[Peter Cohen]

Pages certainly has very powerful page layout capabilities (I recognize that's contrary to the opinion of other people posting in this forums). I would say it's good at both word processing and page layout, depending on how far you want to take it. InDesign is wonderful, but it's also a very expensive professional page layout tool intended for people in publishing and graphic design; definitely overkill for someone looking or a Publisher replacement. Chances are you simply need to learn how to use Pages a bit more effectively to get more out of it.

One thing I will say, however -- Pages does lack a lot of extra templates or clip art. This stuff is available as add-ons to Pages from third parties, but it ends up running you a lot of extra money.

Another possibility you might want to consider, depending on what, exactly, you're planning to produce, is Print Shop from Software MacKiev. It has a lot of templates for various printed projects and includes a lot of clip art and add-ons to help you produce really top-quality looking documents.

[Irishepherd]

I found InDesign packaged with Photoshop, Dreamweaver and other software that I need badly, so I think I will go with Adobe Design Premium. If InDesign is that good - I want to learn it. Thanks for your help.

[Irishepherd]

I would like to learn InDesign if it is really that good. Thanks for all your help.

[shades]

I bought Adobe CS4 Master Collection (Acrobat Pro, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop) earlier this year for Education. Great value.

I have found the best training resource has been Adobe InDesign CS4 One-on-One Book and CD (by Deke McClelland).

[Irishepherd]

Thank you. I was looking at the Design Premium? What's the difference?

[shades]

Oops, my mistake. I thought I had Master Collection, but I have Premier Suite.

Master Collection includes everything in Premier plus Adobe Premier Pro, Encore, On Location, and Contribute.