Apple Reviews

Adobe has done very well with the OS X Native Photoshop and Golive applications. What were they thinking of when they released PM7? Personally, I'll never by another non-OS X native application.

PageMaker fans have long bemoaned the lack of attention Adobe has paid to Pagemaker. When they thought Adobe was finally going to get around to a PM upgrade, they got, instead, InDesign. With the release of PM7, however, Adobe shows that it hasn't abandoned its intensely loyal PageMaker users. This is not a significant upgrade in terms of features, which are few: native Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files can be directly placed into PM7, allowing you to skip the flattening/merging step, which allows you to update your .psd files and have them integrated quickly into your PM document. The PDF distilling options are set in PageMaker itself, not in the included Adobe Distiller 5.0, and there are more options than were previously available through the included Distiller. Interestingly, there are converters for rival Quark Express and Microsoft Publisher files, but not one for Adobe's own InDesign. Perhaps Adobe felt that no one would want to "back into" Pagemaker from InDesign: I say that since the initial versions of InDesign lacked a table of contents feature, which has been a PageMaker standard, there are a lot of Indy users who would have loved that option.
The best thing about PM7 is the changes under the hood that gear it to work with more advanced operating systems, such as Mac OS 9 and Windows 2000. (It does not run under the native Mac OS X, but it does run in OS X's Classic environment). With this breath of life, PageMaker users can rest a little easier. While Adobe seems determined to force its high-end users into InDesign, the loyal contingent who have invested time and money into their PageMaker skills can still produce top-quality documents.

I have used PageMaker extensively for over ten years for almost everything under the sun. A fantastic programme! The icing on the cake with Version 7.0 is the addition of icons on the menu bar. It is in keeping with most programmes within the windows environment. Fabulous! If you want to dive into desktop publishing Aldus Pagemaker is definitely your pick.

I learned graphic design and layout on PageMaker, and wished Adobe would take the product seriously. Instead, PageMaker seems to be falling into the ranks of Microsoft Publisher as a program people use believing it'll do the job right.

While many service bureaus still offer PageMaker services, it is by far better to go with Quark. It can do more, has more flexibility with printers and publishing houses, and will cause fewer problems regarding bugs and crashes.

The plus side is the templates. Beginners will depend on these, and templates simply aren't found in Quark. They will reduce the learning curve a little, though be aware, as a result, you templated documents will suffer from a canned, over-done look. Just the same, your work will be clean and well-structured.

If you intend to be a serious designer, stay away. None of the people you want to work for use this. This is for amateurs only.

If you have PageMaker, don't upgrade. 6.5 is plenty: the new stuff isn't worth the money. Do a little homework on Quark, and figure out how to convert your files with the newest version. It the short run, you'll spend a few more bucks, but in the long-run, you'll save time and frustration.

I cautiously recommend PageMaker 7.0, but only as a tool for users intending to publish newsletters from their desktops.

Anthony Trendl

PageMaker marries your text, graphics and images into one PageMaker file from your computer desktop. Also, you can send the file to a service provider. Commercial service providers can turn your PageMaker files into high quality newsletters and magazines.

Thumbnail Designs to Comps

You need pencil and paper to create your thumbnail designs. The tradition still works for creating your design for layout pages in PageMaker. Follow this with the "Comp" (Comprehensive Sketch) for the number of pages, number of columns, picture placement, type specs and add color for affect.

The Comp is the first proof the client approves. Comps could include tables, sidebars, footnotes and various headlines. Next, have your client approve or suggest alterations for your work.

PageMaker Basic to Advanced Construction

You have the required tools and utilities built into PageMaker for creating basic layouts. With PageMaker you can automate repetitive tasks and combine manual operations into a few short steps. These are just some of the ways for speeding up your production time with PageMaker.

Avoid Costly Mistakes

Advantages of digital files allow you to change the text fonts, images, and colors before finally sending your publication to your service provider. Create several documents from your Master document. Use your PageMaker magazine advertisement on your website. You can also use your PageMaker file for your company sales kit and trade show posters and banners.

PageMaker Work Environment

Start with: Title Bar, Menu Bar, Tool Palette (Tool Box) and Control Palette. Add Page Navigation icons and finish with Story Editor.

The PageMaker mighty nine menus: Start with File, Edit, Layout, Type, Element and Utilities. Add View, Window and Help for direction.

PageMaker 7 and PDF files

PageMaker supports the import of Acrobat 5's PDF format files. Also, PageMaker 7 can now produce PDF files throughout the new Distiller 5. This is significant as PDF has establishes itself as one of the preferred medium for commercial print.

