Making Pagemaker More Efficient
dhe...@my-deja.com
I want to search for some suggestions for making pagemaker more
efficient assuming I have pagemaker 6.0 but the version doesn't really
matter in my area of concern for pagemaker. I work for a school
newspaper and like many other schools, the budget is pretty tight for
high speed computers. The computer I use have is 233 Mhz and there are
32 edo rams or sd rams, not too sure. Umm..I think that is all the info
needed so if you need more just ask, and I'll gladly reply.
I work I do is to publish the newspaper and that comprises of pictures
in color format mostly as bitmap and sometimes tiff to take out the
white space in preparation for a text wrap. The average amount per page
either large or small is probably around 5-8. Their are also a lot of
type probably in the range of 2000-2500 words. All this translates into
high usage of memory which the computer does not supply, thus, it takes
like 5 minutes to save everytime or maybe 2 minutes to move a text
around, maybe 4 minutes to move an image around, and maybe 5 minutes to
send the page to the network printer to print.
Do you have any ideas of making pagemaker more efficient. I thought of
taking out color since the newspaper is in black and white only, but in
experimentation with a section where only artwork and text is present,
the same long wait for pagemaker to do something occurs time and again.
Any suggestions will be great and thanks for taking time to read this.
Dave
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
SCG
previews while working. Split up your document into smaller files. Convert
your images to grayscale.
-scg
dhe...@my-deja.com wrote in message <83f6fp$vb5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
Barry Dixon
With the low cost of RAM at the moment you should be able to increase it to
at least 64Mb for a small cost which should improve things.
--
Barry.
*** Remove "nospam" from e-mail address to reply ***
<dhe...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:83f6fp$vb5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
dhe...@my-deja.com
Thanks for all your replies.
To SCG: What does splitting up your document into smaller files mean?
Does this mean that I should link the text or something else? If you
can, please help me clarify this and thanks.
To Barry: Yeah, I thought about getting more ram but I will probably
have to wait until next school year which means September 2000 to buy
new rams or better yet, computer processor. The technology departments
budget is already used up so adding an additional 32 megs to 6 out of
15 computers (only 6 is needed to layout) is basically impossible until
next year. I personally know that 32 megs cost like 40 dollars or even
less nowadays, but even at the low cost, the school will never pay for
this and believe it or not, not even a Pagemaker reference book (30
bucks.
Thanks once again and if their are more suggestions you can think of,
please post it up.
Mac
Faster on-screen? ??
anyway, several things.
1. optimize your scans, by which I mean do not have more data than you
really need. What you really need depends on your output device. If you are
going to an imagesetter for film and running halftones at 85 lpi, you need
not have more than 130-150 dpi in the photos. a 300 dpi scan is 4X larger
than a 150. If you are going to laser printer, about the same or a little
less would be plenty. You really only need about 1.5 X the halftone lpi
unless you are printing on glossy stock on a big press. For line art scans
(1-bit, not 8-bit like greyscale), they should be at approx the resolution
of the pritner. For laser, 600. For imagesetter 1200. NOTE these figures are
for the actual printed size. A scan at 150 dpi at 4" that is placed and
sized at 2" becomes 300 dpi (same # pixels crammed into half the width) so
take this into account.
Yes, a color scan is much larger than a greyscale scan (3 or 4 times).
Convert to greyscale in photoshop before placing in PM. Also crop and size
the thing in Photoshop before placing.
2. Scripting can make some things work much faster. You might want to look
into this. Pre-tagging stories with predefined styles and importing them
already formatted. (if you are not using styles extensively, you should.
Changing everything manually is very sloppy and time consuming)
Just a few...<G>
--
Mac Townsend,
Adcom Graphics, Fairfield, CA:
www.adcomgraphics.com
A Corel Platinum Service Bureau
Lee Blevins
Yes, you'll have to manage your jumps manually but if you link your text
files it won't be as bad as opening a single document of your entire
newspaper.
DON'T embed ANYTHING.
That function in Pagemaker (embedding graphics) has contributed to more
remakes and time wasted in prepress than just about any other s/w
feature I can think of.
It is on of the major reasons I see PageMaker as an evil in prepress.
How many times have we had the conversation:
"I'd like to fix it but it's embedded in the document."
"What do you mean embedded?"
"You know, when you placed it and you saw that dialog that said blah
blah blah... and the default answer was NO but you chose YES?"
Now we have them copying and pasting from web pages.
"but it looked fine on my monitor..."
<flamebait>
I'd like to see a psychological profile of the type of person that
choosed PageMaker over Quark as a layout program.
I believe there's a consistent aspect of the personalities.
The more professional, higher skilled designers seem to use Quark.
I see the novices and those who just don't have the mental capacity to
understand the technical details using Pagemaker.
Unfortunately, that novice market is about 80% of the entire market.
It's a whole lot nicer world in the top 20% without those PM users.
</flamebait>
It amazes me how one can use an Adobe type one font, and Adobe page
layout application on a PC with Adobe Type Manager writing a PS file
with an Adobe printer driver initialized with the correct ppd from the
Adobe web site and submit the file to an Adobe PostScript interpreter
and get a postscript error.
No, wait.
It really doesn't surprise me at all.
It saddens me.
<dhe...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I want to search for some suggestions for making pagemaker more
> efficient assuming I have pagemaker 6.0 but the version doesn't really
> matter in my area of concern for pagemaker. I work for a school
> newspaper and like many other schools, the budget is pretty tight for
> high speed computers. The computer I use have is 233 Mhz and there are
> 32 edo rams or sd rams, not too sure. Umm..I think that is all the info
> needed so if you need more just ask, and I'll gladly reply.
