PageMaker: Still alive and kicking but now transformed

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Do you still remember PageMaker? Those of you out there who, at one time in the past, just like I did, thought that desktop publishing (DTP) would give you a ticket to the Hall of Fame must be very familiar with this name. You spent hours every day trying to master all the techniques and tricks for putting all the design elements on your page. You bought and read stacks of books on creating page designs -- all with the name PageMaker inside their titles. You learned terms from "white space" to "em dash".

What gives? Nowadays, not much of your investment really remains useful. The reason? DTP programs such as Microsoft Publisher and -- surprise, surprise -- PageMaker now come chockful with ready-to-use templates that look great without requiring much tinkering.

It is much like having spent many hours learning how to cook a sophisticated dish only to find out that a microwave-ready pack is available at the nearby supermarket. The taste may differ, but not enough to justify all the trouble of learning the recipe.

From artistic to instant

I still remember the first time I really succeeded in creating a newsletter with PageMaker. It felt like a real accomplishment to me. Before that, I had been playing with earlier versions of PageMaker and even Ventura Publisher. Both failed to make me a credible desktop publisher, but I learned very slowly and eventually mastered some of the trade.

At that time, PageMaker was still a product of Aldus Corporation. Aldus also made FreeHand, a very popular program for creating graphics illustrations for publications. FreeHand had an archrival from Adobe, and it was called Illustrator. Adobe then acquired Aldus and adopted PageMaker to complete its line of desktop publishing tools: Illustrator for creating graphics, Photoshop for image editing, and PageMaker for page layout. FreeHand is now in Version 10, but it has landed in the hands of Macromedia.

Over the years when PageMaker was still an Aldus product, it enjoyed immense popularity among its fans. People formed PageMaker communities in which they shared their tips and tricks. Try www.makingpages.org/pagemaker/ and www.tek-tips.com to see what they are doing.

Unfortunately, since the acquisition by Adobe, not much seems to have changed in PageMaker. The look might have imparted a better integration with Photoshop, Adobe's standard-setting image and photo editing program, but most of the rest has largely stayed the same. This must have enabled PageMaker's competitor, QuarkXpress, to unseat it as the leading DTP program for both Windows and Mac machines.

Adobe also acquired FrameMaker, a page layout program considered to be more capable of handling long documents and books.PageMaker, which does not have the ability to create and manage footnotes automatically like our everyday word processors, and is meant for shorter documents with less design structure.

Strangely, at least to me, Adobe came up with an entirely new program for page layout called InDesign (now in Version 1.5). We took a look at this program when it first appeared around two years ago. At that time I thought the book on PageMaker had already been closed forever. It was not.

What is new?

Adobe has apparently changed the target users of PageMaker from professional desktop publishers to business people who would like to produce effective promotional materials -- brochures, catalogs, newsletter, etc.-- with as little effort as possible.

Among the new features is the built-in capability to create a file in the tagged Portable Document File (PDF) format. If we already have PageMaker 7.0, we will no longer need Adobe Acrobat Distiller. The PDF format is the de facto format that enables people to view documents in their original layout and design in any computer without having to download huge amount of data -- as long as they have the freely distributed Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Another major new feature is the facility to merge documents with data-text and images -- from databases. One of the intended uses is perhaps the creation of direct mailing materials, i.e., one document with different addressees.

Then there are the import filters that enable us to open files created in QuarkXpress 3.3-4.1, Microsoft Publisher 95 - 2000 but not 2002, and Microsoft Word, excluding 2002. PageMaker 7.0 does not export into QuarkXpress or Publisher format, understandably.

However, one strong upside that we surely can still expect from PageMaker 7.0 is the ability to produce high-quality printouts with consistent colors and precision. Another thing that does not change, and I truly wish it had changed, is PageMaker's Table Editor, which remains a separate utility that creates an image file rather than an editable table.

Final Word

Given its historical background as a professional DTP program, it is quite paradoxical that PageMaker is now positioned as a tool for quick results. The tools, if you recall, are not the easiest ones to learn.

For example, the metaphor of pulling the window shade as the place to hold text is not really an intuitive one, especially when compared with the text boxes that word processors use. In this sense, PageMaker does not seem to live up to our expectations.

Not only that, business users have better alternatives for creating such materials. Among the best in this group is Microsoft Publisher, which now comes as Microsoft Publisher 2002. More importantly, however, is the price, which is rather steep. The full version of PageMaker 7.0 carries a price tag of US$499.

If you have an earlier version, you can buy the upgrade version for $79.00. Microsoft Publisher, on the other hand, is now offered at $106.99 at amazon.com -- not including a US$ 30 manufacturer's mail-in rebate. This really makes even PageMaker upgrade a tough choice. (zatni@cbn.net.id)