I run InDesign CS5 at work on a PC and at home on a Mac. This is fine, no problems. I also use it at college, but the college Macs only have CS3 installed – which isn’t compatible.

I think I already know the answer to this, but is there any way to install InDesign CS5 to a USB drive that I can run at college? Save me lugging a laptop around when there’s a perfectly good suite of Imacs I can use.

I would imagine probably not as the software will require licensing on the machine you are trying to run it on.

You may also find that your college’s security policy stops you running things from USB drives anyway.

I think (from a legal standpoint!) I’d be ok as we have a site license at work, which also covers a limited number of staff to use it off site. And I’m the only one that does.

Practically though I don’t think it’ll work. Looks like I’ll have to man up and carry the laptop 😛

I know nothing about InDesign but, can you not save work in CS3 format or something? Seems mental that it’s blanket “not compatible.”

There’s was a dodgy version of Photoshop that runs off a pen drive, think it was for PC though. Never seen one for InDesign but I guess it must be possible.

You could install Linux on a USB stick then run InDesign using wine. The macs at your Uni would need to be bootable from the USB port though.

I have not tried this for a while but on Mac you used to be able to copy the installed folder (of any software) to the USB drive it will then work from the USB.

So you don’t install it to the USB just copy it there once installed to the hard drive.

Could take soma_rich’s idea further and use a small portable hard drive to contain a whole Mac OS X environment. Plug it in, hold down the option key and switch on and boot off the portable hard disk.

Either that or just buy a MacBook Pro – whichever is easiest…

Rachel

Do you have access to logmein.com at college?

You can just login from college to your home machine that way?

There’s a dodgy pen version for PC aye, can’t find anything for Mac though.

InDesign is backwards compatible ONE VERSION – ie CS5-CS4 using INX files, but it’s not the greatest solution. I can see why, with added features and such, but it’s a pain in the behind to say the least.

**edit** Some good ideas there while I was typing! I’ll try copying the install to a pen first and see what happens… I do have a Macbook, but I travel by bike or bus so the less I have to lug around (today I have camera, couple of lenses, flash, bag full of crap for still life and so on) the better!