Quick Look at PageMaker 7 Improvements and Bundled Goodies

• Graphic placement is improved.
• Drag-and-drop placement works well.
• QuarkXPress 4.0 documents can be converted to PageMaker format.

Bundled goodies worth having: PageMaker 7.0 includes 57 font families with 207 Adobe typefaces, a huge collection of design templates, and a large library of Adobe Illustrator clip art and stock photo images.

Pro Reaction

PageMaker 7.0 has hundreds of A4 and U.S. letter templates for newsletters, brochures, flyers and advertisements.

PageMaker 7 now supports files in Photoshop's native PSD and Adobe Illustrator 9's AI format. In addition, PageMaker 7.0 comes with its own 401 page User Guide.

PageMaker's unique features are its ability to wrap text completely around objects. Another unique feature to PageMaker is its preflight capabilities to help users deliver error-free documents to printers and service bureaus.

Con Reaction

PageMaker 7 works with Mac OS 9 Classic and not directly in Mac OS X. You can still access it throughout OS X platform.

Missing is the Adobe Press book on how to use the Adobe PageMaker 7.0 templates similiar to Adobe PageMaker Plus 6.5 Productivity Kit. Also, there is no command to automatically open the placed PSD back into Photoshop.

InDesign-a lovely second act to the ubiquituous Quark. I have been using Indesign for about three months and while I appreciate many of the differences, I find it a perplexing and often frustrating program. It seems to have a mind of its own. Type suddenly becomes highlighted, drop shadows appear unwanted, and if anyone can figure out the how to line type up on the baseline (the fools at Adobe support certainly don't) please let us in on it. It's a program with too many choices, too many foolish options. Design, while always in the market for options can suffer from too many, delicate controls. I am happy to have learned InDesign, but I must confess it is with some relief and confidence that I often return to that embattled Quark just to get the job done.

Given the creativity and productivity improvements available in InDesign I would like to think the world would drop Quark and instantly embrace InDesign. I'm sure Adobe would like that, too. Fat chance. The CS version is truly a program come of age and a worthy inheritor of the page layout crown. But, alas, the world runs on Quark and that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon. I use it because I have to, not because I want to. I just hope InDesign doesn't become the software version of the Betamax.

Adobe PageMaker has evolved into InDesign CS. Shedding its caterpillar skin, InDesign CS has emerged as a marvelous butterfly. It is fitting tribute that a pen and butterflies adorn the Adobe InDesign CS box.

Adobe InDesign CS software combines production power with graphic freedom. Designers can lay out pages more rapidly. You will find that InDesign CS shares standard Adobe commands, tools, palettes, and shortcuts with Adobe
Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator software programs.

Work More Efficiently with InDesign CS

InDesign creative toolset gives flight to your design ideas. Designers and Illustrators can work more efficiently with InDesign's organized tools. You will save production time by importing native Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator files.

Business designers can work with popular PageMaker features in InDesign CS. This includes data merge, ALAP InBooklet Special Edition for imposition, and dynamic bullets and numbering. InDesign CS easily converts PageMaker 6.0 and 7.0 files with the included document converter.

Work Experience with InDesign

I find the InDesign Story Editor similar to PageMaker Story Editor. Using Control "Y" or simply right-clicking (or control-clicking) the text will call up the Story Editor. This allows you to use live editing for your page design's content and styles.

I can edit text and make changes in a section of my document without having to go to my "Continued on Page . . ." I have found this helpful in a multiple page document. You can set the preferences for font, font size, line spacing and background color.

Unfortunately, Story Editor is not a full-featured text editor since there are no spell checker, outlining, or table capabilities.

You can set your document "presets" for page size, columns and margins that are similar to Printer and PDF Export presets. Using the InDesign selection tool, I can drag the handles and press the shift key to preserve the frame's
original proportions. In addition, you can import styles from Microsoft Word.

InDesign CS has resizing capabilities but it takes several attempts to get resizing done right. I find it easier to resize my photographs in Photoshop before importing graphics to InDesign. This allows me to crop images to my desired shape and resize them.

I can move the palettes by holding the Option key and dragging them anywhere on my desktop space. You can make changes to tables and your headers and footers and line them up to where you want them to appear.

Pro Reaction

The standard Adobe interface works well with InDesign CS, Photoshop and Illustrator. InDesign has nested styles and XML support. InDesign CS has a new Story Editor and better separation and new flattening previews. Noted was improved performance and new tools and palettes in InDesign CS.

