PageMaker or Ventura?
Barbara Schulz
I am evaluating desktop publishing software to produce
a 400-800 page directory (sort of a dining directory,
including graphics) and have narrowed the choices between
Corel Ventura and Aldus PageMaker.
Seems to me that Ventura has all the bells and whistles,
but that PageMaker is the industrial-strength software.
Has anyone here compared these two products? If so, I would
like to know, simply, which did you choose and why did you
choose it? Also, if you choose Corel Ventura, did you go with
the CDRom, or disks. Again, why?
Thank you all very much, if the replies warrent, I'll post
a synopsis in a few days.
Tanks again!
JSlothower
with Ventura 5. We keep an eye on Pagemaker but it has pretty much lost
out in the industrial publishing applications department against Ventura
and Quark Xpress.
The great advantage of off-the-shelf Ventura is its links to databases and
text files. Ventura does not 'lose' its tie to the text file when it is
added to the page(s) and each time a page is opened it actually reloads
the text file from the disk - thus any changes done to the text are
automatically incorporated.
Ventura strength has always been long, structured, documents.
I would suggest giving it a strong look.
John Slothower "It's hard to make things foolproof -
Production Mgr because fools are so ingenious"
The Minnesota Daily
For Fastes Response:
Slot...@main.mndly.umn.edu
Brent Foote
>Path:
>vanbc.wimsey.com!news.mindlink.net!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!ne
>tnews
>From: Bsc...@ix.netcom.com (Barbara Schulz)
>Newsgroups: comp.publish.prepress
>Subject: PageMaker or Ventura?
>Date: 7 Apr 1995 17:12:59 GMT
>Organization: Netcom
>Lines: 15
>Distribution: world
>Message-ID: <3m3rqr$m...@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>
>NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-bos3-08.ix.netcom.com
>Grtz,
> I am evaluating desktop publishing software to produce
> a 400-800 page directory (sort of a dining directory,
> including graphics) and have narrowed the choices between
> Corel Ventura and Aldus PageMaker.
> Seems to me that Ventura has all the bells and whistles,
> but that PageMaker is the industrial-strength software.
> Has anyone here compared these two products? If so, I would
> like to know, simply, which did you choose and why did you
> choose it?
Ventura has been known over the years for its long-document capabilities,
PageMaker for its ease of use and greater freedom with design. With recent
upgrades, however, the two programs have become quite similar in terms of what
they do. I believe that PageMaker is easier to learn, and for that reason you
may want to choose it.
If I were to produce an 800 page document I would use Ventura for the
following reasons:
1) To link each of your graphics to a particular paragraph so that it
moves automatically with the paragraph.
2) It handles chapter files seperately when you're writing/editing and then
puts them together in a single publication file for pagination, indexing,
printing etc.
3) Ventura is capable of automatic footnotes, PM isn't. I also believe that
the ability to generate an index and table of contents is greater with Ventura.
> Also, if you choose Corel Ventura, did you go with
> the CDRom, or disks. Again, why?
CD ROM if at all possible -- fewer disks to swap when loading, it's less
expensive (for Ventura) and includes some "extras" such as fonts and clipart.
As a footnote, you may want to look at alt.aldus.pagemaker for more info.
Brent Foote
Van., B.C.
Jim Baird
(Barbara Schulz) wrote:
> Grtz,
> I am evaluating desktop publishing software to produce
> a 400-800 page directory (sort of a dining directory,
> including graphics) and have narrowed the choices between
> Corel Ventura and Aldus PageMaker.
> Seems to me that Ventura has all the bells and whistles,
> but that PageMaker is the industrial-strength software.
> Has anyone here compared these two products? If so, I would
> like to know, simply, which did you choose and why did you
> choose it? Also, if you choose Corel Ventura, did you go with
> the CDRom, or disks. Again, why?
> Thank you all very much, if the replies warrent, I'll post
> a synopsis in a few days.
> Tanks again!
If you will be taking this to a prepress shop, my advice is for you to
stay as far away from Corel Ventura as possible. Most prepress shops do
not have Windoze boxes (Ventura isn't cross platform), but those which do
(ours is one) dislike greatly dealing with:
(a) Page designers with no layout experience and
(b) Corel Ventura.
The reasons for such derisive thinking abound. One of the more prominent
faults found with Ventura is it's (and Corel's, really) unstable and
unconventional postscript code. If you are going to enter a postscript
workflow, you don't want Corel products as the primary tool. Instead,
Corel products do really quite well in supporting roles like CorelDraw's
graphics capabilities show.
Let the flaming begin...
jim
--
Jim Baird jba...@southwind.net www.southwind.net/~jbaird
--------------------------------------------
During the summer heat I eat with pleasure,
Roots and kraut, Also butter and radishes,
Making excellent wind, Which cools me off.
