The New Features of Pagemaker 4.2



Author: John Lee, Mouse Droppings

Date: December, 1992

Keywords: page layout software program application review

Text:
Ease of Use  
PageMaker continues to be the easiest to use high end page layout
program. The new version adds to the list of features found in previous
versions, while not unduly complicating the user interface.
Paragraph Styles
PageMaker's paragraph styles have evolved over the years and now offer
adjustable rules, kerning, expanded or condensed text adjustable by
percent, and colors. You can reverse text against a colored or
greyscale background object. You still can't assign a shade or color
directly to the background of a text block as you can with Word 5.0,
but that's not an overwhelmingly limiting factor. As in the past, the
styles used in PageMaker and Word work fairly seamlessly together.
There are some areas where they don't overlap as stated above, but
overall these two programs provide the best integration between any
word proc-essor and page layout program.
Table Editor
One area that Word and PageMaker don't match up is the translation of
tables. PageMaker converts Word Tables to tab delimited text. To
compensate for this deficiency, PageMaker comes with a stand alone
program called, appropriately enough, Table Editor.
Table Editor is a basic table creation and editing program that should
fit most needs. My experience with it is that while it works, it is
flawed.
The major flaw I found is that the program is not WYSIWYG in its zoomed
views. It cost me an hour of troubleshooting to figure out why my
formatting changes wouldn't work on a table I did in 7 point text. Now
that I know what the problem is, I can do work-arounds, but for many
hapless desktop publishers, I see much frustration. Hopefully, the next
iteration of PageMaker will address this problem.
Another minor problem that has been reported to me, but I haven't been
able to confirm personally, is that when Table Editor documents are
output to image setters, hairlines don't print correctly.
New Features
Additions are the biggest news in PageMaker 4.2. In the spiraling
features race between Quark Express and PageMaker, PageMaker has done a
good job of implementing an external functions interface that comes
close to Quark's Extensions. While there are few Additions available
currently, many are scheduled for release, both by Aldus and by third
party developers, in the coming months. PageMaker 4.2 ships with six

Additions:
*Balance Columns  equalizes columns, but does not provide true vertical
justification.
*Make Booklet  allows you to print out correctly collated two-up
booklets.
*Display Pub info provides information about fonts and other items in a
publication, although the CheckList program that is bundled with 4.2
does a better job.
*Drop Cap  automatically creates drop caps through some elaborate
reformatting of text.
*Sort Pages  lets you rearrange the order of pages in a publication.
The final Addition is a scripting language that gives full control over
PageMaker's user interface. This last Addition comes at a price. The
manual that tells you how to generate and write scripts does not come
with PageMaker. You must pay an additional fee to acquire it. Boo!
Hiss!
Other new features include a Control Palette to precisely place and
adjust graphics on the page. Multiple paste is a feature I really like.
This allows you to quickly and precisely duplicate items on the page.
It really simplifies the process of making forms, for instance.
System 7 is supported including Balloon Help, 32 bit addressing, and
Publish and Subscribe. Option-double clicking automatically launches a
program that originally created a document inported into PageMaker.
Cool! PageMaker now comes bundled with Pre-Print, Aldus's stand-alone
color separation program. While it is not as seamless as Quark
Express's internal separation features, it does the job.
Wish List
The current verson of PageMaker can't use the scrapbook in System 7 to
convert or group objects as PICT's as you could do in the past. The
good news is that there is a shareware program called PM4 Scrapbook
that provides this capability. Of course, it would be preferable if
PageMaker allowed you to group objects internally. Other features found
in Quark Express are still not available in PageMaker. These include
color separation, incremental text and graphic rotation, and gradient
fills. I'd also like to see more graphic tools available.
Conclusions
PageMaker is a robust, stable, high end page layout program. It has
fallen behind Quark Express in some areas, but if you want an easy
learning curve, well implemented, bug free features, and don't need the
additional features Express offers, or are willing to wait for Aldus's
implementation, then I strongly recommend PageMaker. I use it as my
primary page layout program and am very satisfied.

Copyright © december, 1992 by John Lee, Mouse Droppings