Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-ses!hpcc01!hpwrce!howeird
From: howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM (Howard Stateman)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Ventura/Pagemaker
Message-ID: <7650015@hpwrce.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Sep 89 16:10:23 GMT
References: <52@rsoft.bc.ca>
Organization: Ye Olde Salt Mines
Lines: 38

mr@cica.cica.indiana.edu (Michael REGOLI) writes:
>We use Aldus PageMaker (PC version 3/Windows 286) to publish a
>quarterly magazine.  Each issue runs between forty-eight and
>sixty-four pages, although the most recent issue was eighty pages.

>We've been discovering that midway through an issue, the program
>begins acting very flaky: crashing randomly [and more details on this]..

I've been a tech support person, specializing in Pagemaker for about a year,
and confirm what you are saying. My talks with Aldus gave me the impression
that they know the limitations of their program well, and are working behind
the scenes to fix it in a not-Real-Soon-Now forthcoming release. Since I
do not work for Aldus, or have any access to their proprietary information,
this is just a rumor. One other thing is they seem to want their DOS and Mac
versions to be as parallel as possible, and this causes problems on DOS 
machines which try to do the work of a Mac with those slow, limited 16-bit 
processors. They could probably do a lot better if they released a 386 version
of PM.

IMHO, Pagemaker is wonderful for small publications, up to 16 pages, where
speed of learning, speed of use and maximum creativity are needed. Ventura,
with its awful user interface, is nevertheless a better program for large,
dull publications such as booklets, books, 100-page business reports and
situations where you need to create a lot of small items (memos, chain letters)
with the same formatting. 

Since I mostly do short things, such as training materials, flyers and 
newsletters, Pagemaker is by far the best solution for me. But if I had to
dump my collected letters into a book format, I'd use Ventura.

And I'd suggest that, if you can afford it, you buy both.

......................................................................
. Howard Stateman       | I knew French was a language by age 6.     . 
. howeird@hpwrce.HP.COM | At 19 I discovered it was also a tongue.   .  
. hplabs!hpwrce!howeird |.............................................
. [Not an HP spokesman] |  Anatomically Correct BBS (415) 364-3739   .
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