-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
--------------------------------------------
Alex Schubow
: Grtz,
: I am evaluating desktop publishing software to produce
: a 400-800 page directory (sort of a dining directory,
: including graphics) and have narrowed the choices between
: Corel Ventura and Aldus PageMaker.
: Seems to me that Ventura has all the bells and whistles,
: but that PageMaker is the industrial-strength software.
This definitely sounds like an application for Ventura (or Frame maker).
Pagemaker is just not up to the task.
: Has anyone here compared these two products? If so, I would
: like to know, simply, which did you choose and why did you
: choose it? Also, if you choose Corel Ventura, did you go with
: the CDRom, or disks. Again, why?
Let me throw Frame into the mix here. Frame & Ventura both excel at long
documents, largely because of their extensive auto-formatting
(tagged-text) and special framing commands. Pagemaker would be more
suited to brochure/sell sheet type jobs (and QuarkXpress is even better
for these).
To sum it ip, if your only choices are Ventura and Pagemaker, difinitely
go with Ventura. Beware though, it has a clunky interface, a very steep
learning curve, and since its from Corel now, I would not rely on any of
the new features. You could find a bug in one of them just prior to
output! What a nightmare. If you go with Frame, you can avoid the bad
interface and bugs, although it has a pretty steep learnign curve of its
own. You also gain cross-platform compatibility (Frame documents can be
opened flawlessly on Macs, Windows and Unix machines, while Ventura is
Windows only).
Alex
Frank Bellino
Schulz) writes:
> I am evaluating desktop publishing software to produce
> a 400-800 page directory (sort of a dining directory,
> including graphics) and have narrowed the choices between
> Corel Ventura and Aldus PageMaker.
> Seems to me that Ventura has all the bells and whistles,
> but that PageMaker is the industrial-strength software.
> Has anyone here compared these two products? If so, I would
> like to know, simply, which did you choose and why did you
> choose it? Also, if you choose Corel Ventura, did you go with
> the CDRom, or disks. Again, why? ...
Barbara:
We are a service bureau producing catalogs and directories from x-Base
files regularly; our experience indicates the choice between the two is
Ventura, hands down.
PageMaker provides the standard fare of headers, footers and such, but
its strong suit is very good typographic control. Some might argue that
changing the set-width of a face is heresy, but if it's what you want or
need, this is your tool. From my own experience though, that is its only
lead in this competition.
We use FrameMaker (on NeXT) for the really industrial strength stuff.
(Just finished an auction catalog with over 5700 scans that went from
database to finished book in about 4 hours!)
All three will import text and support text-anchored graphics, but the
flexability of the more powerfull pre-tagging in Ventura and FrameMaker
make them outstanding for structured documents. Importing tagged text
into Frame is not for the faint-of-heart (it takes a lot of structured,
case sensitive coding - it's a genuine left-brain exercise), but the
results can be staggering, especially if you are linking large numbers
of graphics to the text at input.
Ventura has strengths in very sophisticated vertical justification and
headers and footers than can contain variables from the text flow (like
a dictionary, with the first and last words on a page at the top) --
this can make a large publication much easier to navigate.
Frame supports vertical justification (not as sophisticated) and
variables in headers and footers too (but only one occurrence of a
specific variable per page -- at least in version 3). It also supports
multiple base page layouts, variable text frames and rotated pages.
As for Corel and the CD, absolutely get the CD for the three best
reasons: Fonts, Fonts, Fonts. Besides CorelDraw and PhotoPaint are great
programs and the package price is a real bargain, I'd recommend it even
if you choose another page make-up program.
Frank Bellino
PS (pun intended): If you plan to use a service bureau for output,
save them a lot of grief and be sure and use
ATM and PostScript fonts.
John Parker
>
>Grtz,
> I am evaluating desktop publishing software to produce
I have produced > 300page projects in both Pagemaker and Ventura Publisher 4.x
and my strong preference is Ventura publisher 4.x. It provides a solid paradigm for
document layout that makes long document production efficient by enforcing
certain good structuring practices. It also has the highest performance screen
refresh of any of the major dtp applications. It has a nice table tool and automatic
contents generation and pagination that work well.
Although I would never use pagemaker by choice, I do keep both programs on
my machine.
I suggest that you start with Ventura 4.2 which is still being sold by Corel systems.
It comes with 700 postscript fonts (Bitstream and Letraset, not jokeware fonts) and a
cd-rom full of clip-art for something like $99.00. I have personally used this software
to produce _lots_ of full length books (some over 1000 pages), and although it's not
perfect by a long shot, it does work.
