To support the new features, especially typographic, introduced with InDesign CS, both the program and its document format are not backward-compatible. Later versions of the software introduced new file formats. It was the first DTP application to support Unicode character sets, advanced typography with OpenType fonts, advanced transparency features, layout styles, optical margin alignment, and cross-platform scripting with JavaScript.

InDesign exports documents in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) and supports multiple languages. Later, Adobe code-named the project 'K2', and Adobe released InDesign 1.0 in 1999. Aldus had begun developing a successor to PageMaker, which was code-named 'Shuksan'. Adobe declined Quark's offer and continued to develop a new desktop publishing application. In 1999, Quark announced its offer to buy Adobe and to divest the combined company of PageMaker to avoid problems under United States antitrust law.

( Freehand, Aldus's competitor to Adobe Illustrator, was licensed from Altsys, the maker of Fontographer.) By 1998 PageMaker had lost much of professional market to the comparatively feature-rich QuarkXPress version 3.3, released in 1992, and version 4.0, released in 1996. InDesign is the successor to Adobe PageMaker, which Adobe acquired by buying Aldus Corporation in late 1994.

Graphic designers and production artists are the principal users.

InDesign can also publish content suitable for tablet devices in conjunction with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, books and ebooks. English, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, ZuluĪdobe InDesign is a desktop publishing and page layout designing software application produced by Adobe Inc.

Indesign software