>
> I work I do is to publish the newspaper and that comprises of pictures
> in color format mostly as bitmap and sometimes tiff to take out the
> white space in preparation for a text wrap. The average amount per page
> either large or small is probably around 5-8. Their are also a lot of
> type probably in the range of 2000-2500 words. All this translates into
> high usage of memory which the computer does not supply, thus, it takes
> like 5 minutes to save everytime or maybe 2 minutes to move a text
> around, maybe 4 minutes to move an image around, and maybe 5 minutes to
> send the page to the network printer to print.
>
> Do you have any ideas of making pagemaker more efficient. I thought of
> taking out color since the newspaper is in black and white only, but in
> experimentation with a section where only artwork and text is present,
> the same long wait for pagemaker to do something occurs time and again.
> Any suggestions will be great and thanks for taking time to read this.
>
Allen Wessels
le...@ids.net (Lee Blevins) wrote:
>It amazes me how one can use an Adobe type one font, and Adobe page
>layout application on a PC with Adobe Type Manager writing a PS file
>with an Adobe printer driver initialized with the correct ppd from the
>Adobe web site and submit the file to an Adobe PostScript interpreter
>and get a postscript error.
Even better is the tap dance tech support does when you explain that it
is an Adobe system from start to end and you expect them to figure it
out.
- Allen
Peter Mielke
>DON'T embed ANYTHING.
Okay.
>That function in Pagemaker (embedding graphics) has contributed
>to more remakes and time wasted in prepress than just about any
>other s/w feature I can think of. It is one of the major reasons
>I see PageMaker as an evil in prepress.
>I'd like to see a psychological profile of the type of person that
>chooses PageMaker over Quark as a layout program.
Perfect timing! I'm this >< close to buying it.
>I believe there's a consistent aspect of the personalities.
>The more professional, higher skilled designers seem to use Quark.
>I see the novices and those who just don't have the mental capacity to
>understand the technical details using Pagemaker.
>Unfortunately, that novice market is about 80% of the entire market.
I'm less than a novice. Never done anything like it before. Need to buy
a complete system and software to prepare a book for prepress. Thought
Adobe was THE way to go and was prepared to spend significant portion of
$2000 USD on Acrobat and PageMaker, settling for a small system. I'm
green but no dummy: Can you, in a couple of paragraphs, change my mind
about PM with some more reasons? (I will be using Windows because of $.
The book will be several hundred pages of text with b&w line drawings.)
Thanks,
Peter.
Joe
I have been working in Electronic Prepress now for about 5 years. Because I
work for a printing company I have no choice but to work in the program on
the platform our customer sends us there jobs in. I have over 1000 hours of
experience in booth PageMaker and Quark Express on booth the PC and Mac. So
when I make my next statement understand it is very informed and
Knowledgeable. PageMaker is not worth the cost of the CD it comes on. If it
were me and Adobe was giving PageMaker away free of charge and Quark was
5000 dollars a copy, If I did not have the money I would borrow the money to
buy Quark to keep from using PageMaker. The Mac Platform is also much
superior to the PC for printing purposes and these days not really that much
more expensive. For between 3000 and 3500 dollars you can buy a 350mhz G4
Mac, Quark, PhotoShop, and Illustrator. With this combination of programs
you can produce anything you want to print. And a 350 G4 Mac is almost twice
as fast as even a 700 MHz Pentium 3 in these programs. If you went the PC
PageMaker route to get less but the best performance you would have to buy a
700 MHz P3 this would be about 2 grand and PageMaker, PhotoShop, and
Illustrator another grand. Again about 3000 dollars. I am writing this from
a PC at my house which I bought to play games, read email, read news groups,
and surf the net. I would not want to do any of this on the Mac as I think
the PC does these things better but for producing Printed Material the Mac
flat Blows the PC away. Save yourself some major headaches, time and money
and go the Mac Quark route. You will be glad you did!
Joe
Peter Mielke <p...@portal.ca> wrote in message
news:1314.21T17...@portal.ca...
Dan Grobstein
indicate that the document you are going to be working on is meant for film
output. It would monitor your actions, then...
If the box was checked then a dialog box would pop up if you did something on
the list, that would say something like "for film output don't use a
background of none with a tiff--you'll get jaggies" or "if you embed this
graphic (or paste it) the service bureau won't be able to edit it to remove
the four spot reds that you have in it." or "hairline rules will not be
printable if imaged to film".
I don't know enough about the mechanics of xtensions, but if possible, this
might let me keep a little color in my hair for a few more years.
Dan Grobstein
DGM Computer Graphics
Roselle, NJ
Lee Blevins wrote:
>
<snip>
> DON'T embed ANYTHING.
>
> That function in Pagemaker (embedding graphics) has contributed to more
> remakes and time wasted in prepress than just about any other s/w
> feature I can think of.
>
> It is on of the major reasons I see PageMaker as an evil in prepress.
>
> How many times have we had the conversation:
>
> "I'd like to fix it but it's embedded in the document."
> "What do you mean embedded?"
> "You know, when you placed it and you saw that dialog that said blah
> blah blah... and the default answer was NO but you chose YES?"
>
> Now we have them copying and pasting from web pages.
>
> "but it looked fine on my monitor..."
<snip>
SCG
any of this this stuff. (Other than printing files)? Outputting files does
not not an expert make. I know. I was there.
-scg
Joe wrote in message ...
