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Reviews
Adobe PageMaker 6.5:
a publishing program for your needs.
By Godfrey Barnsley, Editor of IMACination.
All Macs come with a program to write text and it is called Simple Text, which as
it’s name implies, is a really simple program. However, if you wish to write text
with formatting features and want spelling and even grammar corrected, you will need
a word processor. There are several available in the market that will give you good
results. But if you want a layout program that assembles text and graphics in the
same page or publication, you will need a publishing program.
If you don’t have a word processor, you can create basic text with a publisher program
in the same way as with a word processor and the results and the contents may be
almost exactly the same. However if you plan to type more than one page, it would
be better to use a word processor and then export and layout your text into a publisher
program. This way your work will go much faster and easier. By comparison, it would
be the same as going to the super market with a large truck to buy a few groceries.
Two publishing programs dominate the market. One is QuarkXPress that sells for about
$700 and the other is PageMaker which sells for about $430. Quark does not provide
upgrades at lower prices when you are already a Quark owner. You have to pay the
full price of the software for a new release. If you own PageMaker, an upgrade version
will cost you $100. With PageMaker you can do everything that you can do with Quark
with the advantage of having the capability of producing documents in pdf format.
So if you have PageMaker, you don’t need to buy Acrobat that costs $200.
PageMaker does everything that the latest version of Quark will do. One program
might do a few things easier than the other and vice-versa, but in general,
both are very similar. The documents that you create in one can be created by the
other without any problems. PageMaker is more time consuming to create or change
the number of columns when you are preparing a page. In Quark this is automatic.
The same thing happens when adjusting leading on text. But saving more than $500
without the necessity of buying Acrobat justifies this additional little work. I
believe that sooner or later, in a new version, PageMaker will also be able to do
this.
Publishing programs have detailed manuals, but learning to use the software from
them is a boring and tedious job. After reading some chapters, it is easy to forget
what you have learned if you do not practice immediately. The best and fastest way
to learn is to purchase the visual quickstart guide published by Peachpit Press that
costs $19.00 and will teach you how to use the program in a fast and easy way.
PageMaker has another advantage. Adobe Systems publishes the “ClassRoom in a Book”
which is a complete training workbook that is exclusive to PageMaker. It teaches
you how to create flyers, newsletters, catalogs, brochures and even to prepare documents
for the web. Up to the end of June, Adobe customers who buy PageMaker 6.5 can receive
a free copy of the book from Adobe Systems. The book is sold in bookstores for $45.
PageMaker has features that are similar to PhotoShop and Illustrator and one of
these features is the ability to use layers. Layers allow you to link objects together
without actually grouping them. With this feature you can create documents that are
complex, having different elements like, for example, different languages or formats.
One layer could be in English, another layer could be in French. One could include
certain illustrations in one layer and have different illustrations in another layer
for a preview of possibilities. If you are used to work with layers, you know it’s
advantages.The more complex your documents are, the more you’ll appreciate this capability
in PageMaker. If you use PhotoShop and Illustrator, PageMaker makes a perfect trio
allowing you to use the three programs as one very complete and powerful software.
You can drag files back and forth between these programs without any problems. You
can use PhotoShop filters directly in PageMaker. Actually some of the filters that
are available in PhotoShop come with PageMaker. You can also use filters from other
suppliers.
You can also use PageMaker to create layout web pages. You can assign HTML tags
to text and attach web links with a different color. The Auto Adjust feature layout
allows you to rearrange a page into a screen page, moving text and graphics and re-sizing
them proportionally to web publishing. PageMaker provides the flexibility to adjust
and customize formats for specific settings. This allows you to quickly set up same
type of documents.
We are using the e-mail system more and more to send our messages and letters. Transmission
for these type of files is fast and in seconds they are gone or downloaded. But if
you want to send a more complex document, containing text and pictures, transmissions
may take a long time. This is especially true if they contain photos or sophisticated
graphics elaborated by PhotoShop or another programs. To speed up the process of
transmission, you need to compress these files.
Stuffit Deluxe sold by Aladdin, which costs $80, is
a program that compresses files to be used by the same platform but the recipient
has to have the same program that created the file to open it. If you are sending
the file to a recipient that doesn’t have the program that created the file or even
to a different platform like the PC or Unix, you need to compress the file in pdf
format. There are two programs that do this job. One is Distiller and the other is
PDF Writer and both come in Acrobat. Acording to Adobe Systems, Distiller is a program
that creates a pdf compression containing text, photographs or graphics better than
PDF Writer. If the file has only text, you can use PDF Writer. You just drag and
drop the file over the PDF Writer icon and the file is created automaticaly. The
April IMACination has an article about Acrobat. For best results, service bureaus
today are asking customers, when bringing in files containing graphics or photos,
to compress them in pdf format. To de-compress the file, the receiver needs Acrobat
Reader that can be obtained free from the web and also comes in many CDs of other
programs of computer magazines. Acrobat Reader opens the document no matter what
program created the file and and no matter what platform.
PageMaker 6.5, which comes with Distiller, is a program that meets the needs of
most traditional desktop publishers and will fulfill the needs of most electronic
publishers. PageMaker 6.5 is a good investment and in the future, when new versions
are available, you will only have to spend around $100 to upgrade.
§
IMACination is the newsletter of The National Macintosh Computer Society, Fort Lauderdale,
FL.
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