Creating newsletter with PageMaker - ease of use / time

[gbl]

I am evaluating Pagemaker 7.0 as a tool for creating our firm's newsletter. I have been asked to reduce the preparation time to approximately one-half day of assembling the content into the newsletter. Until now I had been making an html version for the web and a MS Word doc file for printing purposes. I would use PageMaker to produce an eight page newsletter and convert it into acrobat pdf format and this would take care of both the web and printed versions. Still, it seems to be a lot of time to build the components such as the boxes for text and realigning them once the text is pasted in. Part of the content is provided by an editor in our office and part from a third party, so I really only have to type headers here and there, other than the formatting and pasting.

I want to know how friendly users of PageMaker find PageMaker to be and how quickly it allows them to produce a monthly newsletter of about 8 pages in length (which can include jpegs provided to me) once they have the content from other sources and are ready to assemble it.

Is there a more effective way to assemble a newsletter or will there always be pasting, gluing and shaping the text, sizing pictures, etc., when building a newsletter, regardless of the software chosen?

Thanks for your help.

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, gbl,

In my view is there no contest. PM is geared to page layout, Word is not. The time spent creating a page in PM is much less than with Word - which is no more than a sophisticatated typewriter.

Plus once you have decided on a layout or corporate style, it can be saved as a template.

And of course, PM is geared to high quality output using CMYK and Postscript.

PM creates possibly the world's worst HTML, but then downloding a PDF is no big deal these days and the end used sees exactly what you created, not what a browser interprets.

If you are cinsidering getting into this for the long term, then InDesign would be a better bet as PM's days look numbered.

> Is there a more effective way to assemble a newsletter or will there always be pasting, gluing and shaping the text, sizing pictures, etc., when building a newsletter, regardless of the software chosen?

Is there another way?

Iechyd da! John
01:03 24/05/2003 BST

 

[Eggles]

Coming from someone with a background In Word, I can understand this statement but need to make a comment:

"...to build the components such as the boxes for text and realigning them once the text is pasted in..."

Unlike Word, you do not have to create a text box to get text to go where you want it. In fact, I never use text boxes in PM as there is no need (unlike Quark, where you HAVE to use a text box). In PM** just position your cursor anywhere and start typing (or use File>Place to bring in an unformatted UNSTYLED Word document, and don't forget to unlink it in the Links Manager). Once you have finished then it is just a matter of resizing the width to fit the text where you want, and the length will take care of itself. You can also get the text to wrap around a graphic any way you want. Graphics stay exactly where you put them UNLIKE THAT DEVIL PROGRAM, WORD. Just make sure you use File>PLace to get them into PM - NOT Insert>Object as this can ruin the PDF process. Set up styles for applying to your text to retain uniformity throughout. Try and avoid JPGs if you can (sometimes difficult in-house) - it is better to use TIFs particularly if you are going to PDF the document. It will avoid some potential problems in that process.

** I do not use ID but can understand John's recommendation that if you are starting from scratch, it is probably the better way to go. I still believe PM will be around for quite some time yet - can you imagine all those conservative businesses who use it on the odd occasion for things like newsletters to give it up? - Not for a while. ID is also quite a bit more demanding of your hardware, and is almost overkill for an in-house newsletter that is distributed in print/web (PDF NOT HTML) versions?

One other word of advice and I promise I will stop. When you first set up your documnent, make sure you 'Compose To' whatever printer will be used to print the document (aasuming in-house) as otherwise you may see some text reflow if it is printed on another printer.

(No doubt you can tell I am an avid fan of PM!)

 

[Eggles]

Coming from someone with a background In Word, I can understand this statement but need to make a comment:

"...to build the components such as the boxes for text and realigning them once the text is pasted in..."

Unlike Word, you do not have to create a text box to get text to go where you want it. In fact, I never use text boxes in PM as there is no need (unlike Quark, where you HAVE to use a text box). In PM** just position your cursor anywhere and start typing (or use File>Place to bring in an unformatted UNSTYLED Word document, and don't forget to unlink it in the Links Manager). Once you have finished then it is just a matter of resizing the width to fit the text where you want, and the length will take care of itself. You can also get the text to wrap around a graphic any way you want. Graphics stay exactly where you put them UNLIKE THAT DEVIL PROGRAM, WORD. Just make sure you use File>PLace to get them into PM - NOT Insert>Object as this can ruin the PDF process. Set up styles for applying to your text to retain uniformity throughout. Try and avoid JPGs if you can (sometimes difficult in-house) - it is better to use TIFs particularly if you are going to PDF the document. It will avoid some potential problems in that process.

