Re: Can PageMaker files be opened by another program?

Subject: Re: Can PageMaker files be opened by another program?
From: Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>
To: Bonnie Granat <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 08:07:17 -0500

Bonnie,

PageMaker can round-trip stories (PM word for separate text streams, such as every sidebar, figure legend, running head, callout, etc.) with Word. It's a little fussy, because the person using PM has to understand what settings to use on the text export dialog, but the idea is that you "include tags." The tags will be visible and legible to you, and you can move tagged segments around, edit between tags, make additional tags (copying and pasting).

When you get done editing, you save as RTF and return the individual stories to the PM user, who replaces the old stories with the new. This can be a large task if there are lots of separate stories, but if basically you've got one story per chapter (with maybe a sidebar or two), it shouldn't be too bad.

If you want to learn new software and be able to open and edit PageMaker files yourself, you need to buy a copy of PageMaker, which I do not recommend. InDesign is what you should buy instead. However, while InDesign can open PageMaker files and let you edit them, it does not let you save them back to PageMaker format; your client would also have to upgrade to InDesign, which they may not be willing to do.


Bonnie Granat wrote:

I have just received an inquiry about my ability to work with
PageMaker files. I do not have the software, but is it possible for me
to open them somehow and work with the text?

I have Framemaker 5 (and Word, of course).

I would really love not having to say I can't handle those files.



Bonnie,

PageMaker can round-trip stories (PM word for separate text streams, such as every sidebar, figure legend, running head, callout, etc.) with Word. It's a little fussy, because the person using PM has to understand what settings to use on the text export dialog, but the idea is that you "include tags." The tags will be visible and legible to you, and you can move tagged segments around, edit between tags, make additional tags (copying and pasting).

When you get done editing, you save as RTF and return the individual stories to the PM user, who replaces the old stories with the new. This can be a large task if there are lots of separate stories, but if basically you've got one story per chapter (with maybe a sidebar or two), it shouldn't be too bad.

If you want to learn new software and be able to open and edit PageMaker files yourself, you need to buy a copy of PageMaker, which I do not recommend. InDesign is what you should buy instead. However, while InDesign can open PageMaker files and let you edit them, it does not let you save them back to PageMaker format; your client would also have to upgrade to InDesign, which they may not be willing to do.





References:
Can PageMaker files be opened by another program?: From: Bonnie Granat

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