>> >That function in Pagemaker (embedding graphics) has contributed
>> >to more remakes and time wasted in prepress than just about any
>> >other s/w feature I can think of. It is one of the major reasons
>> >I see PageMaker as an evil in prepress.
>>
Lee Blevins
> green but no dummy: Can you, in a couple of paragraphs, change my mind
> about PM with some more reasons? (I will be using Windows because of $.
> The book will be several hundred pages of text with b&w line drawings.)
Imagine this:
You have a picture on the page. It's a rectangle.
It's a picture of a seascape.
You notice that the horizon is not level.
If it's Pagemaker, you have to go open the picture in Photoshop to
change it's angle.
If it's Quark, you just rotate the graphic in the rectangle, keeping the
rectangle and it's type run around intact.
Imagine this other scenario:
You've set up automatic page numbering.
You have a color bar running down the outside of each right hand page
and you want the folio to knock out white but stay black on the left
hand page.
In Pagemaker you're screwed. You'll have to manually create all the
folios on the right hand pages because PM always makes master page
objects the "back" objects and you can't bring them to the front.
How about this one:
You're picky about your typesetting and you'd like to create some custom
Hyphenation and Justification settings and link them to specific
styles... You guessed it. No can do in PM.
Get Quark.
It's no accident that high end advertising agencies (like 95% or better)
choose Quark. It's just a better product better suited to the task.
Why do you think Adobe who owns it wrote another program?
They realized that PageMaker sucked beyond repair and it made more
sense to code a completely new program.
Pagemaker will eventually go the way the rest of the Aldus products
went.
RUGuufy2
<<I have been working in Electronic Prepress now for about 5 years. Because I
work for a printing company I have no choice but to work in the program on
the platform our customer sends us there jobs in. I have over 1000 hours of
experience in booth PageMaker and Quark Express on booth the PC and Mac<<
PageMaker is not worth the cost of the CD it comes on.>>
1000 hours of experince in Quark and PM over 5 years......??
Wow, thats like 200 hours a year on average.....
What did you do for the rest of the year?
Shoot negs, burn plates??
I put in 1000 hours on PM, Quark, AI, PS, etc., in 6 months.....
Everyone has their own preference...
If you know what you are doing, both are very capable packages.
I have seen very good designers do great stuff on PM, and vice versa, I have
seen totally useless designers take a quark document, and screw it up so bad...
Its not the s/w, its the user!!
<<> Lee Blevins <le...@ids.net> wrote:
>
> >DON'T embed ANYTHING.
>
> Okay.
>
> >That function in Pagemaker (embedding graphics) has contributed
> >to more remakes and time wasted in prepress than just about any
> >other s/w feature I can think of. It is one of the major reasons
> >I see PageMaker as an evil in prepress.>>
And the same goes for quark........
Explain to my if you can, why a designer would take a CMYK scan (eps.), drop it
into a quark document with all of the associated files (type, tif's, etc.) then
make a new eps. of that quark page, then import that eps into a new quark
document, and make that document an eps file??? And on top of it all, the
designer knew it was only a 2 color spread........ not a CMYK.
So, how are we the pre-press people, supposed to color sep. a 4/c quark
document, thats supposed to be 2 color, if they embedded the file?
Seems as if Quark is just as big an evil in prepress as PM then, wouldnt you
agree??
See, it all depends on the knowledge of the user..... not the s/w.
as usual, remove (NOSPAM) when emailing.
**I dont do Win-doze......... **
Just Do It............ Buy a G3!
Ronald Blocher
1,000 hours using Quark. Most of my experience with Quark is changing files
created by other typesetters that have left our company. I hate Quark!
Possibly the reason is that the typesetters that designed the files that I
have to change weren't very good, and not the fault of Quark.
I primarily design hospital forms. These forms can be extremely difficult to
design, and even more difficult to redo after the doctors and nurses change
their minds and want everything moved around about 2 or 3 dozen times. I
have had to really learn a lot of tricks to get the forms out to the
satisfaction of all of these people, but PageMaker has been up to the task.
I personally feel PageMaker is an excellent program. I have used both the PC
and Mac versions, and as far as I'm concerned, they both work almost exactly
the same, and work great across platforms. The only real problem I have is
with fonts, and I get around this by using only Helvetica and Times or Times
Roman. I know this would be limiting to people creating other items, but for
forms this is an acceptable method.
Ron
rtb...@worldnet.att.net
RUGuufy2 <rugu...@aol.comNospam> wrote in message
news:19991219134050...@ng-fw1.aol.com...
Joe
I did not say only 1000 hours of experience in five years. I said OVER
1000 hours experience in booth PageMaker and Quark Express on booth the PC
and Mac. That means I have worked in PageMaker on the PC at least 1000
hours, PageMaker on the Mac at least 1000 hours, Quark on the PC at least
1000 hours, and Quark on the Mac at least 1000 hours. Being as they are over
10,000 work hours in 5 years I have much more than 1000 hours in some of
these. Sorry if my statement was confusing. The point to it was I am not
someone that just sat down at the PC one time and tried doing one job in PC
PageMaker and then decided I did not like it. I have done many jobs in booth
platforms and Programs. So I know what will consistently produce the most
reliable results in the least amount of time and that is Quark on the Mac.
Yes the quality of operator makes a difference but like Lee said it is
generally the least experience and knowledgeable that use PageMaker and
things generally take longer to fix in PageMaker than Quark.
