InDesign CS3 for Dummies product reviews

When it comes to DTP stuff the best I can claim was a brief 1 year flirt with QuarkXpress that ended badly. We couldn't find common ground. It was a messy break-up. 'nuff said. So I was a bit worried when I got my hands on this book, that I would find it full of stuff I just couldn't deal with, since claims are that InDesign is Adobe's answer to Quark, with the pedigree of PageMaker. For someone like me who's aspirations in the publishing field are restricted to whatever can be found in the bottom of the MSOffice barrel, it's all pretty daunting stuff.
But biting the bullet and diving in the deep end is a family tradition so away I went, and after a few chapters I found myself starting to realise the pool wasn't so deep after all.
This book opened up a whole new avenue of options for me. OK, it was still clear that I needed to work, hard, on my design skills, but with the templates on the install disk, plus a few found online, I was soon churning out some nifty looking paperwork for totally bogus products. That didn't really matter to me, as it only took a few hours of playing and reading to totally erase years of worry that I was going to forever be stuck with playing with the dregs of the design industry's software tools.
I can honestly say that this book has single-handedly started 2008 off with a serious 'up' for me. Now I feel confident enough to tackle something more than form letters and ugly letterheads when it comes to paperwork, and I might even be able to take on the job of work's monthly newsletter this year. (I don't have much choice really, since it's part of my new job, so this book arrived right in the nick of time to be a real life saver!)
If you want to find out what the hype is all about, and have a need to learn InDesign, then you should have this book on your desk, and I don't mean to lift your old monitor up another half an inch. keep it where you can grab it at a moments notice, read it cover to cover at least twice, then fire up InDesign and start exploring your new world. Awesome book!