Adobe last week opened up its desktop publishing and typesetting software InDesign with support for Apple Silicon up for beta testing. The new beta is expected to run natively on Macs with Apple’s M1 Chips including the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini.
Users can install the app via Adobe’s Creative Cloud app installed on their Macs. The update will appear under the Beta Apps section in the left-hand panel.
The Apple Silicon version of InDesign will see improved performance and compatibility as it won’t require Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation framework in order to run. Apple developed the framework to quickly convert apps made for x86 processors into arm64-compatible code the first time you open them.
Here’s what Adobe says doesn’t work in this beta:
- Licensing of Stock images and templates
- Adobe Color Themes panel
- Content-Aware Fit
- Browse in Bridge
And here are features that work, but with limitations or bugs:
- Password-protected PDF workflow does not work as expected.
- Issues are seen with Grayscale color profiles during PDF Export.
- Drawing issues are seen in CPU rendering; includes app flickering, text cursor not seen, drawing not visible until the mouse is released, Immediate Live Screen Drawing is not working.
- Delayed rendering on scrolling through a long list in the “Fonts” and “Links and images” tab of the Packaging dialog.
- Sample Apple scripts in the Scripts panel will not run in the Beta app.
- Color SVG fonts are rendered as black and white within InDesign and fail to export.
- SVG file format support is broken, the fresh import will not work, and will cause crashes in existing documents with already imported assets.
- Incorrect formatting is getting applied when importing few text files like word or excel.
- Few intermittent crashes exist while exporting PDF and switching workspace.
- Distortion seen in the Glyphs panel; including entries in Paragraph Styles dialog, Bullets, and Number dialog.
- Issues in Font dropdown:
- In-menu font preview is not shown even after checking the corresponding Type Preferences.
- Find Similar Fonts displays no results.
Adobe recently updated Photoshop, its popular photo editing, and manipulation software to natively support Apple Silicon after which Adobe says it runs 50% faster than on a 2019 Intel-based MacBook.
Other popular Adobe apps including Premiere Pro are still undergoing beta testing with support for Apple Silicon, with official versions expected to release sometime soon.
While InDesign is significantly less popular as compared to Photoshop, it’s interesting to learn Adobe is including it in its roadmap to update all its apps for Apple Silicon compatibility.
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