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Opening OLD PageMaker files

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
August 7, 2026
11 replies
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Hi, I do have some old files are using PageMaker 6.5. I try to use InDesign 2022 to open it, seems not working. May I know How to open it and save it as PDF

Correct answer BobLevine

You’re going to need InDesign CS6 or earlier as Dave mentioned. There are still quite a few people running it so you do have some hope here but with that many files you are going to have to pay someone, I suspect.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

It might be easier to simply recreate them.

Did you just come across this files, perhaps from a client?

The reason I ask, is that PageMaker stopped sales about 22 years ago. InDesign CS6 stopped sales 11 years ago.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS . Coincidentally, I connected with this same individual on Reddit last night. The files are issues of an A3-sized magazine newsletter. He sent me a few sample files, all 12-pagers, and to say the least, it would be a lot of work. First, they are in the Uzbek language so all the type is in Uzbek Cyrillic fonts (all missing, by the way). As well, all the graphics/images are missing/not embedded. In actuality, what it looks like they are looking for is archival PDFs of these existing files, so it’s not a matter of converting them to InDesign. So, even though actually converting them to InDesign format is the easy part, it would be of no real use as it would be next to impossible to update the fonts using current OpenType versions as the encoding is all different. Even if I had all the original fonts and all the graphics, processing such a file would probably take a few hours each. It would be easier to simply restore the PM files and make the PDFs from there. based on what I’ve seen so far, even that would take some time.

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

I agree that $10 per file is reasonable. That’s less than I charged about a year ago to convert about a dozen QuarkXPress files. I don’t even remember how I did it.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

$10 is nothing for what I saw. (see my reply above)

Peter Spier

Community Expert

I’m one of those still running CS6.

How many files do you have to convert?

Converting directly to PDF may not be the best choice, by the way, since there will be things like missing links to deal with.

BobLevine

Community Expert

The OP says about 100 files.

BobLevine

Correct answer

Community Expert

You’re going to need InDesign CS6 or earlier as Dave mentioned. There are still quite a few people running it so you do have some hope here but with that many files you are going to have to pay someone, I suspect.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I believe InDesign CS 6 was the last version to open PageMaker files.

Not sure why they couldn’t separate the PM-to-ID conversion to a standalone app.

You can check with Markzware to see if they can do it.

https://markzware.com/support/file-conversion-service/

I also came across this service but haven’t used it:

https://www.fiverr.com/graphicsmanhb/convert-your-old-pagemaker-file-to-indesign

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

J

Jahongir25643787ghbzAuthor

Participant

Thanks for your help. But I think these options can not help us in our case. This guy’s price is so high which is 10$ for one file we have more than ~100 files if I am not mistaken. Markzware, I think it doesn’t work with PageMaker files

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Markzware says they can convert more file formats on their page without listing which ones. But they would be much more expensive than the person on fiverrr anyway. 10$ per file sounds pretty reasonable. But also you have to consider that every single one of those files will need some type adjustments before publishing them again.

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