[Fwd: Re: Thanks re Quark v. FrameMaker -- and one more question ...]

[Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>]

John Root wrote:

> As I recall,  PM 6.5 only allows for two
> master pages (R & L)... bummer.
>

PM 6.5 has problems, but that isn't one of them. In any case, the
current version is 7.01, which I highly recommend to anyone who has to
use PageMaker (NOTE: I am not defending the use of PageMaker for this
situation). PM lets you create multiple named masters. The Book function
lets you assemble properly paginated books from multiple chapter files
(with whatever rule you want regarding chapters starting recto, verso,
or next page), provides for frontmatter folios to be different from
chapter folios, chapter-based page numbers or continuous page numbers,
formatted TOC, and full index functionality.

What PM does NOT have is anything resembling a decent table editor or an
equation editor. (Adobe Table is widely acknowledged to be the worst
table editor on the market.) This is the biggest shortcoming with
respect to technical books. In PM you can deal with tables two ways. If
they are simple scientific tables, you create a slew of tabbed paragraph
styles, with and without paragraph rules, then group the composed table
with any needed vertical graphic rules. If they are more complicated
tables (such as those with multi-line text cells), the best bet is to
create them in Excel and insert them in PM as EPS graphics. Of course
turning out typographically attractive tables in Excel is another
challenge, but it's doable.

[Note to any lapsed PageMaker users out there: PM 7.0 was the first
version that finally eliminated the dreaded Bad Record Index error.
Corrupt PM docs are largely a thing of the past.]

Dick





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