CorelVentura 5.x is a separate issue. I have been watching its progress since
its introduction last year. It is very nice software. But I have stability problems
with it, even with the latest 'F2' revision that was released this month. I can't give
you any kind of recomendataion for or against it as I haven't worked up the
confidence to commit a major project to it yet. There is a good deal of traffic
about it in the alt.soft-sys.corel.draw newsgroup. You may want to monitor that
for a while to see how other CorelVP5 users are faring with this new 'F2' upgrade.
my .02
Mikael Östling
>> including graphics) and have narrowed the choices between
>> Corel Ventura and Aldus PageMaker.
>> Seems to me that Ventura has all the bells and whistles,
>> but that PageMaker is the industrial-strength software.
I have seen that you have got two very professional answers on your question "Page Maker or
Ventura" already.
I just want to add the following:
As I Ventura user since version 1.0 i would warmly recommend Ventura Publisher 4.2 for you.
The reasons:
1. Excellent dBase-connectivity with Ventura Database Publisher
2. Superb lay-out control
3. Fast
The only thing that you might find bad is:
1. Quite hard to learn
2. Ventura 4.2 limitation of a maximum of 128 files(ie. picture and textfiles) per chapter
I don't know if Corel has done something about this limitation with Corel Ventura 5.0.
I would reccomend to wait with Corel 5.0 for a while. Stick with the version 4.2!
Regards Micke Ostling at PrePress Works in Finland.
Check out our brand new Web-site: http://www.oktasys.fi/prepress/main.htm
Henry Chung
>Grtz,
> I am evaluating desktop publishing software to produce
> a 400-800 page directory (sort of a dining directory,
> including graphics) and have narrowed the choices between
> Corel Ventura and Aldus PageMaker.
> Seems to me that Ventura has all the bells and whistles,
> but that PageMaker is the industrial-strength software.
> Has anyone here compared these two products? If so, I would
> like to know, simply, which did you choose and why did you
> choose it? Also, if you choose Corel Ventura, did you go with
> the CDRom, or disks. Again, why?
> Thank you all very much, if the replies warrent, I'll post
Barbara:
We have been using Ventura since version 1.0 for a our long document
processing. There would be no question in my mind that Ventura would be
better for the job. We've used it for publications well over 1000 pages
without a hitch. Its table model makes it particularly suited for financial
tables. It also enforces a structured document approach to setting up
and designing your publications. Also, its tagging and coding scheme will
make your programmers' jobs relatively easy.
Some major drawbacks:
1. Font handling is an absolute mess. This is left over from when ventura ran
under a GEM host. This is fixed in version 5.0, but I'll get to that later.
2. PostScript code is extremely inefficient. We actually wrote programs to
post-process the PS files to optimize them. This also is fixed (sort of) in
version 5.0.
3. Extremely difficult to put together a competent Ventura staff and even
more difficult to find people who understand the paradigm Ventura uses to
work with documents.
4. Ventura is a little picky when it comes to importing graphics. Be
prepared to do a little file converting.
5. Kunky interface.
After a few weeks of testing version 5, we put our first project on the new
version. Although version 5 is chock-full-o-new features, IT IS RIDDLED WITH
BUGS!!! DO NOT USE VERSION 5 UNTILL COREL ADDRESSES THESE PROBLEMS. They
apparently are aware of bugs since keep on sending us unsolicited revisions.
We just got release F1 on Friday. Technical support is useless because
Corel uses a tech support service staffed with people who know nothing about
composition, nor the technical stuff about ventura. Some bugs we've found:
It will spontaniously insert coding into text files, thereby corrupting the
file, causing the publication to crash the system the next time the
publication is loaded.
It will change locally coded half point sized to the next whole size.
(Tech support told me that most people don't use Ventura in this way!@?)
Column balance deosn't work with certain widow control and keep-with-next
combinations.
If you can get your hands on version 4.2, that would be the way to go.
Good luck on your project.
Henry Chung
Technical Director
US Lynx
--
o O
!
@ Henry Chung - hch...@panix.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
What for you bury me in the cold, cold ground? --Tasmanian Devil
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
tard...@cuug.ab.ca
JSlothower <jslot...@aol.com> wrote:
>We currently produce a daily newspaper with Ventura 4.1 and are playing
>with Ventura 5. We keep an eye on Pagemaker but it has pretty much lost
>out in the industrial publishing applications department against Ventura
>and Quark Xpress.
>The great advantage of off-the-shelf Ventura is its links to databases and
>text files. Ventura does not 'lose' its tie to the text file when it is
>added to the page(s) and each time a page is opened it actually reloads
>the text file from the disk - thus any changes done to the text are
>automatically incorporated.
>Ventura strength has always been long, structured, documents.
>I would suggest giving it a strong look.
>
5, and has the same features (give or take a few). I have used both packages
extensively, and I have impressed with Page Plus. Does anyone have any
comments or problems with this product and their addons? Thanks....
Jon Pastor
|> Hasn't anyone heard of Page Plus, by Serif. It's 1/10th the cost of Pagemaker
|> 5, and has the same features (give or take a few). I have used both packages
|> extensively, and I have impressed with Page Plus. Does anyone have any
|> comments or problems with this product and their addons? Thanks....
