importing image error

[desperate18]

I am a photographer for a high school yearbook. I am helping the other members of the staff place photographs on their pages. Not EVERY time, but about 80% of the time, an error message comes up when the picture is almost placed, saying "Error importing image into [file name], continue?"...whether yes or no is selected does not change anything, the picture just does not place. I edit the photos in Photoshop 6.0 and Pagemaker is 6.0 as well, I believe. Their deadline is in two days and if I can't get those pictures to work, it isn't going to be good. I need help as soon as possible, please! Thank you!!!

 

[BionicJohn]

Are you using a Windows or a Mac PC?

Are you using any plug-in to create the year book?

What format are the image files? TIFF is the preferred choice for photos.

PM6 is now 10 years old, and never was one of Aldus/Adobe's best.

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[desperate18]

The operating system is Windows XP Pro. There are about 10 computers hooked up to a network, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. No plug-ins. The image files are JPEG, but I will try TIFF. Do you think that would help?

Yes, Pagemaker 6 is old. The yearbook is switching to InDesign next year.

 

[BionicJohn]

Yes, Pagemaker 6 is old

I'm surprised you've even got it to install on WinXP. Adobe no longer support PM6 at all. So you have to accept that there may be unresolvable incompatibilities between a product which would run on Win3.1 (1994?) and today's slick WinXP (2004?).

However, all is not lost.

There are about 10 computers hooked up to a network, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.

I suspect it has everything to do with it.

By all means STORE all your files on a remote drive, but copy them ALL to a local drive for EDITING. By all, I mean all the linked files as well as the *.PMD file. Your error message "Error importing image into [file name], continue?" would be consistent with difficulty in linking to files on a remote drive.

Here's Adobe's advice from Recommended workflow for creating PageMaker publications

5. Open publications from the hard disk.
Before you open a publication stored on removable media (for example, a Zip disk) or a network drive, copy it and all linked graphics files to your hard disk. Slow access times between the hard disk and removable or network disks, or multiple users working on a file at the same time on a network drive, can cause data to become incomplete, lost, or corrupt, resulting in damage to the publication.

The image files are JPEG, but I will try TIFF

TIFF is preferred format for print as there is no data loss when editing the image. If you are presented with JPGs and do not have to edit them at all, then you may be OK. If you need to crop or anything, convert to TIFF.

And always use File -> Place so that the correct import filters are used, though PM6's will be well out of date by now. Avoid Paste Special/Insert Object, e.g. WordArt. Create any effects in PhS or Illustrator or Corel, and save then as TIFF (bitmap) or EPS (vector).

switching to InDesign next year.

Great news, but why wait? Go for the discounted upgrade while it's still available.

http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/indesign/pm_ind.html

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.