InDesign v. Pagemaker

[Ira Glunts]

Is InDesign a book publishing program?  Does it have all the capabilities that Pagemaker had? Is it advisable, producing a file for a reprint, to scan a book and apply the OCR software in Acrobat and then make the edits in InDesign?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Yes, InDesign is a page layout program and is the direct replacement for PageMaker. It's considerably more capable and sophisticated, and is still the most widely used in the industry for that purpose.

When you talk about a reprint, was the book something done in PageMaker previously? For many years, InDesign had the ability to convert PageMaker files, but that was removed after CS6. So you would need to find someone that still has a version that old (I do, as do a few of us here). It's also still possible to install a trial version of CS6 if you can find an installer for it, as Adobe no longer provides these, and this would give you the trial period (usually 30 days) to convert any files you might have. This also depends on having a computer system that can run it.

However, if you are talking about all you have is a printed sample, OCR-ing is definitely a way to go, then using that copy to layout a new document and design it as you desire.

[Ira Glunts]

The bookmy wife is reprinting is Iron-Jawed Angels: The Suffrage Militancy of the National Woman's Party 1912 - 1920.  It was written in the late '80s  by my wife, Linda G. Ford, first on a 1931 Royal typewriter and continued with she believes was an IBM Selectric. The title page is the only thing that still exists. The manuscript was then retyped on an Apple in a word processor by two secretaries at the college where she taught at the time (a nice perk).  I imagine the hardcopy was made into plates for use in an offset printer.  The publication date is 1991. The book passed into the possession of various publishers.  At some point the text was made into a series of pages of  computer graphics which was used to produce the book.  The book never was put into machine readable form.  The last publisher of the book transferred the copyright to my wife.  They claimed they misplaced the graphic files.  Thus I am starting from scratch, scanning and applying OCR via Acrobat.  I have about 100 pages scanned and am chugging along surprised how fast this business is going.  I hope to take what I have from the scans and load it into InDesign for the correcting any mistakes made by the OCR software and do the final formatting there. 

One question: I noticed that the justification is leaving too much space between the words.  My guess is that has something to do with the contrains of fitting some different formatting (like the font) on a page with no flow.  And this will be solve in InDesign when there is flow among the pages.  Is this correct?

Thanks again for responding to my query and for the offer of advice with I surely will need.

Best, Ira

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Without seeing what you are working with, I can't say what's up with your justification. Whatever program you end up using will have its own controls over settings for justification and hyphenation, etc. You might want to seek out a  professional designer to recreate the book for you. It sounds like you are dealing with "a lot".

-Brad

[BobLevine]

Brad, I think the OP was referring to the OCRed text in Acrobat.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

@bobobob Yes, I realize that. I was speaking in more general terms. For the OP: The problem with using any OCR is that, depending on the program doing it (whether it be Acrobat or a dedicated OCR program like ABBY, which is what I use), it might try to match the spacing of what it's scanning. So if the original is very spaced out in justification it might think there are actual spaces between some letters. Yes, there will be a lot of massaging of the raw text before you get copy workable for a new fonal InDesign document.

[Ira Glunts]

It is good to hear that these programs have justification controls.  I am not averse to consulting a designer but so far the project is progressing well if a bit slowly and I like the challenge.  I did it once with Word, Pagemaker and Photoshop and hope to be able to do it with the new tools.

Thanks again to you and the community for the assistance.

Ira

[Conrad_C]

One question: I noticed that the justification is leaving too much space between the words.  My guess is that has something to do with the contrains of fitting some different formatting (like the font) on a page with no flow.  And this will be solve in InDesign when there is flow among the pages.  Is this correct?

By @Ira Glunts

Hard to say without seeing it, but one thing to check is the integrity of text that was generated by optical character recognition. In whatever software you’re editing in (InDesign, Word…), make invisible characters visible and check between printable characters for invisible extra spaces or unexpected characters that might be affecting justification. Also, you might check the font that’s applied and make sure it has professional metrics, and isn’t corrupted. A good professional font should have great spacing right away. 

If all of that seems fine but the justfication still doesn’t look good when you flow it onto pages in InDesign, then you can start inspecting justification and composition settings in InDesign, as shown in the picture below. In the Paragraph panel, if you applied a justification option from the row of icons across the top, note that there are four different justification options among the nine icons for alignment and justification there — make sure the justification type that’s applied is the one you intended.

Also double-check any letter or word spacing that’s applied independently of justification, to make sure it’s set to zero or whatever you intend.

