jimi@h-three.UUCP (jimi) (02/15/89)
I'm trying to decide on a page composition program for use on a Macintosh IIx. I've narrowed the choice to Quark Xpress and Aldus Pagemaker. I'd like to hear what the advantage and disadvantage of each of these programs are, strengths and weaknesses, etc. The conventional wisdom so far has been "Xpress is better for long documents...offers more typographic control" and that "Pagemaker is easier to use...." Can anyone confirm, deny, explain, expound? If replying by e-mail, please use one of the addresses below. Thanks. -- Jim Ingram uunet!h-three!jimi | jimi%h-three@uunet.uu.net h-three Systems Corporation P.O. Box 12557 RTP NC 27709 919 549 8334
dwb@Apple.COM (David W. Berry) (02/17/89)
What my girl friend had to say: "I bought XPress about a year and a half ago just after I upgraded my Pagemaker. Since then I haven't touched Pagemaker. Xpress is very easy to use and has features that I count on for slick looking copy." Opinions: MINE, ALL MINE! (greedy evil chuckle) David W. Berry (A/UX Toolbox Engineer) apple!dwb@sun.com dwb@apple.com 973-5168@408.MaBell
don@eastern.FIDONET.ORG (Don O'Shaughnessy) (02/19/89)
> I've narrowed the choice to Quark Xpress and Aldus > Pagemaker. What you've heard is basically correct. As a dedicated Pagemaker user who occasionally fights to a frustrated halt with Xpress I must admit a bias, but in a short synopsis: Xpress is vastly superior for typographic control. If you are looking for a system which will allow you to eliminate the galley-and-proof traditional typesetting route and go straight to page layouts from an existing mockup, Xpress is terrific. On the other hand, for those who like to design on the fly, push text and graphics all over the place until it comes together, I would select Pagemaker. Unlike Xpress, PM treats both text and graphics equally - you "place" both of them, then do what you like with them - resize, narrow or widen columns, shrink or expand graphics and so on. Xpress requires that you place "text" (text) in text boxes and "documents" (graphics) in graphics boxes, which drives me NUTS! But for jobs which require A-1 typography - Xpress. Pricey, but good. Hope this helps. cheers... dos -- Don O'Shaughnessy - via Fidonet node 1:223/228 UUCP: ...!moore!eastern!don - or - ...lsuc!eastern!don INTERNET: don@eastern.FIDONET.ORG - or - don@eastern.UUCP
don@eastern.FIDONET.ORG (Don O'Shaughnessy) (02/19/89)
In message Message-ID: <530@h-three.UUCP> jimi writes: > I've narrowed the choice to Quark Xpress and Aldus Pagemaker. I'd like to > hear what the advantage and disadvantage of each of these programs are, > strengths and weaknesses, etc. What you've heard is basically correct. As a dedicated Pagemaker user who occasionally fights to a frustrated halt with Xpress I must admit a bias, but in a short synopsis: Xpress is vastly superior for typographic control. If you are looking for a system which will allow you to eliminate the galley-and-proof traditional typesetting route and go straight to page layouts from an existing mockup, Xpress is terrific. On the other hand, for those who like to design on the fly, push text and graphics all over the place until it comes together, I would select Pagemaker. Unlike Xpress, PM treats both text and graphics equally - you "place" both of them, then do what you like with them - resize, narrow or widen columns, shrink or expand graphics and so on. Xpress requires that you place "text" (text) in text boxes and "documents" (graphics) in graphics boxes, which drives me NUTS! But for jobs which require A-1 typography - Xpress. Pricey, but good. Hope this helps. cheers... dos -- Don O'Shaughnessy - via Fidonet node 1:223/228 UUCP: ...!moore!eastern!don - or - ...lsuc!eastern!don INTERNET: don@eastern.FIDONET.ORG - or - don@eastern.UUCP
han@Apple.COM (Byron Han, wyl E. coyote ) (03/04/89)
Quark Xpress does indeed offer better typographic control. It has more
advanced color capabilities as well. It also has a brother/sister product
in Quark Style which does a lot of what Quark Xpress does but without much
of the detailed typographic control stuff and no color. They are document
interchangeable. QuarkStyle also comes with a bunch of really neat templates.
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.
PageMaker does do some very illogical things with leading - they measure it
from cap height to cap height when the industry standard is baseline to
baseline.
