New to PageMaker...What's the best way to setup this publication?

[elizbeth]

As I stated a few days ago, I just started a new job, and will now be responsible for the production of a non-profit's quarterly magazine.

I have installed PageMaker and have been reading a lot of material and just trying to familiarize myself with the software.

The publication that I will be producing consists of approximately 40 to 45 pages excluding the cover. This publication is genealogy material. There are biographies, town histories, marriage and death records, newspaper abstracts, tax digests lists, members list, surname index,and etc. Each of these sections can be 1 to 3 pages in length. Some consisting of 4 or 5 collumns per page, while others are written in paragraph form.

In the past all publication material has been created in Word and each section a different document/file. From what I have read so far, it is best to continue to use Word and then import the documents into PageMaker.

My questions are what would be the best way to setup Pagemaker for this style publication? Should I import/place these different sections into Pagemaker separately or as one large document? Should they be written as ASCII text, and then embellished in PageMaker or setup the font style and size in Word?

I'm sure that these are very elemetary questions, but I just want to start out on the right foot.

Thanks,

elizbeth

 

[BionicJohn]

While PM can complete this job satisfactorily, be aware PM is now old software and InDesign is the application of choice. Having said that:

Create the style/feel of your publication before you start, by
1. Making full use of Master Pages to create pages with various numbers of columns; and
2. Making full use of the style palette.
(Check the PM helpfiles/user guide for more info.)

Importing text from Word *.doc files is fraught with difficulties. Word users are notoriously sloppy when formatting text, and imported text is very likely not to appear as expected.

My preferred method is to import basic ASCii, and apply PM styles, but others prefer using *.RTF.

Images should always be imported using File -> Place, and never via copy'n'paste.

Importing tables is not straightforward either - either create your own using tabs or import as *.PDFs or *.EPSs having been converted from Word (which makes editing lengthy).

There are links to tutorials here:

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.2ccd2634/0

Lots of FAQs at:

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.1de7c91d

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