I used pagemaker, but that was before Indesign. Use Indesign to put it together.
Illustrator is the best for making the cad drawings look pretty.

trace: what format to you use to import cad drawings in illustrator?

raul: photoshop, indesign, illustrator.
remember to turn your 2d cad in eps before you go into indesign, best line thincknesses.

I favour a totally manual approach - Adobe Photoshop. Takes a huge amount of time and is pretty frustrating......but you get really original results - you can layer things, alter your drawings, introduce colour easily, etc. to make everything look reeeeally pretty! Cad drawings can just be brought in as JPEG's, as can any other images from different programmes. Hope this helps......

photoshop and quark

I also used pagemaker for the actual page layout. However, Photoshop and illustrater were used throughout the process. Apparently InDesign is the way to go today. If you use Pagemaker take advantage of the ability to link rather than place images. It helps with the file size.

photoshop
to get drawings in photoshop I plot to file with a post script printer (if it's not on your list of available printers you can configure one)and that makes it an eps.it's nice because you can print with your pen assignments, etc.

you can actually open .dwg files in illustrator, and edit the line weights..

i feel that quark and indesign are the best. i would avoid illustrator for that kind of thing entirely unless its to lay out individual drawings.

photoshop + quark

3yrs ago, I went with Quark with Photoshop/Illustrator. But now, like many others, InDesign with Photoshop.Illustrator. As le bossman said, I also would avoid Illustrator for layout. It's really annoying. It can show one page only unless MultiPage plugin is installed.

good method to go from CAD to photoshop:

Use a PDF writer and plot your drawing as a PDF. Then you can open it in photoshop. Usually, you'll have to add a white background layer, but you will be able to maintain all of your penweights. You can then save it as a PSD or JPEG.

has worked well for me so far.

I used PS to edit photos, but it's not that efficient using it for an entire portfolio. I would highly recommend preserving the vector quality and not converting dwgs or ais or eps to jpegs - you'll lose all of the crispness and make it so you can no longer scale them without quality loss.

Richard - not sure what I used to bring the drawings in, but I had NOTHING in cad! It was all ink on mylar or pencil. It may have just been TIFFs, but I do know it kept the transparency, but the files sizes were outrageous.

thanks for the suggestions...

Trace... when u take Illustrator files to InDesign, do u lose the vector quality of the lines? also how do u export the line weights from Cad to Illustrator?

I used Microsoft Paint and I will never use anything else. Nothing really compares. It is good for those professional looking portfolios and presentation drawings.

Photoshop for cleaning up the images and InDesign for laying out pages and text

As a non adobe monopoly supporter, I used Macromedia's Freehand (as part of the Studio MX package). It is right now what InDesign will be in a few years, a fully integrated document layout and publishing program. You can manipulate both vector and raster graphics within one pragram. You can also do graphics that are static for print portfolios, that are dynamic buttons and graphics for web portfolios. I am starting to include flash content which can be used for both web or print publishing.

Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign..

i second trace's comments : "I would highly recommend preserving the vector quality and not converting dwgs or ais or eps to jpegs - you'll lose all of the crispness and make it so you can no longer scale them without quality loss."

avoid jpeg's in general. they are lossy and are not made for print work of any kind. use a format with lossless compression like tiffs.

oh, and if you really want to avoid monopolies - use the GIMP for all of your photoshop-esque work.

the gimp

there should be mac/win/linux flavors for all.

sorry, i am brand loyal.

One more vote for the adobe family. Indesign is the best out there for layout. I worked with quark for years and switched to indesign last year. Adobe may be a monopoly (as if Macromedia isn't, btw) but there are certain advantages that only programs that are designed by the same company can benefit from. Once you learn one adobe product, you can quickly pick up the others. Also, there is the advantage of linking all your native illustrator and photoshop files to indesign. Not only does it decrease file size and make working on long portfolio-type files easier, it allows you to alter the original files and have them update in the indesign doc automatically. As far as cad work and these products go, I'd advise simply using the dwg/dxf import in illustrator. Once you're finished with the indesign doc just save it as a pdf and bring it to a printshop.