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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!hammen
From: hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert J. Hammen)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop,comp.text,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Macintosh page composition programs
Keywords: Quark Xpress, Aldus Pagemaker
Message-ID: <1441@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 5 Mar 89 21:03:59 GMT
References: <530@h-three.UUCP> <26710@apple.Apple.COM> <4924@mnetor.UUCP>
Sender: news@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
Reply-To: hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert J. Hammen)
Organization: Bulfin Printers
Lines: 78

In article <4924@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes:
>>PageMaker is great if you want to experiemnt a lot with your design and
>>layout.  You kinda have to know what you want to do with QuarkExpress.  
>
>No, at least, not for me. After using PageMaker for a year and having
>produced several manuals, I switched to XPress when it came out. I did
>so for (i) stability (the first two versions of PM were terrible) and
>(ii) added flexibility.

It's my opinion that PageMaker is easier to use if you haven't exactly
figured out what your layout is going to look like. With PM, when you create
a new document, you essentially get a blank page on a drawing table, and you
can put text and graphic elements essentially anywhere, and move them around
freely. XPress, on the other hand, requires you to draw boxes where you are 
going to put your page elements, and it can be sometimes difficult to move
elements around with XPress because of the parent-child relationships it
keeps with items (ie items drawn inside one box are "children" of that box, 
and can't be moved outside of it). It was my experience that PageMaker 2.0
was (and still is) a very stable program, and it doesn't experience some of
the performance problems that PM 3.0 has. I still use 2.0a occasionally (I
used to lay out the MacWarehouse ads in PM 2.0, and I think they are still
using it, judging by the poor text-wrapping they must still be doing manually).

>In particular, I really like the XPress concept
>of nested objects. For example, if I create an object consisting of text
>and graphics I can copy or move the entire thing -- all the contained
>components remain in their relative locations.

But sometimes, objects move around inexplicably on the page. Ever select a
box and use the Modify command to do something trivial to it (change the color
or something not affecting its size), only to have it complain it can't accept
your size values (which you haven't changed) because "all objects must remain
completely within their parent?"

>From what I can tell
>(from reading ads), PM is trying hard to catch up to XPress but hasn't
>done so yet. XPress also allows searching for text by content, style,
>font, etc. and changing any one of those.

XPress does have powerful search-and-replace capabilities, which helps service
bureaus like mine deal with the font ID conflict situation. Version 2.0 of
XPress was the first to remember fonts used by font name; previous versions
used ID numbers, which could conflict. PM has used font names since 2.0...

>And the final consideration is that
>the typesetter I use (a Linotronic shop) strongly prefers XPress (they
>tell me it prints more reliably and faster, but I haven't personally
>verified that.)

I will most certainly disagree with this. PageMaker, since it uses its own
Prep file (Aldus Prep), prints a whole lot faster than ANY Mac application
to the Lino, and is a lot more stable. XPress relies on the Apple laser
drivers, which usually means that a new system release breaks the current
version of XPress. XPress' problems with the Linotronics are notorious - there
was a bug in older versions that could trash the EEPROMs of RIP 1's! 

>I might also add that you kinda have to know what you
>want to do with any page layout program in this class -- the power
>to create and the power to really screw it up :-).

I'll agree with this. You've got to decide what your needs are before plunking
down the $$$. If you need powerful typographic controls, and exact placement
of objects on the page, and you've got your basic layout in mind, look at 
XPress. If you want an easy-to-use program that has most of the standard
page-layout features, and is very reliable, look to PageMaker. Like the
FreeHand vs. Illustrator battle, sometimes to do what you want you have to have
both...

>Frank Kolnick,

Robert

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