Lets just compare two typical things that happen almost every day. Say
someone sends you a PageMaker document and when you open it it says a font
is missing. What do you do? First you make sure the customer did not send
it. And they didn't.
Then you check your font collection and find you don't have it either. Then
you skim through the document to try finding it to see if maybe there is
something you could sub for it but you can not find where it is used. Then
you call the customer to get them to send you the missing font and they say
"Oh I used that font at one time but changed it so it must just be a space
or something" at this point you have wasted 30 minutes trying to fix
something that was not even a problem. In quark you could have just gone to
font usage told it to show you where this font was used found out it was
just a space and changed it and moved on in 30 seconds.
Now lets look at another. Say you are sent a PageMaker file with 50
photos in it with runarounds on every one that the customer has scanned low
res and sent you the transparencies to scan high res and replace. In
PageMaker you just got about a days work because you are going to have to
place all these again and recreate all these runarounds. In quark you just
change out the picture in the box. This task would easily take three times
as long in PageMaker and who pays for this time? The customer does we do not
eat it.
So any small savings the customer might see in the cost of purchasing a
PC and PageMaker over a Mac and quark will be paid out many times over to
printers or service bureaus.
I will sum up this very long post with a simple question and the only
logical answer. If PageMaker is a good program why would Adobe the people
that own it and sell it create Indesign an entirely new program to perform
the same basic task? There is only one logical answer to this question.
Because even Adobe knows PageMaker is screwed up beyond repair and the only
way to fix it was start over from scratch.
Joe
John Doherty
| <flamebait>
|
| I'd like to see a psychological profile of the type of person that
| choosed PageMaker over Quark as a layout program.
|
| I believe there's a consistent aspect of the personalities.
|
| The more professional, higher skilled designers seem to use Quark.
That's funny. I know some professional, highly-skilled designers who
were using PageMaker when QuarkXPress didn't even exist, or was still
so lame that you couldn't even use it.
Some of those highly-skilled professionals have since decided to move
on to other page-makeup applications. Some, but not all, decided to
move on to QuarkXPress. Some have stuck with PageMaker, and since they
learned how to use it a long time ago and are highly-skilled pros,
they know how to get the results they need from it.
Now and then, they run into service bureaus staffed with people who
think "Quark rOOlZ, dude!," but they just think that problems they
have with service bureaus like that are the service bureau's problem,
and they quietly move on to better ones.
| I see the novices and those who just don't have the mental capacity to
| understand the technical details using Pagemaker.
I don't see that novice QXP users are any better. They do all sorts of
stupid stuff, too, some of it the same stupid stuff.
| Unfortunately, that novice market is about 80% of the entire market.
|
| It's a whole lot nicer world in the top 20% without those PM users.
Some of the top 20% were using PM before QXP even existed, and some of
them still are. Obviously, those among the top 20% who use PM don't use
your shop, because you're a Quark dork, but that's your problem.
--
Lee Blevins
> And the same goes for quark........
> Explain to my if you can, why a designer would take a CMYK scan (eps.),
> drop it into a quark document with all of the associated files (type,
> tif's, etc.) then make a new eps. of that quark page, then import that eps
> into a new quark document, and make that document an eps file??? And on
> top of it all, the designer knew it was only a 2 color spread........ not
> a CMYK. So, how are we the pre-press people, supposed to color sep. a 4/c
> quark document, thats supposed to be 2 color, if they embedded the file?
> Seems as if Quark is just as big an evil in prepress as PM then, wouldnt
> you agree??
>
> See, it all depends on the knowledge of the user..... not the s/w.
The difference is if were quark, the cmyk scan and the eps files
wouldn't be embedded so you could change them.
If it were PageMaker, everything would be embedded and you couldn't
change it.
Lee Blevins
> | It's a whole lot nicer world in the top 20% without those PM users.
>
> Some of the top 20% were using PM before QXP even existed, and some of
> them still are. Obviously, those among the top 20% who use PM don't use
> your shop, because you're a Quark dork, but that's your problem.
Oh yes John. There's total PM Bureaus out there.
In fact, it's such an overwhelming success story that I hear Adobe has
canned Indesign and decided to go with Pagemaker all the way.
NOT!!!!!!!!!!
Jay Chevako
photos in it with runarounds on every one that the customer has scanned low
res and sent you the transparencies to scan high res and replace. In
PageMaker you just got about a days work because you are going to have to
place all these again and recreate all these runarounds. In quark you just
change out the picture in the box. This task would easily take three times
as long in PageMaker and who pays for this time? The customer does we do not
eat it.
Go into links manager relink the image to the high res version you just scanned
in, otherwise you are wasting time and charging the customer too much, and
probably ruining a custom text wrap (runaround for the quark users) and causing
strange text reflows( be care ful of pagemakers Cropping). Hire someone who
knows how to run pagemaker well, if you don't want to deal with them.
On an aside I got a quark file (pc) with an embeded image (wmf) I didn't think
it was possible to embed images in quark
Judy Bay
Another long-time Pagemaker user.
> | It's a whole lot nicer world in the top 20% without those PM users.
>
> Some of the top 20% were using PM before QXP even existed, and some of
> them still are. Obviously, those among the top 20% who use PM don't use
> your shop, because you're a Quark dork, but that's your problem.
>
> --
Joe
What you say would work great if we scanned the high res first and sent the
customer fpo's to place because then the fpo and high res would be the same
just at different resolutions. But they don't ask us for fpo's the make them
themselves! And if they make there fpo a 3x4 inch scan and blow it up 150
percent when they place it and we scan our scan at 5x7 they will come in at
completely different cropping which means you still have to go back and
readjust the box sizes back and forth just to get the cropping correct.
