Advice on Illustrator vs Pagemaker

[judycollins]

I'm the newsletter editor for a club. I am looking to purchase a software package to generage the newslette in. The last editor used word, which is quite limited. I was thinking of using either Adobe Illustrator or Pagemake, but have not used either. Any advice?

 

[dimoj]

Pagemaker would probably be more suitable for simple newsletters - (e.g. typed articles in columns with accompanying photos etc). Illustrator would only be more useful if you were going to get into designing logos for the newsletter or wanted to actually create digital illustrations yourself to place in your newsletters. Pagemaker is probably a lot easier to use (if you are not already familiar with either programs). Also do you print the newsletter yourself? Illustator is a vector based program and likes a printer with Postcript drivers to print to for best results so that may be something to consider.

I would actually recommend InDesign above either programs for simple newsletters. The program is more of a mix between Illustrator and Pagemaker. From all accounts I have heard it is the least trouble free page layout program out there at the moment and the most intuative to work with (and thats also in my own experience).

The only downside I can think of to InDesign is the price. I just had a quick look at the Adobe web site and at present for all latest full versions of the software US$: Illustrator $399, Pagemaker $499, InDesign $699.

Good luck.

 

[cricketx]

Indesign 2 is very easy to use.

I would say that Indesign2 = Pagemaker + 0.5 Illustrator

Indesign2
Windows XP (SP1)
Designing Tabloid Newspaper (Any tips welcome)

 

[thombathe]

I agree with dimoj indesign is the way to go its easy to learn and has a little of everything.
I use quark but now im switching over to indesign I love it.
Thom

Life without challenges can be very boring

http://www.thombathe.com

 

[Stevil15]

Yep InDesign rocks.

Pagemaker is crashy and out of date and wonky, and Adobe has long ago abandoned upgrading it in favour of InDesign.

InDesign has a few cool design tools and works like a charm. I used it on my previous PC system before punting that wobbly Windoze shite for a Mac. InDesign works well on both platforms.

Illustrator is a drawing tool mostly, not really good for publishing things like newsletters outright. But you will likely want something like Illustrator or Photoshop for tweaking photos or making logos or any other sort of graphical elements for your newsletter.

Adobe sells packages of publishing stuff like InDesign and Photoshop together...or you could hunt down copies of what you want using iMesh, Bearshare or the like.

 

[Triska]

InDesign. InDesign is way superior for text/object layout. But for some it may not be $700 superior...

Side-step the cost:
If this is a student/professor kind of thing... get the Educational version:

http://www.studica.com

(or similar, search Student Software in Google) InDesign: $174.95 Illustrator: $87.95

Also, there are multipage plugins available for Illustrator from HotDoor, but require relegating layersages, which a bit less flexible, creativewise.

Or, super-budget:
Buy Illustrator. For the money it does more of what InDesign does, better, minus style/text control.
If you want to really create stunning line-art graphics and don't need quite as many control over the type as InDesign offers, Illustrator is superior, but won't do much of anything for 'flowing' the type into your templates... Cheapest is to use Illustrator and Word. Saving Illustrator line-art work as .emf (Enhanced Windows Metafile)(or rasterizing) and pictures as .tiff or High .jpg's. Be sure to 'show' the drawing toolbar in Word and learn it INSIDE and OUT... b/c that's the only way you'll get control in Word. You can get fine control by turning on 'snap to grid' and setting the Grid sizes to .01" and then using the keyboard arrows to 'nudge' objects. Also, look into the text/word wrap features, etc. In short... Word can do great things.. but more fiddling is DEFINITELY required, it is NOT a professional layout program, and a printer may give you dirty looks. BE SURE TO INCLUDE ALL FONTS WITH YOUR SUBMISSIONS.

The real metric however, is page number: Tabloid folded? > Illustrator/Word is fine. 20? With Global styles, constantly changing text? > InDesign will save you tweaking headaches.

Sef.

 

[blueark]

Page number is a good point. Personally, when I'm doing prepress, I hate getting page layouts in Illustrator. InDesign, Quark and PDFs all work like a charm, and keep your whole newsletter in one place. Single pages are ok in Illustrator, but anything else is just being stubborn, and there are many printers that will charge you extra for it!

 

[Triska]

Thanks for the tip!

We all realize no format's perfect... I personally always end up in InDesign or PDF, but what kinds of weirdnesses do you get specifically with AI?

In my job, scientific figure production, .pdf's break up font paths all to hell, (especially from crappy PDFmaker (not Distiller))
Also, how pervasive is .pdf in printing production? and what are the issues? Would you always rather have an .INDD?

Sef.

 

[blueark]

Personally, I think each application has it's place. Sure, I've created layouts complete with vector graphics in Photoshop, just to prove a point, but in the real world you can't do that. The person doing the prepress work on your files will probably be used to doing things a certain way, and if they're not experienced enough, they may do things wrong if you use unusual applications.

In one of the companies I work for (a digital printing company), we have three ways of planning up a job: We have an XTension for QuarkXPress which came with our press, and is probably the easiest way to work. Secondly, we have a plug-in for Acrobat, which is pretty good too, and allows us to accept PDFs with no problems. Finally, the RIP itself can impose jobs after they've been RIPped, but it's not very user friendly.

In that scenario, EPS files have a number of options. For example, they can be imported into Quark, but that's dependant on the prepress guy being careful with placement.
They can be sent directly to the RIP, which then makes it difficult to collate. Also, if the bleed is assymetric, some RIPs may interpret it incorrectly.

Having said that, it is possible to use Illustrator for simple layouts, provided you're careful, or if you know you can trust your prepress people. My personal experience is that people who supply Illustrator page layouts are generally going to cause problems, and while it's a view that others share, I appreciate that some people don't have a problem at all, so check with your printer. I would add, however, that we had a guy working with us for a while that didn't agree with me, but over 70% of his Illustrator jobs were rejected (he brought them into Quark, but didn't place them properly).

As for PDFs, I would say that, provided they're set up correctly (with bleed and embedded fonts, for example!), there shouldn't be a problem. All good printers can use them, which is a good thing, because it means that it's becoming irrelevent which software you use to create your files. It's certainly more pervasive than InDesign, but ID can create amazing PDFs, so it's not really a problem!

 

[Triska]

Thanks for all the in-depth!
Sef.

It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.

http://www.elucidesign.com