Adobe PageMaker 6.5 Plus
In 1994, Adobe acquired PageMaker from Aldus Corporation, pioneers of digital page layout. While QuarkXPress sat on its laurels, Adobe came out with two versions of PageMaker during the past five years. Version 6.5 was the last. A promised Version 7 has not materialised. 6.5 Plus is not an upgrade, but version 6.5 is bundled with clipart, stock photos and templates.
Easy on the system
Version 6 won popularity among the ordinary folk in the trade (that is, DTP operators); while 6.5 improved its image among professionals by adopting the concepts of layers, multiple master pages and frames. With a shallow learning curve and ease of use, dozens of shortcuts and tricks, quick QuarkXPress conversion and most state-of-the-art features, PageMaker cannot be wished away even if Adobe has been deliberately downplaying its importance with a view to promoting the expensive FrameMaker and its latest brainchild, InDesign.
PageMaker is not a resource guzzler; it uses around 28 MB disk space for a typical installation. Even with a meagre 32 MB memory (which is entry level these days), loading is fast, and the interface clean, albeit rather desolate. A list of recently opened files under the File menu is reassuring. You can select a document-specific default printer during page setup. Document setup itself is, unlike QuarkXPress, quite flexible and can be modified anytime later. Text Autoflow feature can be turned on or off at will.
The blank opening page, as well as the additional pages you might add later manually or automatically, are actually frames or text blocks that behave exactly like text frames in any application; their width and height controllable interactively with the mouse. Linking the text on the first page to a block in the last is carried out interactively and easily. PageMaker makes it possible to insert automatic Continued on.... and Continued from.... lines, the application itself finding and inserting the page numbers.
Multiple master pages
You can have any number of master pages in PageMaker now, and associating a page to a particular master page is intuitive. We liked the way pages are displayed at the bottom of the screen and the quick way to navigate to any page. However, the two small rectangles marked L and R for master pages are vintage. They give you no clue as to what master page is currently active. You need to use the Master Page palette to identify or associate pages and master pages. By introducing the concept of multiple layers, and the ability to hide and display individual layers at will, PageMaker makes it possible to print different versions of a document.
PageMaker has been managing all along without external frames for text or graphics, and it still can. The concept of frames has been introduced to keep up with the Joneses and, supposedly, to add more functionality to the layout. Frames are duplicates of the three shape tools, with a cross inside each of them.
A frame can take text or a graphic image, but not both. Text flows freely around or through an image placed on the page, whether inside a frame or otherwise.
Text formatting is a breeze if you use the onscreen control palette: both paragraphs and characters can be styled through this palette, or via the menu bar. Preset paragraph styles are accessible from this palette, and permit local formatting. Virtually every typesetting feature is available on the control palette, including coarse setting of tracking and leading. Kerning can be done interactively, which is convenient when you create display text.
You donÆt get much control over baseline, nor is there a simple way to vertically align text within a block or frame. Copy editing, which can be done only from the Story Editor screen, is woefully inadequate. PageMaker probably has the worst dictionary of the lot.
Perfect for books
However, PageMaker has an excellent Book feature. Its versatile indexing technique is something writers will love. The table of contents (TOC) is based on paragraph style. You can create consistent chapter headings, captions or subheadings using paragraph styles from the control palette.
You can organise files as chapters in any order; the page numbers will be automatically renumbered. However, you should do a reindexing and create a TOC after this reordering. There is no way you can get automatic numbering for chapters, crossheads or captions. It is perhaps the lack of automation and productivity that make even Adobe admit that PageMaker is not suitable for very large documents.
Though you can create several geometric shapes, lines and fills from within PageMaker, and text flow around an object or image can be tightly controlled by manual means, PageMaker gets no high marks for graphic handling. You can flip, rotate and crop graphics (as well as text blocks), but there is little or no control over other attributes. However, you can apply a number of Photoshop effects to a bitmap image.
Having been on the shelf for over a year and more, PageMaker fails to recognise the newer versions of graphic applications.
Good colour management
RGB and CMYK as well as Registration colour are available in the colour palette by default; you can create other process or spot colours by mixing.
If you need a particular Pantone colour but do not recall the Pantone number, you can mix colours and produce an approximate colour and then switch over to Pantone; the application will bring up the nearest Pantone match. The application ships with a Colour Management System.
Export features
PageMaker claims to be able to directly export to PDF if you have Adobe Acrobat Distiller on board. In practice, however, you might find the æDistill NowÆ option greyed out for many reasons. PageMaker has excellent options for sending a file or colour separations as a PostScript file to a service bureau.
You can also send the PageMaker file as well as the linked graphic files in the open format, but its Links dialog box is no answer to QuarkÆs Collect for Output. You can convert an imported RGB image to CMYK for the purpose of colour separation from the Print dialog box, though you would lose any trapping you might have set earlier. HTML and hyperlink support are just about passable.
With all its shortcomings, PageMaker will remain popular with the ordinary DTP operator because of its ease of use, familiar interface and flat learning curve.