DTP software group test review
businesslike but powerful DTP package
Review date: 14 June, 2001. Review by: IT Reviews Staff
The idea was that Adobe's new In Design would negate the need for PageMaker. However, it turned out that many users are still quite keen on PageMaker, thank you very much, and aren't keen to see it scrapped. PageMaker is also primarily a business application in contrast to In Design's more artistic leanings. Thus Adobe quietly keeps PageMaker on its books.
PageMaker's antiquated origins aren't hard to see when you first run the program. It's a strange mix of modern and old program design concepts. You get a stylish modern floating toolbar, for example, through which you can access the usual text frame and shape tools. But along the top of the screen is a decidedly Windows 3.1-looking toolbar which offers access to virtually every other feature in the program. This is located beneath a menu system that's also fairly busy, creating confusion if you don't keep your wits about you. PageMaker reminds us fairly effectively why programs have instruction manuals.
The wizard that greets you when you start the program must also be one the driest ever - you're invited to choose from designs under several categories, such as newsletter, reports and even postcards, although the designs don't have names or descriptions. Instead you're merely presented with thumbnail previews and document numbers. You must simply pick one that looks broadly correct, in which case a preset design is opened full of dummy text. Forget about any hope of a walkthrough on what you should do next.
In use, the program is similar to all DTP programs. Although PageMaker doesn't make heavy use of floating palettes, like Xpress and In Design, at the bottom of the screen is a bar offering precise control over text size, leading and kerning. If you dig around the View menu you'll also find a useful layers palette and there's also a styles palette allowing you to globally modify text designs. It's worth noting that you get a free copy of Adobe Distiller for outputting high resolution PDFs for professional printing.
However, PageMaker is plain clunky to use. Like Quark XPress, the program has its own odd way of doing certain things. Try as we might in our test document we couldn't import the same JPEG pictures used with the other packages here (we got an error saying the files were corrupted), and, despite following steps in the manual, we couldn't fill a text box with a red tint. We also couldn't manually enter a point size for text and had to stick to irritating predefined values. We were probably doing something wrong in every case but the point is that the common sense manoeuvres we undertook worked fine in the other packages on test.
PageMaker is capable but, in our humble opinion at least, very businesslike and clunky. Unless you have prior experience of the package, you'd be advised to steer clear.
Company: Adobe
Contact: 0131 458 6842
Company: Adobe
Contact: 0131 458 6842
Company: Serif
Contact: 0800 376 4848
Company: Corel
Contact: 0800 581028
Company: Quark
Contact: 08705 168671