Yes.
- Text handling in PagePlus is atrocious; the built-in editor is weak, and I
have found at least one case where text import (from Word 6.0) is just plain
wrong.
- It takes nearly forever for the text dialog to come up.
- The little floating toolbar is modal -- meaning that you can only actually
affect one function at a time.
- There is a maximum of one left-hand and one right-hand master page.
- Text styles are not hierarchical, so you can't (for example) change a whole
set of styles at once by changing a common ancestor.
- The method by which you select things is incredibly slow and awkward. To
select a text frame, for example, you have to click twice, at just the right
speed; otherwise you invoke the text editor on the text, or end up changing
the size and/or shape and/or other attributes of the text itself, rather than
the frame.
- It is evidently, although incredibly, the case that you sometimes have to
exit and re-start in order to print. I was doing a very simple layout -- one
graphic and a couple of text frames -- and every time I tried to print after
making a change the changed item didn't appear. I have had this happen
sporadically in other places as well.
- I have had complex layouts fail to display correctly, fail to print
correctly, fail to save correctly, and cause GPFs.
On the other hand, it's a real page layout app, unlike MS Publisher, which is
just a souped-up word processor: you can really do runarounds (text wrap)
in every combination of text and graphic that I've tried (MSPub fails
miserably in some cases, notably text around text).
IMHO, PagePlus is OK for short publications, but falls down for longer ones --
and it's not just the lack of things like TOC and index support, it's the
deficiency of the text handling.
This is not to say it's a bad product; for the money, it's quite decent. But I
just got a Quark demo (free, BTW), and even looking at the docs, without
installing it, I can see that there are reasons why it sells for 10 times the
price of PagePlus; if I had income from my DTP activities, rather than just
the good feeling that pro bono work gives me ;-), there wouldn't be any
question but that I'd buy a real professional-grade page layout app. I'll know
more after I've actually installed and run the Quark demo, but I can see why
it's considered one of the premier packages...
I would say that MSPub is OK for really simple stuff, PagePlus for more
complex but shorter and non-text-intensive publications, but that both have
severe limitations in certain respects. This is not to say that *any* app of
any kind doesn't have limitations: but it's hard to see how PagePlus can
really consider itself to be in the same league as Quark (or, from what I
understand, PageMaker or Frame) in terms of polish and usability.
I know that I'm going to make some enemies with these pronouncements, but I've
just spent some very frustrating time trying to get PagePlus to behave, and
have had to
- abandon it for one project and return to -- believe it or not --
Word 6.0 for Windows
- coddle and cajole it for another project (the printing problem
mentioned above)
- work around a major problem for a third project (the can't display/
print/save and GPF problem mentioned above).
Zero for three is not a very handsome average, and that's why I called for the
Quark demo...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon A. Pastor pas...@vfl.paramax.com
John Parker
>
>Hasn't anyone heard of Page Plus, by Serif. It's 1/10th the cost of Pagemaker
>5, and has the same features (give or take a few). I have used both packages
>extensively, and I have impressed with Page Plus. Does anyone have any
>comments or problems with this product and their addons? Thanks....
>
Page Plus was not designed to handle this. Text falling out of menus,
Empty Dialog boxes etc. I concluded that it is amateurware and dumped
it. The drag and drop each individual line metaphor looked dangerous
to me also.
Regards
John Parker
Kurt C
>version. Although version 5 is chock-full-o-new features, IT IS RIDDLED WITH
>BUGS!!! DO NOT USE VERSION 5 UNTILL COREL ADDRESSES THESE PROBLEMS. They
>apparently are aware of bugs since keep on sending us unsolicited revisions.
>We just got release F1 on Friday.
>If you can get your hands on version 4.2, that would be the way to go.
>Good luck on your project.
Maybe, I'm just not pushing version 5 to its limits, but I have revision E2
and have been quite happy with it. I've had some problem with bugs, but
since IMHO version 5 feature-wise is so superiour to version 4.2, I can handle
them. This is especially true for a long document that is going to have cross
references and an index. In 4.2 you had to keep track of markers by hand for
your cross references. As was mentioned in the previous post the
user interface and font handling is much better. If you're going to
do anything with postscript files, especially color separations, 5.0 is
better. Want text to wrap around irregular shaped graphics? 5.0 can, 4.2
can't. And more.
The only advantage I know of to using CD instead of disk is access to the
sample photos and more of the clip art and fonts, instead of a selected few
with a diskette install. If you buy the diskette, you get the CDs, as well,
that is why it costs more. If you don't have a CD drive, you can't use them,
of course.
I have never used PageMaker, but may wife did for a literary mag. I got a
blow by blow description. I think I'll stick with Ventura.