** I do not use ID but can understand John's recommendation that if you are starting from scratch, it is probably the better way to go. I still believe PM will be around for quite some time yet - can you imagine all those conservative businesses who use it on the odd occasion for things like newsletters to give it up? - Not for a while. ID is also quite a bit more demanding of your hardware, and is almost overkill for an in-house newsletter that is distributed in print/web (PDF NOT HTML) versions?

One other word of advice and I promise I will stop. When you first set up your document, make sure you 'Compose To' whatever printer will be used to print the document (assuming in-house) as otherwise you may see some text reflow if it is printed on another printer.

(No doubt you can tell I am an avid fan of PM!)

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, Lyn,

> Graphics stay exactly where you put them UNLIKE THAT DEVIL PROGRAM, WORD.

Exactly. Frequently I hear curses of extreme order from across our office such as "Why won't that ****ing graphic stay where I put it. I hate Word!".

The answer is simple - Word is a stream of text with pictures linked in. PM is page layout. Stick something on the page and that's where it stays.

Here's the page called "Recommended Workflow for Creating PageMaker Publications" from the Adobe PageMaker Support Knowledgebase:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/2f0d6.htm

I would also add that you should NOT be persuaded that Microsoft publisher is suitable. PageMaker is what you need.

http://www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker/main.html

gives the Adobe view of why you should buy it, and on that page is link to PM v InD v FrameMaker.

Iechyd da! John
11:02 24/05/2003 BST

 

[Eggles]

My sister in Sydney spent the last five years (off and on)putting together a family history in Word, complete with lots of family photos. When I went to visit her over Easter and she showed me what she had done, my heart sank. Every time I tried to edit some of the text, or apply some proper paragraph formatting - she really doesn't have a clue - of course the d**n pictures would jump around all over the place - moving back through pages or off the page altogether into what would possibly be the pasteboard (if Word had one) never to be found again unless we did a Ctrl/Z...

I couldn't stand trying to fight what had to be done and (stupid me) told her if she just gave me the text and photos and a printout of what she had done so far, I would do it in PM. Not too sure what I have let myself in for with this...

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, Lyn,

I know exactly what you mean. Best of luck. I hope you can import the images OK!!

When Staff send reports into our office in MSWord, it's often clear they've spent ages creating it. But then when our staff have to make amendments, the whole thing goes bananas. And if the report is say 50 pages long, the time taken to put things back in order is outrageous. I'm of the view that Word shold never be used for anything more than 3 pages long, and only one page if there's an image! And as for Word's auto-format, well, it drives me crackers.

We tell our staff to send in reports in two parts: RTF plus any images (TIFF preferably), but they never do. It's like speaking a foreign language they're so brainwashed by MS. One person did heed our advice - sending the text and pictures separately - but it was all in Powerpoint! In the end we sent it all back as it was just too time consuming to convert it. Funnily enough, the person who created the report refused to convert it too - as it was too time consuming!!! Will they ever learn???

I've got the cricket on here - England v Zimbabwe. And all they're talking about is beating the Aussies! (What ever happened to the Windies?)

Iechyd da! John
13:04 24/05/2003 BST

 

[Nohjekim]

One important point to that can’t be overstressed.

Learn to use the "Styles Pallet" nothing will speed up your production like this.

I do mostly menus, usually 6 pages.

I spend most of my time on the first inside page, I make all the decisions about body text style, paragraph spacing, item text style and spacing and text color and set them all into the style panel.

I end up with a styles list that looks something like this.

Category

Item name

Body text flush left

Body text centered.

Body text italic

Category sub lines

Once you have done this you can format the rest of the job in no time.

When you have formatted all the type for the job you then know exactly how much space I have left for graphics, and if you decide that the headlines should be smaller you can change them all at once. Any of the copy blocks can be moved anywhere in their formatted form and you see just what you have.

If you are doing a newsletter that uses the same format every time you only need to do this once.

Just import the styles when you start a new job and the job is half done.