Joe
Jay Chevako <SnospamSj...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:385EC3D9...@worldnet.att.net...
> Now lets look at another. Say you are sent a PageMaker file with 50
> photos in it with runarounds on every one that the customer has scanned
low
> res and sent you the transparencies to scan high res and replace. In
> PageMaker you just got about a days work because you are going to have to
> place all these again and recreate all these runarounds. In quark you just
> change out the picture in the box. This task would easily take three times
> as long in PageMaker and who pays for this time? The customer does we do
not
> eat it.
>
Lee Blevins
> Go into links manager relink the image to the high res version you just
> scanned in, otherwise you are wasting time and charging the customer too
> much, and probably ruining a custom text wrap (runaround for the quark
> users) and causing strange text reflows( be care ful of pagemakers
> Cropping). Hire someone who knows how to run pagemaker well, if you don't
> want to deal with them.
That doesn't work.
In our world close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Relinking high res scans to designer fpos is sloppy technique, totally
inaccurate and just a bad idea.
Even trying it shows a lack of understanding of digital imaging and
prepress workflows.
Unless you want to open every low res (they're probably embedded anyway)
and meticulously match the crop and angle in the high res that couldn't
possibly work.
I don't know what kind of work you do but aside from my customers
rejecting the job for inaccuracy I just wouldn't do it because it's just
plain lousy technique and produces poor quality work.
Maybe it comes under a new quality category of "good enough for a
Pagemaker user."
Matt Batchelder
<1e31zbb.tpv...@dyn097f.egr-ri.ids.net>...
>Imagine this:
>You have a picture on the page. It's a rectangle.
>It's a picture of a seascape.
>You notice that the horizon is not level.
>
>If it's Pagemaker, you have to go open the picture in Photoshop to
>change it's angle.
Just mask the picture and then rotate it in PM. Let the mask define the text
wrap.
>If it's Quark, you just rotate the graphic in the rectangle, keeping the
>rectangle and it's type run around intact.
I've noticed that the real pros never just rotate a graphic in page layout,
probably out of force of habit from back when ripping time was billable.
>
>Imagine this other scenario:
>
>You've set up automatic page numbering.
>You have a color bar running down the outside of each right hand page
>and you want the folio to knock out white but stay black on the left
>hand page.
>
>In Pagemaker you're screwed.
Lee, all you have to do is put the color bar on the master page.
First, you have to know how to use the program. After that, it's really more
of a matter of preference -- all page layout programs are kind of lousy when
you think about it. Quark has H&J's, it's true, but they're not necessarily
*good* ones. If cost is an issue, then the PM/Photoshop/Illustrator suite
would be a reasonable alternative to buying Quark, Photoshop, and
Illustrator/Freehand separately.
For a beginner, learning to use the proper image formats and prepare the
document correctly for your service bureau is far more important than which
page layout program you're using.
-Matt
Joe
> Just mask the picture and then rotate it in PM. Let the mask define the
text
> wrap.
Matt
This is true. But in my experience we only get about 1 photo where someone
has masked it for every ten where someone has just placed and cropped it. If
PageMaker users were to use the mask feature more and the place less It
would tremendously improve the picture replacement issues in PageMaker. But
designers just don't use this feature frequently. I think this goes back to
something Lee said earlier in this chain "Generally its the less experienced
and knowledgeable people that use PageMaker". It also goes back to something
I said " When something is wrong it is Generally harder and more time
consuming to fix in PageMaker. Time consuming translates into dollars for
our customers.
Joe
RUGuufy2
wouldn't be embedded so you could change them.
If it were PageMaker, everything would be embedded and you couldn't
change it.>>
Lee, with your limited and somewhat biased opinion, and infinate knowledge of
Quark can you tell me how you can separate a 4/C Quark eps. page, of a 4/C
Quark eps. page, a 4/C Quark eps. page, thats saved as a Quark eps.....??
In which you DO NOT have any of the availble ORIGINAL eps files!
And make it print in 2 colors.......??
If you can come up with an intelligent answer to that question, you are either
a Quark rep. or God himself!
Jay Chevako
Joe wrote:
> Jay
> What you say would work great if we scanned the high res first and sent the
> customer fpo's to place because then the fpo and high res would be the same
> just at different resolutions. But they don't ask us for fpo's the make them
> themselves! And if they make there fpo a 3x4 inch scan and blow it up 150
> percent when they place it and we scan our scan at 5x7 they will come in at
> completely different cropping which means you still have to go back and
> readjust the box sizes back and forth just to get the cropping correct.
> Joe
> Jay Chevako <SnospamSj...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:385EC3D9...@worldnet.att.net...
> > Now lets look at another. Say you are sent a PageMaker file with 50
> > photos in it with runarounds on every one that the customer has scanned
> low
> > res and sent you the transparencies to scan high res and replace. In
> > PageMaker you just got about a days work because you are going to have to
> > place all these again and recreate all these runarounds. In quark you just
> > change out the picture in the box. This task would easily take three times
> > as long in PageMaker and who pays for this time? The customer does we do
> not
> > eat it.
> >
> > Go into links manager relink the image to the high res version you just
> scanned
> > in, otherwise you are wasting time and charging the customer too much, and
> > probably ruining a custom text wrap (runaround for the quark users) and
> causing
> > strange text reflows( be care ful of pagemakers Cropping). Hire someone
> who
> > knows how to run pagemaker well, if you don't want to deal with them.
