Product Reviews

PageMaker invented the concept of desktop publishing back in 1985. What made it so revolutionary was the way it took traditional design methods, involving the paste-up of typeset text and screened images, and simply translated them to the computer environment. Ironically the secret of PageMaker's early success became the reason for its later problems, as its largely manual approach wasn't suited to more advanced requirements such as handling longer documents, Web repurposing and scriptability.

Adobe's solution was radical. It stopped development of PageMaker, apart from the almost entirely cosmetic 6.5 Plus, and started again from scratch. The result was InDesign (version 1.5 reviewed issue 70, p195), a next-generation DTP app intended to take over from PageMaker and to take the fight to QuarkXPress. But the behind-the-scenes advances in InDesign made little practical difference, so not only did InDesign fail to challenge XPress, but few PageMaker users made the transition either.

So now, with this unexpected upgrade, has Adobe recognised the reality of the marketplace? Is PageMaker back from the dead with a major transfusion of new blood? Or is this another attempt to wring as much revenue as possible out of the dying patient?

PageMaker has always recognised that by its nature any DTP app must lie at the heart of a larger workflow incorporating text and graphics from different sources. As such, the first advance in the new release is the updating of PageMaker's import filters. For text, the most important file format is Microsoft Word, and PageMaker 7 now supports Word 2000 documents, including index and table of contents markers, footnotes and endnotes. There still seems to be trouble importing Word styles, however, so I had to fall back on the improved RTF import.

More work has gone into improving PageMaker's support for graphics and especially for files produced with Adobe's own apps. In particular, PageMaker 7 now supports files in Photoshop's native PSD and Illustrator 9's AI format. The support for the bitmap-based PSD is relatively unproblematic and means that users can now work with a single image file rather than juggling layered PSD and flattened TIFF versions. Strangely, there's no command to automatically open the placed PSD back into Photoshop.

Support for Illustrator 9's AI files is more complicated. To begin with, the dialog is the same as the one for importing Acrobat PDF files, as Illustrator 9's native format is now PDF based. However, PageMaker doesn't have Illustrator 9's flattening technology so is unable to display or print transparency effects. Looking at the Readme file, it isn't too hot on Illustrator 9's spot colour, blends, gradients or feathering either. Generally it's better to stick to the tried and tested EPS route, especially as the EPS filter has been updated to support PostScript Level 3, which is essential if you're intending to produce in-RIP separations.

As well as supporting the import of Acrobat 5's PDF 1.4 format files, PageMaker 7 can also now produce them thanks to the bundling of

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the latest Distiller 5. This ability to create electronic versions of any project that can then be viewed in the free Acrobat Reader program has been a great strength of PageMaker since version 6 and is becoming even more significant as PDF establishes itself as the preferred medium for commercial print.

What's more, Adobe hasn't just bundled Distiller with PageMaker 7, it's completely incorporated it via the revamped Export PDF command. This now provides a tabbed dialog in which you can manage how article threads are handled, set up password security and more. Using the Edit Job Options command you can also take control over all of Distiller's settings such as colour, font and compression handling. You can even use the 'Embed Tags in PDF' option to create PDF files, which can reflow depending on what screen size they're viewed on.

It's not all good news, however. By its manual nature, PageMaker isn't ideally suited to creating reflowable PDFs. One reader has already been in touch to report problems with fonts in embedded OLE tables, and no doubt the next InDesign will go much further with support for advanced features such as PDF transparency. Even so, PDF output remains one of PageMaker's major strengths and the updated support is definitely version 7's major selling point.

Adobe is now pushing PageMaker as a business-orientated solution and is making much of its new data-merge capabilities. Using the new Data Merge palette you can link to an external source and add variable data to your publications to create personalised publications. Data can be previewed on screen, empty lines removed, custom layouts created and images linked to and embedded.

A bit of inspection, though, immediately reveals limitations. To begin with, you can't link to actual databases but only to comma-delimited text files. When it comes to merging you also find that there's no real control with no way of conditionally selecting the records you want to print. More importantly, you can't merge directly to the printer as the system works by copying and pasting pages to a new file. For short, local print runs the data merge will do the job, but the system isn't scalable and is hardly state-of-the-art.

And incredibly that's it for new power. So how can Adobe possibly claim that PageMaker is a business DTP solution? The obvious competition is Microsoft Publisher (version 2002 reviewed issue 83, p182), and PageMaker 7 even offers a converter updated to support Publisher 2000 files - and at first the comparison looks embarrassing. PageMaker's templates and clip-art are dreadful, while features such as its macro-based data merge look prehistoric compared to the latest Publisher's ODBC-compliant Mail Merge. There's no doubt which program offers the most power and the better working experience.

But DTP is a special case in that ultimately it's judged by its output, and here the tables are turned. Thanks to its PostScript and PDF-based control, PageMaker is able to offer both simple Acrobat electronic publishing and reliable commercial print. For in-house print, Publisher wins hands-down, but it doesn't offer direct PDF support. And for colour-separated work its reliability is suspect, whereas thousands of PageMaker projects go to successful commercial print every day.

Ultimately the test of any DTP program is whether it produces the goods and, for most simple jobs, I and thousands of others still turn first to PageMaker. Clearly Adobe has moved its development effort elsewhere but, by updating PageMaker's PostScript and PDF support, it's done just enough to keep the program a going concern - and a lot of users will be grateful for that.