I am trying, unsuccessfully, to translate a pagemaker 6.5 file into a file that can be viewed by someone without the program. I tried exporting it to a .pdf file, but for some reason it just makes a .ps file that is too large to open in wordpad. Is there a way, like there is in photoshop, to flatten and save as a tiff? Or a way to save it into a format I can open in Photoshop? Thanks.
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How to export PM6.5 file into an image file?
- Thread starter bferguson
- Start date
Re: I tried exporting it to a .pdf file, but for some reason it just makes a .ps file....
That .ps file is halfway to a PDF. It's a postscript file and they are always huge.
So backing up a few paces. You must have a copy of Distiller 3 if you have PM6.5 as it came on the PM installation CD. You need to check and see if Distiller has been installed as a printer under Start>Settings>Printers (assuming you are on a PC). You need Distiller to make the PDF.
If you have been able to generate a postscript file, you must have some sort of postscript printer (even if only a 'virtual' one i.e. you have the driver but not the physical printer), which could even be Distiller itself. You probably have Distiller installed somewhere (check in the same location where PM is installed), and if you can find it, double click on the EXE file to launch Distiller and then use it to open the .PS file. Check that your Distiller settings are correct, and click OK to generate the PDF (you will need to name and specify the location).
But we will need to know some more info to help further with settings to use i.e. can you find Distiller? what version? is it installed as a printer? can you access it from the drop down list of printers when you go to File>Print in PM? Are you on a PC or a Mac?
Once you have the PDF successfully created, it is common practice to send these via email for another person to view - they will only need to have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to do so.
If you want to make the PDF into another sort of image file, that is possible too. Open it either in Photoshop where you will have to sepcify the size and resolution you want and then you can save it in any of the file formats that Photoshop supports, such as TIF or JPG. You can also open the PDF in Illustrator and save it as a scaleable EPS.
That .ps file is halfway to a PDF. It's a postscript file and they are always huge.
So backing up a few paces. You must have a copy of Distiller 3 if you have PM6.5 as it came on the PM installation CD. You need to check and see if Distiller has been installed as a printer under Start>Settings>Printers (assuming you are on a PC). You need Distiller to make the PDF.
If you have been able to generate a postscript file, you must have some sort of postscript printer (even if only a 'virtual' one i.e. you have the driver but not the physical printer), which could even be Distiller itself. You probably have Distiller installed somewhere (check in the same location where PM is installed), and if you can find it, double click on the EXE file to launch Distiller and then use it to open the .PS file. Check that your Distiller settings are correct, and click OK to generate the PDF (you will need to name and specify the location).
But we will need to know some more info to help further with settings to use i.e. can you find Distiller? what version? is it installed as a printer? can you access it from the drop down list of printers when you go to File>Print in PM? Are you on a PC or a Mac?
Once you have the PDF successfully created, it is common practice to send these via email for another person to view - they will only need to have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to do so.
If you want to make the PDF into another sort of image file, that is possible too. Open it either in Photoshop where you will have to sepcify the size and resolution you want and then you can save it in any of the file formats that Photoshop supports, such as TIF or JPG. You can also open the PDF in Illustrator and save it as a scaleable EPS.
- Thread starter
- #3
OK, the information you gave was extremely helpful. First, let me answer your questions. I am on a PC. I found Distiller 3.0, but it's not installed as a printer. I tried, but was unable to make it appear with the other printers. How do you do this? I used it to open the .ps file, and it worked great, except for one thing. The images are really pixelated. I went into the distiller "job options" and changed the downsample from 72 dpi to 150. I also changed the automatic compression from medium to high. It didn't seem to make a difference. I left everything else as the default. I am really close to getting this, but need a little more help. Thank you.
BionicJohn
Technical User
Hi, bferguson,
It seems you're almost there.
The best way to send a PM file to someone without Pm is, as you say, as a PDF. The recipient of your PDF can download Adobe Reader from - it's about 10Mb IIRC
I have produced an online guide for ensuring Export… AdobePDF… works at
I know it refers to PM7, but PM6.52 is not that different and the same prinicples apply.
Let Lyn and I know how you get on.
Iechyd da! John
16:30 03/09/2003 BST
It seems you're almost there.
The best way to send a PM file to someone without Pm is, as you say, as a PDF. The recipient of your PDF can download Adobe Reader from - it's about 10Mb IIRC
I have produced an online guide for ensuring Export… AdobePDF… works at
I know it refers to PM7, but PM6.52 is not that different and the same prinicples apply.
Let Lyn and I know how you get on.
Iechyd da! John
16:30 03/09/2003 BST
- Thread starter
- #5
BionicJohn
Technical User
Grerat news!
Iechyd da! John
18:00 03/09/2003 BST
Iechyd da! John
18:00 03/09/2003 BST
The advantage of a WORLDWIDE web - John comes to the rescue while I am sound asleep.
