong with any VQS title, but InDesign 2’s spot-on technique illustrations and thoughtful text box commentary distinguish it from the crowd. Highly recommended.