any pagemaker users?

[defaultehwmw5o5armd]

I was able to get a Pagemaker 6.5 CD to list in my Mac OS 11.3 disk utility with 2 listings on the CD:

PLDS DVD-RW DS8ABSH Media

mounting point: External

Adobe PageMaker 6.5 Plus

mounting error 49153

I do not know how to open the application...any help?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

As far as your CD error: Your CD won't mount because current Macs (From Catalina onwards) no longer support the old HFS file standard, so despite being able to see it in your Disk Utility, you will not be able to mount it. There is no work around. This includes any CDs you may have written yourself in years past.

This is moot anyway because of your main question: I guess it depends on WHY you want to do this?

As mentioned, you are about 15-20 years too late for this.

I have been a Pagemaker guy since Day 1, so I've seen every iteration of it, and, as mentioned, the last System it would run on "natively" was System 9.2.2, although I also carried it through to OSX in Classic mode up to Tiger (10.4), but it was always better to run in in OS 9.

I personally keep an old Mac G3 around to run PageMaker and other older programs like (gag) Freehand. It's actually quite handy in conversion to InDesign if the PM file is natively all sorted out (re: links etc) beforehand.

[Lumigraphics]

Freehand MX was OS X-native though.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Yes, it was.. and I have that running too, on an OS X partition on the same G3, but really, the older files I needed to work with were older than that. Not many people I knew stayed with Freehand that long anyway.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"I was able to get a Pagemaker 6.5 CD to list in my Mac OS 11.3 disk utility with 2 listings on the CD"

I know this is an an old thread, but for others that may have a similar issue with old CDs, the issue here is that the Mac OS from Catalina onwards has dropped support of the old Mac Standard HFS volumes/disks, of which this PageMaker CD most definitely would have been, so, yes you can SEE them in Disk Utility, but they will never mount. It does not matter what brand/model/type of CD/DVD reader you have. However, you could use a Mac running an older OS to read the files. This goes for any burned CD you may have made in the HFS era (say you archived old files that way); they also will be unreadable starting with Catalina.

[Lumigraphics]

You may be able to mount HFS partitions using Linux, probably read-only.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

There's a few ways, indeed. Another is using MacDrive on Windows. The benefit with MacDrive is that the resource forks are retained if you are trying to restore old pre-OSX files. This is particularly important since most files of that day had no need for a file extension, so the resource fork was the way that files stored previews, file types and creator codes. Without that, it can be difficult to determine if such and such file was actually an Illustrator file, Pagemaker file, or whatever.

This again is all moot as the OP was interested in reinstalling software that won't work now on modern systems anyway, regardless of CD readability! Although it IS possible to install PM in Sheepshaver and run it on a modern Mac in emulated System 9 if one wants to play around for sh*ts and giggles, but it's not a very stable platform at the best of times.