As in PageMaker and Word, standardize paragraph formatting using paragraph styles so that justification and other typography is automatically kept consistent throughout the entire book.

The control over typography in InDesign is superior to what was available in PageMaker.

[Ira Glunts]

Thanks.   It is great to know InDesign (which I don't have yet) has this capability.  Also, what is a good font to use for an academic book?

[BobLevine]

There is really no right answer to this. If it looks good, it is good.

[BobLevine]

I'd echo what Brad is saying here about getting someone with experience involved and taking it one step further, I'd be tempted to do the editing of the OCRed text in Word (save the PDF as DOCX) and then start thinking about style with InDesign after doing the cleanup there. Word is built for the editorial part of this job.

One other thing, you've gotten the attention of some of the top folks here, but you might want to start splitting this into separate discussions for specific questions. This could start getting confusing and something could get lost in the mix.

[Ira Glunts]

Hi Bob, 

I will take your advice about keeping my questions focussed on one topic.  As to proceeding without professional assistance please refer to my answer to Brad.  I do not dismiss this possibility but would like to see how far I can get on my own.

[Barb Binder]

Just adding a few things to Brad @ Roaring Mouse's helpful reply:

InDesign was released in 2000 to replace PageMaker (which could no longer be updated and modernized), and pulled in features from PageMaker, Quark and FrameMaker.

It originally included the same document- and book-level controls that you know from PageMaker but has been adding features over the past 25 years to make our layout work faster and easier than it ever was in PageMaker. I have specialized in long document layout since the late 80s, and I would not want to return to the more limited feature set in PageMaker. That said, with additional features comes a learning curve—you can OCR the PDF in Acrobat, export out the copy, clean up the file and edit it in Word and then use File > Place (just like PageMaker!) to add the content into an InDesign document—but then you will need to set aside some time to come up to speed on InDesign.

In particular, be sure to read up on parent pages (Pm's master pages), including linked parent pages (not in Pm), primary frames (not in Pm), paragraph and character styles (like Pm). The book window is similar to Pm's book window, as is file management within the book window. InDesign also supports running header/footer variables to pull content (like titles) into the running heads automatically (not in Pm), and automatic cross-references to help the reader navigate (not in Pm). 

There are a number of old Pm users helping out on this forum. If you get stuck, just ask us.

~Barb

[BobLevine]

There are a number of old Pm users helping out on this forum. If you get stuck, just ask us.

Old? Old?, Um yeah...I guess that's accurate. 🙂

[Barb Binder]

🤣

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I resemble that remark!

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

[sounds of creaking bones]

[Ira Glunts]

Yep, old.  As I wrote to Brad.  My wife start typing this book on an old manual typewriter.

[Scott Falkner]

Speak for yourself, Bob. I’m still calling it the mid-fifties.

[BobLevine]

Funny thing...mid-fifties sounds a lot younger than it used to.

But I didn't get into this game until my mid-30s so I think we're probably around the same age if you measure it in Pagemaker years. 🙂

[Ira Glunts]

Hi Barb,  Thanks for the offer of help.  And thanks for you initial tips.  One question: Why use Word initially for the edits?  Can't all the edits be done in InDesign?

Thanks again for the offer of help and the quick response.

Best,

Ira

[Scott Falkner]

I am not a fan of Word specifically. I find Microsoft programs are over encumbered with features and make doing basic tasks more difficult than they need to be. However word processors are good at things InDesign is not, just as InDesign is good at things word processors are not.

Separating the formatting from the writing and editing is usually a good idea. You can pick styles, sizes, alignment, hypenation, margins, and fonts that are easier to read on screen and edit in a continous stream without dealing with page and column breaks. Outlining features make it easy to rearrange chapters, sections, and paragraphs. Editing only text is faster since no graphics need to be displayed and no complex formatting or text wraps are applied.

[BobLevine]

I missed this part of the discussion which is why I just brought it up myself.

I think of the OP's purpose Word would be much easier than bringing a mess of OCRed text into InDesign. I suppose, if the OP has a full CC subscription, the tools in InCopy might work out as well. 

So, I guess the question for @Ira Glunts is how experienced were you with Pagemaker? To be honest here, it's quite a jump to InDesign but at least it's a foundation.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Ira:

The OCRed/exported content is likely to be messy. I think you'll find it more efficient to clean it up in Word than in InDesign. Word has better editing tools than InDesign, just as InDesign has better layout tools than Word.

~Barb

[BobLevine]

+1

Always use the right tool for the job.