John - I wasn't sure about the application of your excellent tute to V6.5 and Distiller V3. I know I used to use V3 and the compression settings confused me no end. No logical names to the default settings (or was that V4?) Good to know that it worked for bferguson.
John - I wasn't sure about the application of your excellent tute to V6.5 and Distiller V3. I know I used to use V3 and the compression settings confused me no end. No logical names to the default settings (or was that V4?) Good to know that it worked for bferguson.
BionicJohn
Technical User
Hi, Lyn,
Good point.
I have the PM6.52+ setup files on my system here at home, but I'm reluctant to run the Install Distiller, which is ver 4.0, in case I really screw things up as I have PM7 and PM6.52 (and PM5!) all working with the lastest PS driver and Distiller 6.
The interesting part is that the Distiller5 PPD (Adist5.ppd) is more reliable than the Distiller6 PPD (Adpdf6.ppd), and that the Distiller6 options files are not located where you'd expect then to be. They're in:
~\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF 6.0\Settings and not
~\Acrobat 6.0\Distillr\Settings
I took all those screen shots of installing PM and Export…AdobePDF… "live" as I was re-installing everything after a major problem when Explorer.exe just would not load. It was no joke - without Explorer, nothing happens! How was I to know that Win2K SP3, IE6 and ZoneAlarmPro Ver 3.7x all conspire to block explorer.exe from loading!
ZA have acknowledged their part in it all and all is now well with Ver4.
Iechyd da! John
13:52 04/09/2003 BST
Good point.
I have the PM6.52+ setup files on my system here at home, but I'm reluctant to run the Install Distiller, which is ver 4.0, in case I really screw things up as I have PM7 and PM6.52 (and PM5!) all working with the lastest PS driver and Distiller 6.
The interesting part is that the Distiller5 PPD (Adist5.ppd) is more reliable than the Distiller6 PPD (Adpdf6.ppd), and that the Distiller6 options files are not located where you'd expect then to be. They're in:
~\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Adobe PDF 6.0\Settings and not
~\Acrobat 6.0\Distillr\Settings
I took all those screen shots of installing PM and Export…AdobePDF… "live" as I was re-installing everything after a major problem when Explorer.exe just would not load. It was no joke - without Explorer, nothing happens! How was I to know that Win2K SP3, IE6 and ZoneAlarmPro Ver 3.7x all conspire to block explorer.exe from loading!
ZA have acknowledged their part in it all and all is now well with Ver4.
Iechyd da! John
13:52 04/09/2003 BST
I really didn't like V4 of Distiller - there was some bug that prevented it from compressing greyscale images correctly. I've probably told you this before, but at the time I was doing a 28pp magazine full of greyscale TIFs, which the boss wanted in PDF version on the website. When converted at work to PDF in V4 it was around 28MB - in V3 (which I had at home) it was about 3MB. BIG difference. Adobe acknowledged there was a problem and provided a patch to owners of the full version of Acrobat but since I didn't have it - only the Distiller that came with PM6.5, I wasn't 'eligible' for the free patch (how mean of Adobe was that?)
So version 4 of Distiller wasn't as good as V3 and now you tell me that V6 isn't as good as V5? Adobe must have spent too much of their R&D dollars on the wrong side of Acrobat.
So version 4 of Distiller wasn't as good as V3 and now you tell me that V6 isn't as good as V5? Adobe must have spent too much of their R&D dollars on the wrong side of Acrobat.
BionicJohn
Technical User
Hi, Lyn,
> only the Distiller that came with PM6.5, I wasn't 'eligible' for the free patch
Typical. I suspect the marketing people were responsible for bundling Distill with PM6.5, and the rest of the organisation weren't too happy with giving away "free" copies of the key programme for making PDFs.
> > now you tell me that V6 isn't as good as V5?
Oh, no. AA6 is brill - it's just that Export… AdobePDF… seems to work better with Adist5.ppd than Adpdf6.ppd - no idea why - you'd have thought that Distiller 6 would prefer its own PPD.
And as for the location of the *.joboptions files, well, that's probably a windows thing as much as any thing else, to ensure multiple users on a workstation have access and the default options are kept safe.
Iechyd da! John
17:05 04/09/2003 BST
> only the Distiller that came with PM6.5, I wasn't 'eligible' for the free patch
Typical. I suspect the marketing people were responsible for bundling Distill with PM6.5, and the rest of the organisation weren't too happy with giving away "free" copies of the key programme for making PDFs.
> > now you tell me that V6 isn't as good as V5?
Oh, no. AA6 is brill - it's just that Export… AdobePDF… seems to work better with Adist5.ppd than Adpdf6.ppd - no idea why - you'd have thought that Distiller 6 would prefer its own PPD.
And as for the location of the *.joboptions files, well, that's probably a windows thing as much as any thing else, to ensure multiple users on a workstation have access and the default options are kept safe.
Iechyd da! John
17:05 04/09/2003 BST
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