@ Senshi
"The only advantages for subscription are for Adobe and that's it. To pretend otherwise is just foolish..."
As much as I dislike the software rental model, I'm going to have to disagree with you, here. It would actually have been quite useful and kept me from starting up smoking again a couple of years ago.
I'm the graphics geek for a government planning agency in a smallish city (population: a bit over 100,000). Every ten years, the city produces a consolidated Master Plan outlining where we think we should go for the next decade and beyond. Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign featured heavily in putting the book together on the last go-round.
At the time, I had a copy of Adobe Creative Suite (original) on my work machine, and had had since... well... since CS came out. Because, as I said: municipal government; we're not talking big budgets here. The Design Planner had bought her own copy of CS 5 for when SHE needed to produce presentations. The Neighborhood Planner/Community Development specialist, who was the coordinator and lead writer on the project, had none.
In order to incorporate he Design Planner's pages into something MY version could open -- because, while she is a REALLY GOOD urban designer, she is a REALLY BAD document designer -- I had to bring in my home laptop, with CS 4 on it, to down-save to a version that CS could open (CS 5 only would only save down to something that CS 3 could open, IIRC).
So the workflow was:
1 -- Produce template document in InDesign and start inserting the lead writer's Word files, editing and inserting photos, creating infographics, tables, etc.
2 - Design Planner produces her pages in CS 5 and down-saves to CS 4.
3 - I open her files on the laptop and down-save to CS.
4 - I open in CS on the work machine, correct her out-of-standard layout, type, graphics, tables, etc., and export a PDF for the lead writer to look at and make edits.
5 - Writer makes changes in Word. Design Planner makes edits in CS 5 and down-saves to CS 4.
6 - Repeat steps 3 - 5, up-saving and down-saving as needed.
7 - When finished, submit draft to City Manager for approval.
8 - Writer and Design Planner include Manager's edits in Word and CS 5.
9 - Repeat steps 3 - 8 as needed.
Now, let's look at how it COULD have worked:
1 -- Produce template document in InDesign Creative Cloud and start inserting the lead writer's Word files, editing and inserting photos, creating infographics, tables, etc.
2 - Design Planner produces her pages in ID. (Since she only needs InDesign, Photoshop, and Acrobat Pro, we rent her that subset)
3 - I open the edited files, correct any infelicities, and send to the lead writer.
4 - Writer makes text changes in the copy of InDesign that we rented her on a temporary month-by-month basis for the duration of the project.
6 - When finished, submit draft to City Manager for approval.
7 - Writer and Design Planner include Manager's edits in the CS file.
8 - I do final cleanup and export as PDF.
Granted, my local liquor store, smoke shop, and physician (I punched a lot of walls and heavy pieces of office furniture!) wouldn't make as much money from me with this more linear workflow, but my lungs and liver might be in better condition, and -- who knows? -- I might still have hair!
So, yeah... Being able to standardize and streamline workflows across multiple users on a project, and to custom-tailor software toolboxes with ONLY what you need, ONLY when you need it, DOES have certain advantages, even though I still don't like software rental as a general concept.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