I have no connection with Aldus or Quark. This is not an official Apple
statement or endorsement.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (03/04/89)
In article <26710@apple.Apple.COM> han@Apple.COM (Byron Han, wyl E. coyote ) writes: >Quark Xpress does indeed offer better typographic control. It has more >advanced color capabilities as well. (etc.) Yes. >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. 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. 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. 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 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 :-). -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert J. Hammen) (03/06/89)
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 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Robert Hammen | hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu | uwmcsd1!uwmcsd4!hammen / / Delphi: HAMMEN | GEnie: R.Hammen | CI$: 70701,2104 | MacNet: HAMMEN / / Bulfin Printers | 1887 N. Water | Milwaukee WI 53202 | (414) 271-1887 / / 3839 N. Humboldt #204 | Milwaukee WI 53212 | (414) 961-0715 (h) / ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
crum@lipari.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) (03/07/89)
But but but, what about kerning? The "student" version of Xpress I used at the University of Utah didn't seem to do automatic kerning as Pagemaker seems to, albeit Xpress had a painful manual kerning option. Does either utilize the PostScript kshow operator? This brings up a higher-level philosophical point. Shouldn't fonts be distributed with kern tables created by type designers? I don't think kern tables of any sort come with the Adobe fonts. Correct me if I am wrong! I was rather surprised when I found that even the demanding aesthetic taste of Steve Jobs tolerated the omission of kerning. I expected NeXT software to use kshow with pretty kerned characters exclusively. But then, I expected the NeXT DPS server to anti-alias outline edges as well. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised when we receive release 0.9. Gary Crum Southern Cal
nedludd@ut-emx.UUCP (charles s. geiger, esq.) (03/07/89)
In article <15700@oberon.USC.EDU>, crum@lipari.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) writes: > But but but, what about kerning? The "student" version of Xpress I > used at the University of Utah didn't seem to do automatic kerning as > Pagemaker seems to, albeit Xpress had a painful manual kerning option. > > Does either utilize the PostScript kshow operator? This brings up > a higher-level philosophical point. Shouldn't fonts be distributed > with kern tables created by type designers? I don't think kern tables > of any sort come with the Adobe fonts. Correct me if I am wrong! I believe you are indeed wrong. Adobe's AFM files have kerning tables in them, so I'm sure the printer fonts do to. Now it's time to correct me if _I'm_ wrong! Also, the latest Xpress does indeed have automatic kerning. And I kind of like their manual kerning too, especially when compared to Pagemaker, which only lets you kern in increments of 1/24 the point size of the charcters you're using--this sometimes just isn't small enough an increment! cheers, from charles s. geiger, esq.
dkletter@adobe.COM (Dan Kletter) (03/08/89)
In article <15700@oberon.USC.EDU> crum@lipari.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) writes: >But but but, what about kerning? Ahh yes... This is a common question which brings up the common debate of typographers vs. engineers, who is the authority for this new technology? > Shouldn't fonts be distributed >with kern tables created by type designers? I don't think kern tables >of any sort come with the Adobe fonts. Correct me if I am wrong! The kern tables discussion is a big one. To my knowlege, Adobe uses the tables that are included with the data from the foundry or type house they license from which are *suppossed* to be the correct ones. The bigger question is is it one or ones? There are many people who claim to have to correct kerning table for a set of fonts. In some cases it is hard to know which is the right one because, I believe the kerning tables are an advent of the printers, not the type designers. As far as kerning information goes, the .AFM files on the PC and Mac (respectively) fonts contain all the kerning information. Consult the manual and the User License Agreement for more information. Sorry, I don't know anything about the NeXT fonts except that it is currently being worked on.--YOl
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (03/08/89)
In article <15700@oberon.USC.EDU> crum@lipari.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) writes: >But but but, what about kerning? The "student" version of Xpress I >used at the University of Utah didn't seem to do automatic kerning as >Pagemaker seems to, albeit Xpress had a painful manual kerning option. XPress (my version; I know nothing about "student" versions) allows automatic kerning, manual kerning and tracking (adding an equal amount of space between all characters). Keep in mind that automatic kerning will only take you so far. Most text (esp. display text) (i.e., large text) has to be kerned manually (textbooks like to refer to this as 'optically' versus 'mechanically'). -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank