PageMaker: 1984-2004, R.I.P.
01/26/2004 15:23 Filed in: Technology
The program that changed the way publishing is done faded away yesterday into computer history...
You know, "cut and paste" used to literally mean just that: cut and paste. When I was in college (1986-1990) my friends who were getting graphic design degrees were still creating layouts the old-fashioned way with scissors and tape. I remember talking with one of my friends who was majoring in graphic design about the potential of actually using a computer to create layouts. She was very skeptical. She felt that computer-aided graphic design (we actually were calling it desktop publishing a the time) was just a passing fad. Ha.
I had this conversation to begin with because just a few days earlier, I had been blown away by my first glimpse of what a computer could do in this area. It was late summer, 1989 and I was given a newsletter by a Chinese friend of mine. He wanted me to read his newsletter that detailed the horrible things done by the Chinese government to the student rebellion in Tiananmen Square. Although I was very interested in the subject matter of his newsletter, I was more amazed that he was claiming ownership of one of the most professional-looking newsletters I had ever seen. There were no graphics, but the text was laid out so well and professionally, I was sure he had used a printing press. Then I found out that he had done this on a computer, and I just couldn't believe it.
A little background. In 1984 Apple released the first Macintosh computer. It was significant because it was the first commercially available computer with a graphical user interface (the same kind of interface you use on a computer today regardless of what kind of computer you use). Although the computer was released at the beginning of 1984, it took a few months before software started showing up for the platform. But even then what the Mac needed was a "killer app"--a software package that would cause people to buy the computer just so they could use it.
The next year was significant for the Macintosh and graphic design in general because in 1985, Apple released the first commercially available laser printer, the Laserwriter, and Aldus software released what would become the Mac's killer app: PageMaker 1.0. This changed everything because for the first time a person could create a document that looked the same on the computer as it looked when it was printed (I mean if you never created a newsletter using WordPerfect for DOS, you just can't appreciate this fact). Plus, with the LaserWriter, you could print a crisp, clean, professional-looking copy. With a Mac, a LaserWriter and Aldus PageMaker, a person essentially had his or her own print house for only a fraction of what it would have cost before.
I can't overstate how much PageMaker changed everything. I was very interested in these things myself, although I was an English major, not a graphic design major. And by the early nineties, even though I had no formal training, I was able to use PageMaker (albeit on a Windows machine) to do real graphic design and become my major source of outside income while I pursued my masters degree (in theology, not graphic design).
In 1994, Adobe merged with Aldus. Adobe already had the second killer app for the Macintosh: Photoshop. This should have been a marriage made in heaven, but it wasn't. To make a long story short, Adobe dropped the ball. In the mid nineties, QuarkXPress became the dominant graphic layout program for designers. Although PageMaker was still a very powerful program, it was falling further behind in development than Quark. In fact, now the average book or magazine you will hold in your hands has been created digitally on a Mac using QuarkXPress (Even Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has a Mac-based PR department for all their books, manuals and advertisements).
By the late nineties, Adobe was faced with a choice--beef up PageMaker to bring it up to par with Quark or create a new product. You would think it would have been easier to just retool PageMaker, but by that time, PageMaker had earned a reputation for being inferior to Quark. The name itself carried a negative image among designers (that's in spite of the fact that most professional print houses will still accept PageMaker files to this day).
So Adobe made the decision to create a brand new product from scratch. It was created to be a "Quark-killer." It's called InDesign and is now in its second major release. Quark still has the majority of designer's hearts, but InDesign is quickly catching up having gained momentum because Quark waited so long to update its software to run natively in Mac OS X which it only recently did.
In the meantime, Adobe tried over the past two or three years to reposition PageMaker as a "business design application." This is in spite of the fact that it was originally created for professional designers. They added toolbars in attempt make it easier to use. However, I've observed the average secretary try to use PageMaker and it is essentially too difficult for them to use. A secretary doesn't have time to learn how to use PageMaker to really make use of it and justify its price. Since the average office uses Windows machines anyway, I usually recommend a program like Microsoft Publisher for such needs.
By the way, PageMaker has become so neglected that version 7 (the current and last release) really only added the aforementioned toolbar to version 6.5 that had been released way back in 1997!
So that brings us to yesterday. Yesterday (January 5, 2004), Adobe released a press release that said they were discontinuing development for PageMaker on all platforms. And to give incentive to PageMaker users to upgrade to InDesign, they are releasing a special InDesign CS PageMaker edition that includes special plug-ins to InDesign that will make it easier for PageMaker holdouts to transition their work to InDesign.
So PageMaker is dead. Finished. No more. The final chapter has been closed for the program that changed everything for graphic designers everywhere...the program that helped create the entire electronic design industry.
The death of PageMaker should feel more significant, but it has been so neglected by Adobe for so long that it seems like a poor animal put out of its misery at this point.
For what it's worth I have been using InDesign for specialized graphic design projects (which I don't do all that much anymore anyway) for the last three years. Yes, I, too, quit PageMaker for InDesign a while back, but I felt like I should upgrade to the better product, not the neglected product. I didn't need the 7.0 toolbar anyway!
