AboutGlen Demers Expertise I am a Prepress Technician for Best Printing Online and can answer any question about
preparing your PageMaker document for print.
Experience 20 years working in prepress
Prepress technician for Best Printing Online
Have used Pagemaker since version 3.0 and realize there are still some people using it.
Education/Credentials Some college training in printing and have attended numerous seminars.
1. Why is it that people use Pagemaker if they want to do high-volume printing of books, class worksheets, letterheads etc.?
Why not use Word 2007? In my humble opinion, Word is easier & faster to learn than Pagemaker.
2. I've heard people say that printers don't accept doc files for high-volume printing? Is this true? Why?
3. Lets say that I have a small teaching business. I've to get some self-written books printed for my students, which they can take home and use as study material. Say 100 copies of a book. Which one would be better for this & why? Word 2007 or Pagemaker?
Thanks for your time.
Warm regards,
Yasser
Answer Hi Yasser,
Word is a text processor and PageMaker is a page layout program. While they have a lot of features in common, Word is designed for writing and editing copy and PageMaker is designed for creating files for publication.
We will accept Word docs. <a href="http://www.bestprintingonline.com/msword">Click here for MS Word Tips.</a> We immediately turn them into pdf files and show the customer a pdf proof. With word the fonts and layout can change from one computer to the next, the images are embedded and usually low resolution and the color space is RGB. With PageMaker, or other page layout programs such as QuarkXpress or InDesign, you can have multiple layouts according to book sections, auto page numbering, common items on master pages. Graphic elements are linked to the document rather than stored in it, this allows you to use high resolution images and not increase the file size significantly. These programs will allow you to output pages in CMYK and spot colors, with bleed and marks.
PageMaker is being phased out and replaced with InDesign. InDesign and Quark have features that allow you to edit images, add soft drop shadows, glows and other effects to type and graphics, combine multiple documents into one book and many other options that make them very powerful programs for creating professional books and print materials. If you only need 100 copies for a classroom handout, my advice would be to get a clean printout that is acceptable from your desktop printer and have 100 copies made at a copy center, most will offer some binding options as well.
Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com
