Design philosophy: all information in this web site should be accessible to the intended audience regardless of platform, browser, or size of screen. Graphics are kept to a minimum to reduce download times. If you see a frame or an animated GIF, feel free to flame me mercilessly.

This site uses fully compliant cascading style sheets (CSS). Older browsers should display text in their default fonts, while more recent browsers will all display fully formatted text. (However, the styles sheets will look best viewed in Internet Explorer 4.0 or above.) The site also complies with major accessibility standards.

Colophon

The base font for this page is Trebuchet MS, a free font from Microsoft designed for on-screen readability at small point sizes. The headlines are 32 pt Times bold italic, combining elegance, classical proportions, and compactness.

The logo is variation on the original logo from Aldus PageMaker and depicts Aldus Manutius, a student of Johannes Gutenberg and inventor of italics. This is to echo the roots of desktop publishing, both in the 1450s and the 1980s. The logo uses Courier from ITC to evoke the feel of metal type and Poetica from Adobe Systems to evoke the era of hand lettering.

Made on a Macintosh using Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia DreamWeaver.

Welcome!

You have reached the home page of the PAGEMAKR mailing list, an internet resource for desktop publishers, particularly users of Adobe PageMaker software. Our subscription base of over a thousand PageMaker users world wide varies in size, with a core of wonderfully knowledgeable and helpful members. Mail messages can be received as they are posted or once daily as a digest. You will find subscription instructions on the subscription help page, or you can write to a listowner at pagemakr-request@iulist.iupui.edu.

PageMaker Is Dead — Long Live InDesign

We've been warning you for years (see our Seybold 2000 writeup and Pagemaker — Not quite dead?) but this time we mean it — PageMaker is dead. If you haven't already, it's time to move to InDesign.

Mac OS X came out in 1999 — o ver eight years ago — and that was when PageMaker on Mac was on its way out, not having been upgraded for at least two years at that point. PageMaker was never "carbonized" to run under OS X, but it could still run under Classic or by re-booting into OS 9. So OS 9 users had years to see the future and make a plan. That plan could be to archive some old equipment for parts — or to plan to upgrade. The former plan could work for a few years, but at some point an upgrade will happen — either that, or retirement!

Adobe announced in 2004 that no new versions of PageMaker would be forthcoming, so one would not expect new computer to support it. The real death knell came in January 2006 with the introduction of the Intel Macs that could not run Classic or boot into OS 9. Aside from running the Windows version of PageMaker under Parallels or Fusion, there is just no PageMaker for the Mac anymore.

As far as Vista is concerned, PageMaker cannot be installed on it, so Windows users will soon be facing the same decision — never upgrade their computer, or upgrade their PageMaker to InDesign.

Back in CS days, there was a special edition of InDesign specifically for PageMaker users, including keyboard shortcuts mimicking PageMaker's, and you could add those features on to an existing copy of InDesign CS with the "PageMaker Plug-In Pack for InDesign." Apparently this product no longer exists, as its features were rolled into CS2:

Adobe previously offered PageMaker users a special version of InDesign CS called Adobe InDesign CS PageMaker Edition, also priced at $349 (U.S.), to support making the switch from PageMaker to InDesign. [...] We are not updating this version for InDesign CS2. Instead, we’ve incorporated the "add-on" features offered in the PageMaker Plug-in Pack directly into InDesign CS2.

(I assume they still exist in CS3.) Adobe still offers upgrade pricing for PageMaker users:

Qualified, licensed PageMaker users can upgrade to a full version of InDesign CS3, which includes all the features introduced in the InDesign CS PageMaker Edition, for only US$199

If you haven't already upgraded, n ow would seem a prudent time to start moving to InDesign, considering the next computer you buy probably won't run PageMaker.

Recommendations

Following are some links to InDesign and recommended books to help you get started or advance to mastery. (Or see all InDesign products at Amazon.com)

Software:
Adobe InDesign CS 3 for Mac OS X
Adobe InDesign CS 3 for Mac OS X (upgrade from PageMaker)
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium for Mac OS X (includes Photoshop, Illustrator)
Adobe InDesign CS 3 for Windows Vista
Adobe InDesign CS 3 for Windows Vista (upgrade from PageMaker)
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium for Windows Vista (includes Photoshop, Illustrator)

Books and other Learning Resources:
Real World Adobe InDesign CS 3 by Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner
InDesign CS3 One on One by Deke McClelland
Adobe InDesign CS 3 Bible by Galen Gruman
Mastering InDesign CS3 for Print Design and Production by Pariah Burke
Adobe InDesign CS 3 Classroom in a Book by the Adobe Creative Team
InDesign CS 3 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide by Sandee Cohen
How to Do Everything with Adobe InDesign CS by David Bergsland
InDesign CS3 Prepress Essentials by Taz Tally (CD-ROM)
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Bible by Ted Padova and Kelly L. Murdock

Desktop Publishing News

(These links will open a new browser window and take you to a different web site.)

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