Dedicated PC for documents & graphics?

[Celia2000]

I currently use Pagemaker 7.0 for all the company's documentation--about 50 documents ranging in size from 10 pages to 110 pages. I am trying to determine what the best course of action would be--to go to InDesign, to go to QuarkXpress or to simply publish the documents on our company intranet using Dreamweaver. Currently, with PM7, all documents need to reside on my computer with the graphics on my computer or the files sometimes get corrupted. For backup purposes I am copying them to the server, however, should I need to access them in the event that my computer crashes, I will have to individually reconnect all the graphics together in each document. Not only is this cumbersome and time-consuming, it is annoying! I would like to know if QuarkXpress works in the same way, or if it is more 'office' friendly.

 

[Celia2000]

Sorry, I meant to say whether InDesign works this way or not.

 

[jmgalvin]

All publishing apps work the same way. All generally link to outside grtaphic files. The easiest way to keep things together is to package up the project so that the document, images and fonts are easily recoverable. On my Pagemaker 6.5 it's called Save For Service Provider and is found under Utilities menu/Plugins. Indesign and Quark have the same packaging. That way everything remains in one folder.

You could also embed your graphics in the document and then would not have to worry about linked images, etc.

If you're going to upgrade, I'd recommend Indesign, The interface will be more familiar to you and, I believe, that it's far superior and easier than Quark. Besides Adobe has a Pagemaker to Indesign upgrade price of $350.

One of the excellent things about Indesign is its PDF export ability. That would help you publish docs to your intranet - retaining the appearance of the docs - as opposed to trying to convert everything to html and losing the true appearance.. Indesign does a good job of importing Pagemaker documents but it's recommend that you package up the PM project - as mentioned earleir - before importing.

Using OSX 10.3.8 on a G4

 

[jimoblak]

Your real question should be: does QuarkXPress open my Pagemaker documents?

InDesign does.

Image relinking has improved in InDesign. If all images are in the same folder or directory tree, you can update all at once.

- - I hope this helps - -
[sub](Complain to someone else if it doesn't)[/sub]

 

[Celia2000]

Thanks for the advice. I was looking for help and not getting it anywhere else! I think I will go with InDesign, it sounds like the best fit.