> >
Lee Blevins
A simple manuever in Scitex FAF.
Totally doable since the images won't be embedded in the Quark scenaria.
Even still I could turn the resulting CT into a duotone.
But beside the point, most Quark users don't do this. You're presenting
an hypothetical situation that doesn't resemble reality.
Now, pagemaker users embedding rgb files far more resembles reality.
Lee Blevins
snip
> Just mask the picture and then rotate it in PM. Let the mask define the text
> wrap.
I have yet to see a PM user use that technique.
>
> >If it's Quark, you just rotate the graphic in the rectangle, keeping the
> >rectangle and it's type run around intact.
>
> I've noticed that the real pros never just rotate a graphic in page layout,
> probably out of force of habit from back when ripping time was billable.
Total baloney. Real pros don't use Pagemaker and don't have the problem.
snip
>
> Lee, all you have to do is put the color bar on the master page.
Another nasty PM limitation, they'd all have to be the same color.
> First, you have to know how to use the program. After that, it's really more
> of a matter of preference -- all page layout programs are kind of lousy when
> you think about it. Quark has H&J's, it's true, but they're not necessarily
> *good* ones. If cost is an issue, then the PM/Photoshop/Illustrator suite
> would be a reasonable alternative to buying Quark, Photoshop, and
> Illustrator/Freehand separately.
>
> For a beginner, learning to use the proper image formats and prepare the
> document correctly for your service bureau is far more important than which
> page layout program you're using.
>
Why is it always the PM users who don't seem to use the proper image
formats?
John Jordan
>someone sends you a PageMaker document and when you open it it says a font
>is missing. What do you do? First you make sure the customer did not send
>it. And they didn't.
>Then you check your font collection and find you don't have it either. Then
>you skim through the document to try finding it to see if maybe there is
>something you could sub for it but you can not find where it is used. Then
>you call the customer to get them to send you the missing font and they say
>"Oh I used that font at one time but changed it so it must just be a space
>or something" at this point you have wasted 30 minutes trying to fix
>something that was not even a problem. In quark you could have just gone to
>font usage told it to show you where this font was used found out it was
>just a space and changed it and moved on in 30 seconds.
In PageMaker, Cmd-e, Cmd-f, click on All Stories, then on the font
attributes button, type the name of the font in the window, close the
box, click on Find First button. Less than 30 seconds. If it occurs in
more than one place, keep hitting Find Next until it doesn't find it
any more.
Of course, since you don't know how to use the program, it probably
would take 30 minutes, since you'd have to go look this up in the
manual. Oh wait ... you wouldn't do that. You'd just scream that the
program is useless and go back to QuarkXPress where you know where all
the buttons are.
NOTICE: The e-mail address is deliberately incorrect.
Delete "xnospam" from the username.
Warren Tryk
>>"Oh I used that font at one time but changed it so it must just be a space
>>or something" at this point you have wasted 30 minutes trying to fix
>>something that was not even a problem. In quark you could have just gone to
>>font usage told it to show you where this font was used found out it was
>>just a space and changed it and moved on in 30 seconds.
>
>In PageMaker, Cmd-e, Cmd-f, click on All Stories, then on the font
>attributes button, type the name of the font in the window, close the
>box, click on Find First button. Less than 30 seconds. If it occurs in
>more than one place, keep hitting Find Next until it doesn't find it
>any more.
>
>Of course, since you don't know how to use the program, it probably
>would take 30 minutes, since you'd have to go look this up in the
>manual. Oh wait ... you wouldn't do that. You'd just scream that the
>program is useless and go back to QuarkXPress where you know where all
>the buttons are.
>
Ouch! Ooof! Nice response! ;-)
Warren Tryk Design
Tumwater, Washington USA
<remove ".nospam" from my email address to reply directly>
+++ THE LOTTERY...
+++ A self-imposed tax on the mathematically challenged.
Joe
You still have they problem of not being able to just relink put you can
replace them much faster in quark because you don't have to concern yourself
with getting the box and runaround back in the same position because you are
only changing the contents of the box not the entire box with runarounds.news:385F5101...@worldnet.att.net...
> how does Quark differ when working with customer supplied fpo's?
>
> Joe wrote:
>
> > Jay
> > What you say would work great if we scanned the high res first and sent
the
> > customer fpo's to place because then the fpo and high res would be the
same
> > just at different resolutions. But they don't ask us for fpo's the make
them
> > themselves! And if they make there fpo a 3x4 inch scan and blow it up
150
> > percent when they place it and we scan our scan at 5x7 they will come in
at
> > completely different cropping which means you still have to go back and
> > readjust the box sizes back and forth just to get the cropping correct.
> > Joe
> > Jay Chevako <SnospamSj...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > news:385EC3D9...@worldnet.att.net...
> > > photos in it with runarounds on every one that the customer has
scanned
> > low
> > > res and sent you the transparencies to scan high res and replace. In
> > > PageMaker you just got about a days work because you are going to have
to
> > > place all these again and recreate all these runarounds. In quark you
just
> > > change out the picture in the box. This task would easily take three
times
> > > as long in PageMaker and who pays for this time? The customer does we
do
> > not
> > > eat it.
> > >
Paul Harris
<joef196...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Jay
> You still have they problem of not being able to just relink put you can
>replace them much faster in quark because you don't have to concern yourself
>with getting the box and runaround back in the same position because you are
>only changing the contents of the box not the entire box with runarounds.