You know, "cut and paste" used to literally mean just that: cut and paste. When I was in college (1986-1990) my friends who were getting graphic design degrees were still creating layouts the old-fashioned way with scissors and tape. I remember talking with one of my friends who was majoring in graphic design about the potential of actually using a computer to create layouts. She was very skeptical. She felt that computer-aided graphic design (we actually were calling it desktop publishing a the time) was just a passing fad. Ha.
I had this conversation to begin with because just a few days earlier, I had been blown away by my first glimpse of what a computer could do in this area. It was late summer, 1989 and I was given a newsletter by a Chinese friend of mine. He wanted me to read his newsletter that detailed the horrible things done by the Chinese government to the student rebellion in Tiananmen Square. Although I was very interested in the subject matter of his newsletter, I was more amazed that he was claiming ownership of one of the most professional-looking newsletters I had ever seen. There were no graphics, but the text was laid out so well and professionally, I was sure he had used a printing press. Then I found out that he had done this on a computer, and I just couldn't believe it.
A little background. In 1984 Apple released the first Macintosh computer. It was significant because it was the first commercially available computer with a graphical user interface (the same kind of interface you use on a computer today regardless of what kind of computer you use). Although the computer was released at the beginning of 1984, it took a few months before software started showing up for the platform. But even then what the Mac needed was a "killer app"--a software package that would cause people to buy the computer just so they could use it.
The next year was significant for the Macintosh and graphic design in general because in 1985, Apple released the first commercially available laser printer, the Laserwriter, and Aldus software released what would become the Mac's killer app: PageMaker 1.0. This changed everything because for the first time a person could create a document that looked the same on the computer as it looked when it was printed (I mean if you never created a newsletter using WordPerfect for DOS, you just can't appreciate this fact). Plus, with the LaserWriter, you could print a crisp, clean, professional-looking copy. With a Mac, a LaserWriter and Aldus PageMaker, a person essentially had his or her own print house for only a fraction of what it would have cost before.
I can't overstate how much PageMaker changed everything. I was very interested in these things myself, although I was an English major, not a graphic design major. And by the early nineties, even though I had no formal training, I was able to use PageMaker (albeit on a Windows machine) to do real graphic design and become my major source of outside income while I pursued my masters degree (in theology, not graphic design).
In 1994, Adobe merged with Aldus. Adobe already had the second killer app for the Macintosh: Photoshop. This should have been a marriage made in heaven, but it wasn't. To make a long story short, Adobe dropped the ball. In the mid nineties, QuarkXPress became the dominant graphic layout program for designers. Although PageMaker was still a very powerful program, it was falling further behind in development than Quark. In fact, now the average book or magazine you will hold in your hands has been created digitally on a Mac using QuarkXPress (Even Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has a Mac-based PR department for all their books, manuals and advertisements).
By the late nineties, Adobe was faced with a choice--beef up PageMaker to bring it up to par with Quark or create a new product. You would think it would have been easier to just retool PageMaker, but by that time, PageMaker had earned a reputation for being inferior to Quark. The name itself carried a negative image among designers (that's in spite of the fact that most professional print houses will still accept PageMaker files to this day).
So Adobe made the decision to create a brand new product from scratch. It was created to be a "Quark-killer." It's called InDesign and is now in its second major release. Quark still has the majority of designer's hearts, but InDesign is quickly catching up having gained momentum because Quark waited so long to update its software to run natively in Mac OS X which it only recently did.
In the meantime, Adobe tried over the past two or three years to reposition PageMaker as a "business design application." This is in spite of the fact that it was originally created for professional designers. They added toolbars in attempt make it easier to use. However, I've observed the average secretary try to use PageMaker and it is essentially too difficult for them to use. A secretary doesn't have time to learn how to use PageMaker to really make use of it and justify its price. Since the average office uses Windows machines anyway, I usually recommend a program like Microsoft Publisher for such needs.
By the way, PageMaker has become so neglected that version 7 (the current and last release) really only added the aforementioned toolbar to version 6.5 that had been released way back in 1997!
So that brings us to yesterday. Yesterday (January 5, 2004), Adobe released a press release that said they were discontinuing development for PageMaker on all platforms. And to give incentive to PageMaker users to upgrade to InDesign, they are releasing a special InDesign CS PageMaker edition that includes special plug-ins to InDesign that will make it easier for PageMaker holdouts to transition their work to InDesign.
So PageMaker is dead. Finished. No more. The final chapter has been closed for the program that changed everything for graphic designers everywhere...the program that helped create the entire electronic design industry.
The death of PageMaker should feel more significant, but it has been so neglected by Adobe for so long that it seems like a poor animal put out of its misery at this point.
For what it's worth I have been using InDesign for specialized graphic design projects (which I don't do all that much anymore anyway) for the last three years. Yes, I, too, quit PageMaker for InDesign a while back, but I felt like I should upgrade to the better product, not the neglected product. I didn't need the 7.0 toolbar anyway!