What I like most about Adobe InDesign is the exceptional level of control it gives me over layouts, typography, and overall document presentation. As an architect and interior designer, I find it especially useful for producing professional design portfolios, architectural presentations, project proposals, moodboards, and other client-facing documentation.

Being able to manage multi-page documents, keep branding consistent with master pages and styles, and place high-resolution images smoothly makes my workflow much more efficient. I also really value the precision InDesign offers for alignment, spacing, and visual hierarchy, which helps me create clean, sophisticated, premium-looking presentations. On top of that, its seamless integration with Photoshop and Illustrator is a major advantage, since it lets me build polished documents that clearly communicate my design ideas to clients. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I dislike about Adobe InDesign is its relatively steep learning curve and how much time it takes to truly master the more advanced layout and formatting tools. As an architect and interior designer, I often work on image-heavy portfolios, design presentations, and project proposals, and handling large files can sometimes feel slow and resource-intensive. I also find that certain tasks—like resizing complex layouts, adjusting multiple elements at once, or making last-minute design changes—can be unnecessarily time-consuming. The subscription pricing is another drawback, especially for small design studios. I’d appreciate more intuitive editing tools, stronger performance when working with high-resolution images, improved collaboration features, and AI-powered layout automation to help make the overall workflow faster and more efficient. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Excellent support for script-based automation (like ExtendScript) transforms repetitive layout tasks, data merging, and multi-row data formatting into precise, programmable workflows. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

While InDesign has improved its support for World-Ready Composers, handling complex scripts—such as Devanagari (Hindi) and other Indic or bidirectional languages—still often suffers from inconsistent conjunct rendering, awkward line breaks, or unpredictable character spacing. For multi-lingual publishing, designers frequently have to resort to manual tracking adjustments or custom scripting to achieve professional typesetting quality. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Adobe makes it easy to align various text boxes (which is great for working on designed reports), and despite all the settings and formats and options, it's not difficult at all to learn how to work it and to work within it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Adobe InDesign is occasionally slow to show that it needs an update, and some of the features get a little wonky in the meantime. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Adobe InDesign stands out for its precision and scalability, with specialized tools that make it especially well suited to multi-page layouts and text-heavy publishing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The mandatory, expensive Creative Cloud monthly subscription is a major financial burden for casual users, freelancers, and small businesses. The interface is very dense and complex, which can feel overwhelming for beginners and takes a significant amount of time to master, especially compared to canva in the same segment. On top of that, large, multi-page documents often lead to noticeable lag, heavy system resource usage, and occasional sudden crashes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I like best about Adobe InDesign is how well it handles structured page layouts and keeps everything organized. The interface takes some time to get familiar with, but once the basic tools and panels are understood, creating brochures, reports, presentations, and other multi-page documents feels very controlled. I also like the precision when working with text, spacing, grids, margins, and alignment. Its connection with other Adobe applications is useful when a project involves Photoshop or Illustrator assets, and the overall performance is reliable for typical design work. The main advantage for me is the level of control it gives over the final layout without making the workflow feel cluttered. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The biggest downside for me is the learning curve. The interface has a lot of panels, tools, and settings, so it can feel overwhelming when you are still learning the workflow. Some basic tasks also take more steps than I would expect. The subscription pricing can be difficult to justify for occasional users, especially if they only need InDesign for a few projects. Integrating it with other Adobe apps is useful, but moving between applications and managing linked assets can sometimes add extra work. The AI features are improving, but they are not the main reason I use InDesign, and I would still prefer more straightforward guidance for some newer features. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

My favorite thing about Adobe InDesign is its overall flexibility—I can do almost anything I like in it. I use it to create layouts, pagination, and master pages for consistency across a document, design editorial grids, link files, and integrate with other Adobe apps. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don't feel Adobe InDesign does the table of contents super well. It can be glitchy and complicated to make work correctly and auto-update. The overall accessibility and usability could be better, and it can feel a little overcomplicated to get a wrangle on the program unless you've been using it for years. Downloading and installing it isn't hard, but learning to use it, integrating it into the team, teaching everyone else, and getting consistent with how we set up files can be difficult. I also feel like it doesn't give me a lot of control to create both long- and short-form PDF documents to a high degree of design excellence. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

InDesign is a fantastic piece of software, we use it for producing design posters for both print and digital, all of our graphic output comes from InDesign. It had the powerful features we need and integrates perfectly with other Adobe products. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There isn't too much to dislike about InDesign, given the powerful features it does come at a premium price but, that is probably the only downside, but it is defiantly worth it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The precision and consistency it brings to multi-page professional documents. In a setting where every client report, internal knowledge product, or published insight must look board-ready and fully on-brand, InDesign’s master pages, paragraph/character styles, nested styles, and tight control over typography and spacing let me lock in a clean system once and apply it reliably across dozens or hundreds of pages. Linking external assets (from Photoshop or Illustrator) and updating them without breaking the layout is seamless. Export options for high-quality PDF (print or interactive) and the ability to maintain exact brand colors, grids, and hierarchical typography make the final deliverables feel polished and intentional rather than “designed in a slide tool.” Recent generative features also speed early concepting of supporting visuals without leaving the layout environment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The learning curve remains real for occasional users or new joiners who are more comfortable in slide software; the interface and feature depth can feel heavy at first, and some advanced type or automation options require deliberate practice. Subscription cost for full Creative Cloud access is noticeable at scale, and performance can lag on very large, image-heavy documents if the machine is under-specced or cloud sync is slow. Collaboration features have improved but still feel less fluid than pure cloud-native tools for real-time multi-person editing of the same layout. Occasional version or plugin compatibility hiccups also surface in fast-moving team environments. These are manageable with good training and hardware, but they are friction points compared with lighter tools for simpler one-off pieces. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The precision and control for multi-page packaging-related documents is outstanding. Master pages, paragraph/character styles, and the ability to lock consistent brand elements across long catalogs or sets of sales sheets save enormous time when we prepare materials for retail clients. Typography tools are excellent for readable, professional product descriptions and compliance text on labels or insert sheets. The seamless hand-off with Illustrator and Photoshop lets us move between structural packaging concepts and finished layout without constant reformatting. Export options for high-quality print PDFs with proper bleeds, crop marks, and color management are reliable for the printers and converters we work with every day. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The learning curve remains noticeable for team members who are not full-time designers; some advanced features (complex nested styles, certain interactive or data-merge setups) take deliberate practice. Occasional performance slowdowns appear when working with very large catalogs that contain hundreds of high-resolution linked images. Subscription pricing is the expected Adobe model, but it still requires ongoing budget justification for occasional or specialized users. Collaboration features, while improved, are not quite as fluid as some newer cloud-native tools when multiple people need to comment or edit the same long document simultaneously. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that Adobe InDesign is well integrated with the Adobe Creative Suite and loads very fast, even when I’m working on many pages with lots of content and high-resolution images. I can define styles and fonts, get a clear overview of a document, and make changes that update across all pages with a few clicks. It’s easy to adapt the layout and see how it will look in print, including margins, alignment, and pages side by side. I also value its preflight and pre-press tools for checking things like color spaces, image resolution, text boxes, styles, and fonts. The print PDFs are easy to handle, and I can count on everything being in order for high-quality output. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think an AI integration would be very helpful. I’d like to upload the content and images and have them automatically placed into a style or layout I’ve chosen, so I only have to review the result instead of doing everything manually. I also need press and pre-press knowledge to understand what’s important and how to set up a document. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.