>Joe
Maybe I started looking at this thread too late, but why not use
frames to place graphics in, create the runaround on the frame, and
you can replace the contents to your heart's delight without altering
anything else? (In the much-despised PM, I mean).
Paul Harris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WORD WORKS TYPOGRAPHIC
Design & Layout
Digital Typesetting (250)384-3076
Editing & Writing (250)384-4402 (fax)
1013 Pendergast St.
Victoria, BC
CANADA V8V 2W8 The_Guy_...@WordWorks.bc.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RUGuufy2
Hell, you dont know hypothetical!!
All you know is what you design and output yourself.....!
Everything I design and output comes out correctly the first time too!
Its when dealing when dealing with totally useless designers who are "book"
smart, adn ahave NO/ZERO real worl knowledge do things go to hell quickly....
As for the eps, in an eps, in and eps, saved as Quark eps.......
Its not hypothetical, I got a 24 page booklet set up that way last week....
By chance did you teach that so called lame ass desinger how to do that??
Jay Chevako
think pagemaker handles frames well, if an image in a frame is embedded then
you have to separate it from the frame relink it, then reatatch.
Lee may be right about there being more experienced quark users than pagemaker
users, but if he spent half the time explaining to the client just how he wants
the file prepared, thanhe does slamming pagemaker things would go a lot smoother,
and there maybe more experienced pagemaker users.
As far as my "lack of understanding of digital imaging and prepress workflows" I
can't argue with you there, I'm here to learn, like the guy who wanted to know
how to run pagemaker more effeciently.
Len Schmid
>
> Relinking high res scans to designer fpos is sloppy technique, totally
> inaccurate and just a bad idea.
>
> prepress workflows.
Huh.
Maybe this why we are sometimes asked to output film for jobs that
will be printed elsewhere, even though we're a printer not a service
bureau.
I mean, we're actually willing to work with the customer. If that
means making good scans to replace their fpo's, so be it.
Or maybe I iz jes' sum dum cuntry hick with a lak of un'erstan'in' of
digtal imgin' an' stuff.
Len Schmid
>
> In PageMaker, Cmd-e, Cmd-f, click on All Stories, then on the font
> attributes button, type the name of the font in the window, close the
> box, click on Find First button. Less than 30 seconds. If it occurs in
> more than one place, keep hitting Find Next until it doesn't find it
> any more.
Yuck. Switch to story editor, open the find dialog, open a sub dialog,
do the find, then switch back to layout to see where it is. Wanna find
it again? Switch to story editor, open the find dialog, find, switch
back to layout.
Yuck.
In quark you open the dialog and hit find. Then you see where the font
is used. Wanna find it again? Hit find again.
You say it only takes 30 seconds in PageMaker, but it takes about 2
seconds in Quark. That's a 15 to 1 advantage.
-- Len Schmid
Joe
Joe
Len Schmid <l...@amidongraphics.com> wrote in message
news:38617512...@amidongraphics.com...
Lee Blevins
It's highly unlikely that the designer fpo and the high res scan are
exact in crop. Linking to them would produce a placement error.
But like I said: maybe that's good enough for Pagemaker.
Len Schmid
>
> I don't think you get it.
>
> It's highly unlikely that the designer fpo and the high res scan are
> exact in crop. Linking to them would produce a placement error.
I guess it depends how exact you mean by exact. It's easy enough to
get within a point, and I that's good enough for a lot of situations.
I realize that you've been in the business olden times, so maybe
you're not aware that, these days, many customers have short deadlines
and require quick turn around.
In the modern workplace, designers do some prepress work, and prepress
workers do some design. If a customer needs something by Monday, they
may not have time to get hi-rez scans done on their end. They may have
to fax in type changes. They may have to replace a product photo and
price with another. These are all things we do.
Many of these tasks require judgement calls. We are willing to make
them. If you consider it un-professional to make a judgement call,
then I guess we'll just continue to take all your business!
-- Len Schmid
P.S. Another problem is that designer FPO's also tend to slightly
rotated, so you have to match their enlargement, cropping, and
rotation. Oh, this job....
John Doherty
(Lee Blevins) wrote:
| Matt Batchelder <ba...@colprinting.com> wrote:
|
| > Just mask the picture and then rotate it in PM. Let the mask define
| > the text wrap.
|
| I have yet to see a PM user use that technique.
So what? (1) It doesn't imply that all PM users are as dumb as the ones
you've seen, (2) it isn't the software's fault if people use it badly,
and (3) if you're going to claim that QXP users, as a group, know how to
use their software better than others, then you're so full of shit it's
hard to believe.
No matter what software you're talking about, you will always be able to
find plenty of people who use it badly. QXP users are not an exception
here, at least not from what I've seen. I've seen plenty of QXP files
prepared by people who apparently don't know how to use anything more
complicated than TeachText.
And I also know people who have been using PM since about 1985 who use
it to make 800-page books that are just as complicated as any 16-, 32-,
or 96-page booklet you ever have to worry about.
| Total baloney. Real pros don't use Pagemaker and don't have the problem.
Total baloney yourself. I know real pros who can use PageMaker better than
I'll bet you know how to use QXP (note that "using" includes a lot more
than just "printing").
| Why is it always the PM users who don't seem to use the proper image
| formats?
It's not. I've seen plenty of people stick RGB TIFFs or indexed-color
GIFs in QXP and wonder why they didn't get the results they wanted.