Con Reaction

Within InDesign CS, you cannot save files for use with InDesign 2.0 or earlier. You cannot save InDesign files to QuarkXPress. Opening complex pages within InDesign CS takes a large amount of time on Mac G3 computers.

Final Remarks

This InDesign CS version is a full-blown power-packed upgrade. I feel that InDesign CS will convert more PageMaker and Quark users over to the new Adobe InDesign CS program.

InDesign CS is perhaps the application that benefited most from the most recent upgrade that Adobe made to its key applications, bringing a load of useful and highly expected features and built to take advantage of all the system enhancements that OSX Panther has to offer. I'd like to stress ONE feature, though, that blew me away... two words: NESTED STYLES. If you have suffered through the painful process of laying out a document where more than two styles are required in a particular content block, you will shed tears of joy when you see this at work!

You are bound to also find very handy the enhanced table features such as automated running headers and footers for tables that run across multiple linked text frames. Printers (people in the printing industry) are also going to be happy (or so Adobe wants) with the features that have been included in InDesign CS for them.

All in all, if I were Quark, I'd be shaking because InDesign is not going to stop until it takes over the current market share that QuarkXpress has... it's just a matter of time and perhaps a version or two more. But try CS now: I think you will love it!

I found that InDesign 2.0 offers greater flexibility than Quark and certainly is light years past PageMaker. Clearly, you need to read and compare the features of these page layout programs and, if at all possible, try the various page layout software before making a purchase. These programs still cost big bucks.

InDesign has so many whistles and bells that at first it overwhelms, but if you are already familiar with other Adobe software, the learning curve is not that steep and most of the tools and controls will seem fairly intuitive.

I especially like the flexibility of being able to import native Photoshop and Illustrator files and the easy-to-use links navigator. I also like all of the options for working with text and fine-tuning the appearance of a document. It's great to have a drop cap appear at the start of a paragraph without relying on extra tools (as in PageMaker) and seeing a preview of how a change in attributes will alter text of the same style. Features such as the ability to add metadata and export pages in SVG format are another plus.

The manual is pretty clear, though the section on breaking text links is needlessly confusing. Still, between the information in the manual and the online resource guide, most questions and issues are likely to be addressed.

If you are creating books, directories, and annual reports, then InDesign will make your life easier. It even converts Quark files so that you can work with any legacy documents.

When Steve Jobs announced that all the new 2003 Macs would only be able to boot in OS X, I figured it was time to step up to the plate, get oriented to the new OS and upgrade our art department. The only thing holding me back was not having a page layout app that ran natively in 10, and I had no intention of working in Jurassic mode. I had heard less than positive things about InDesign 1.0, but figured I'd do the free tryout from Adobe, since it would give me the chance to test drive Jaguar in an all-Adobe environment.

Talk about a revelation. This program's ease of use had me creating usable projects inside of a week, and by the time the tryout expired, I had converted about 150 pages of our company catalog from the old Quark files. That was when I realized how much we truly needed this package. It was as if I'd been using it for years. I could import files from Illustrator and Photoshop without having to save them as tiffs or eps. I could export press optimized pdfs without going through Distiller, that weighed in at a thrifty 4.5 mb ..... not bad when the Photoshop elements totalled over 50 meg! The tables tool is extremely helpful; it functions like a mini Excel, eliminating the need for tabs in charts. The text formatting is a breeze, the preview display looks great even at low quality, and proofs that I output to my inket printer look phenomenal. Just try doing that in Quark without getting nauseous. But wait - there's more ...... layer support and blending modes, transparency, drop shadows, gradiated text, and the list goes on. We don't need no steenking XTensions .........

Adobe InDesign is, at the time of this writing (11/02) still the only layout app that runs natively in Mac OS X, thus completing the Holy Publishing Trinity with Illy and PShop. In a way, Quark has done us a favor by dragging their feet on upgrading, thereby giving us a chance to try out a tool that is so much better, more intuitive and integrated with the other tools we have to use. It's as if Adobe stood back and observed all that didn't quite work about QXP (and that other abomination PageMaker which the company may just as well disavow), and created an app that works beautifully without having to think about it too much. Whatever the case, the timing is right, and we Mac users really appreciate it.

Adobe InDesign and Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar is, quite simply, a publisher's marriage made in Heaven.

If you're running OS X, InDesign is a must have for page layout. A very short learning curve particularly if you're familiar with other Adobe design softwares. Since Quark is taking their sweet time coming to the OS X table, I went ahead and tried InDesign and must say I was totally impressed.