One thing I will say: you almost never see QXP users use WMFs, but that's
mainly because so few QXP users use windows at all, and only windows users
are dumb enough to use WMFs.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
--
John Doherty
(Lee Blevins) wrote:
| How about this one:
|
| You're picky about your typesetting and you'd like to create some custom
| Hyphenation and Justification settings and link them to specific
| styles... You guessed it. No can do in PM.
How about this one:
You're picky about typesetting, and would like to have more than one
track per font. You guessed it: no can do in QXP.
Or this one:
You're picky about typesetting, and no matter how many H&Js you're
allowed to define, you'd like to have at least one that doesn't
completely suck, and can produce good results you don't have to tweak
by hand for thousands of paragraphs a month. You guessed it: no can
do with QXP.
Don't even talk to me about QXP and H&J. We spend more time worrying
about H&J in a week than you probably spend in a year, and trust me,
QXP's H&J sucks rocks hard. Yeah, sure, there's lots of options for
defining different H&Js, but none of them actually work very well.
The folks at Quark just chose a very poor H&J algorithm and have never
seen fit to fix it.
Or how about this one:
You'd like to place an anchored graphic in a text stream and have it
appear behind the type you place in the same space. You guessed it:
no can do with QXP. An anchored graphic in QXP is always in front of
type in the same text stream.
| Get Quark.
Fuck Quark. Overall, I don't see that their software is really so much
better than anyone else's.
--
Lee Blevins
> One thing I will say: you almost never see QXP users use WMFs, but that's
> mainly because so few QXP users use windows at all, and only windows users
> are dumb enough to use WMFs.
Agreed.
Lee Blevins
> | Get Quark.
>
> Fuck Quark. Overall, I don't see that their software is really so much
> better than anyone else's.
Oh you rebel you.
Adobe who owns it didn't see it that way.
Paul Harris
Doherty) wrote:
>Fuck Quark. Overall, I don't see that their software is really so much
>better than anyone else's.
This is off-topic, but I bought InDesign two weeks ago. I just
finished working my way through Adobe's "Classroom in a Book" for the
product. For various reasons, I don't think it's ready for prime time
yet, but once it is - and both Quark and PM users are exposed to it -
I don't think we'll be seeing the old Quark vs. PM arguments any
longer. Both of those programs look pretty old and tired to me now,
after being exposed to ID.
William Nix
several replies.
My understanding from a couple of e-mails is that PM 6.5 is out selling
InDesign by 2 to 1. Due to PM popularity Adobe is currently working on a
version of PageMaker that will a whole lot easier to use with tons of new
templates, a history palette like PS 5.5, a way to remap key strokes, a
customizable-expanded toolbar, a way to right click objects to change their
properties,and the same engine(with some improvement) under the hood. This
ver will be out end of 2000...
If this is indeed the case the next PageMaker will give 80-90% who are non
professional an excellent tool at a reasonable price...
--
William
"Paul Harris" <P.Ha...@WordWorks.bc.ca> wrote in message
news:VxlkOKzyYLv8i1...@4ax.com...
John Jordan
>This is off-topic, but I bought InDesign two weeks ago. I just
>finished working my way through Adobe's "Classroom in a Book" for the
>product. For various reasons, I don't think it's ready for prime time
>yet, but once it is - and both Quark and PM users are exposed to it -
>I don't think we'll be seeing the old Quark vs. PM arguments any
>longer. Both of those programs look pretty old and tired to me now,
>after being exposed to ID.
My sentiments exactly.
Except that Quark will be a long time dying. I think it is at its
zenith of popularity right now. InDesign will slowly eat into its
market share. Five or six years from now the two might achieve equal
popularity. Add or subtract from that figure according to how well
Quark responds to the competition by making improvements to
QuarkXPress. But regardless of what they do, Quark will eventually
lose the battle for primacy on the desktop. Their bugs are bad enough,
but their attitude toward customers is what will sink them in the end,
regardless of what they do to QuarkXPress.
RJamerson
>regardless of what they do to QuarkXPress.
>
I agree that Quark's attitude toward customers in the past has been terrible.
However, I have been very pleased with the service we have received from them
in recent months.
As a commercial printer, we are involved the Quark Authorized Service Bureau
and the Adobe AASP programs. When we joined these programs last year, Quark
and Adobe both promised unlimited priority technnical support. Adobe later
withdrew that offer and now offers service providers 10 issues at no charge.
After that, you have to pay.
Also, I have never been able to call Adobe so-called priority support and
actually talk to a technician on the same day that I have a problem. I must go
through their lengthy number of prompts, and finally end up leaving a message
only to have someone call me back that know less about the product than I do,
or at best, is knowledgeable, but can offer no solution.
Quark, on the other hand, has no voice mail system when I call their priority
support line. I don't have to wade through numbered prompts or leave a
message.
80% of the time, a live, responsive person answers the call on the first ring.
This is not an operator who fields call for the technical reps and has someone
call me back, but someone who can actually help me.
Quark has offered us tremendous services at no charge (replacement installer
disks, serial number consolidation, etc).
I too have had my problems with Quark in the past (service wise) and Quark
still has a number of bugs that need to be worked out. However, competition
has yeilded good results in that Quark is now much more responsive to us than
they have been in the past.
In defense of Adobe, their technical reps certainly must have a hard time being
knowledgeable about the multitude of Adobe apps they have to support. Quark,
for all practical purposes, just has one.
Quark's support responsiveness to our needs is head and shoulders above
Adobe's.
Randy Jamerson
Randy Jamerson, EPP Technical Advisor
rjam...@aol.com
rjam...@ebsco.com
____________________________
EBSCO Media
Birmingham Alabama
1-800-765-0852