Unable to Open and Recover Old PageMaker 6.5 Files

[duy_0812]

Hello everyone,

I am seeking assistance with an issue related to some very important files. A friend of mine, who is quite elderly, authored a series of documents many years ago using Adobe PageMaker 6.5 on an old Mac, which has since broken down. Recently, I managed to recover the hard drive and found four files, each containing over 2000 pages of content.

However, I am facing multiple challenges: 

1. Cannot Open Files: I attempted to open the files with both InDesign CS6 and CS5, but the program crashes every time. It seems there might be compatibility issues or corruption in the files.

2. Font Issues: The primary language in the documents is Vietnamese, with some annotations in Chinese characters and Japanese. The original font used is "Vinapala". Additionally, I am unsure which encoding was used in these documents. I tried opening it with other editors, of course some applications can open it but it has font error, looks like martian language.

These files are crucial to both me and my friend, and we would greatly appreciate any guidance or tools that could help us open, convert, or recover them.

Thank you for any advice you can provide!

[BobLevine]

I am sorry to hear about these issues but those files may be toast. Are there PDFs? Are there hard copies?

There are a few active users here that might be able to try to open those files but most of us have long abandoned Pagemaker and older versions of InDesign.

[duy_0812]

I asked my friend, he said there is no PDF, or hard copy. So it is quite troublesome. He himself does not use Pagemaker anymore, I have tried many different ways but unfortunately nothing works yet.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@duy_0812

If you can't open those files - how can you see font / encoding issue?

I have CS6 - you can upload your files somewhere and either post link here or on priv - please click my nickname. 

[duy_0812]

I tried opening it with Sublime text and Notepad++. So I know it's a font error or a corrupted file.
I am sending a link to one of them, you can try opening it:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tlzq0pTvWFp4FRKhwfRj3DZ76ABhBmEx/view?usp=sharing

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@duy_0812

Is this Sublime editor able to decode PageMaker files?

[duy_0812]

I think not, I have no experience in this field so just try everything I can

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I think not, I have no experience in this field so just try everything I can

By @duy_0812

That's my point - it's just a text editor.

I've just tried to open it in CS6 and CS5.5 on a PC - both crash...

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

There are some parts, that look like "text" - but I don't think it would be possible to extract it without opening in PM...

Unicode preview:

Text preview - different part:

Maybe with enough determination...

But as @Joel Cherney mentioned - encoding will be probably completely out of whack.

[duy_0812]

It's a pain to see those broken characters. I'm trying to open these files with PM 6.5 or earlier on a virtual machine. Might have to find a way to convert it to Indesign first.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Good luck. 

[Joel Cherney]

Well, if my old mirror-drive G4 was still functional, I'd be offering to pop them open in PM6.5 myself. Sometimes it's possible to get an old PageMaker document to open in CS6 after doing a Diagnostic Recompose in PageMaker. However, I've not yet gotten around to getting ye olde G4 up and running (narrowed it down to logic board, RAM, or processor...) so I can't make that offer today. 

The font used was made by Linguist's Software. Assuming you can get the old PageMaker files open, you probably want to would have to buy their tool to convert their proprietary old-school ASCII-based encoding to Unicode. I've written JS tools to convert old Linguist's Software fonts to Unicode once the old PM files are opened in InDesign, which is probably something that you should put on your list to think about, because "mostly LS LaserVietnamese encoding, with occasional Chinese or Japanese characters" is the kind of input that simple ASCII-to-Unicode converters tend to choke on.  But first, you have to find out if the old PM documents are openable at all, before we start talking about codepage conversion.

[duy_0812]

I'm trying to install Pagemaker versions older than 7 on a virtual machine, to see if I can open these files.

It's good to know that you've created JS tools to convert these old fonts, and I'll certainly consider that as part of the process if I make it that far. Right now, my priority is indeed to see if I can get these old PM documents to open at all.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Do you still have the fonts on your old Mac drive?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

I will take a look and report back as well.

But based on my experience with attempting to ressurrect a client's old PM files in Telugu, I can say this is the problem you will be facing:

The issue with languages like Vietnamese "back then" is that Unicode fonts did not exist yet so many of these languages used fonts with standard-for-the-day encoding, but used special plugins to enter the text and format multi-component glyphs. These will not convert to InDesign.

Even successfully re-opening it in PageMaker requires the EXACT fonts that were used then (i.e. not modern Unicode versions), and possibly a region-specific version of PM.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Okay.

Your file is actually a Mac PM 6.0 file made with the Japanese version of PM.

Unfortunately, it's corrupted and will not open. This might be because of the version, or it might be because of how it was retrieved from the old drive. How were you copying the file over?

What I can tell you is that there are 999 pages in it, and I've successfully extracted the few images that were in it.

Do you have access to the fonts on your old drive? My guess is that they were Type 1 versions of the LaserVietnamese set.

___

@Doc info:Source Pathname: Z:File 1
Document Size: 105.6MB
Most recently saved version: 6.0-J
Total Pages: 999
Page Width: 8.268"
Page Height: 11.693"

@header:DOCUMENT FONTS
@Doc fonts title:Font Name PS Filename
@Doc fonts: «Plain»VinaSans VinaSan
«Bold»ç◊ñæí©ëà Bold
«Italic»VinaPala VinaPalIta
«Plain»VinaChan VinaCha
«Plain»ç◊ñæí©ëÃ
«Plain»VinaPala VinaPal
«Plain»íÜÉSÉVÉbÉNëà SÉVÉbNëÃ
«Bold»VinaSans VinaSanBol
«Bold»VinaPala VinaPalBol
«Plain»VinaGara VinaGar
«Italic»VinaSans VinaSanIta
«Bold+Italic»VinaPala VinaPalBolIta
«Italic»ç◊ñæí©ëà Itali
«Plain»VNI-Times VNITim
«Bold»VNI-Times VNITim
«Italic»ÇlÇr ñæí© Itali
«Bold+Italic»VinaSans VinaSanBolIta
«Bold»ïΩê¨ñæí© Bold
«Bold»VinaChan VinaChaBol
«Plain»ïΩê¨ñæí©
«Plain»VNM-VietHa VNMVieHa
«Italic»VinaChan VinaChaIta

@header:PICTURE FONTS
@PIC fonts title:Picture External Name
@PIC fonts:
@header:GRAPHICS
@picture title:(Edge values measured from top-left of page.)
Pathname
Type Page Size Box Angle Pic Angle Skew XScale YScale Top edge Left edge DPI Type Halftone/Transfer Encoding
@picture items:
nguyen-tho-sinh.jpg
JPEG 145 --- 0° 0° 0° 91.8% 89.8% 2.363" 1.969" --- Binary
100 Tay Dai Tu 765 Nara (5).JPG
JPEG 443 --- 0° 0° 0° 54.2% 56.8% 5.031" 2.122" --- Binary
Thap Tokyo moi.JPG
JPEG 627 --- 0° 0° 0° 73.5% 69.7% 2.363" 1.969" --- Binary
Mishima.png
PNGf 891 --- 0° 0° 0° 28.7% 29.3% 5.913" 4.874" --- Binary

@header:STYLE SHEETS
@style sheet: ñ{ï∂
@style sheet: ÉLÉÉÉvÉVÉáÉì
@style sheet: ìÀÇ´èoǵÉCÉìÉfÉìÉg
@style sheet: ëÂå©èoǵ
@style sheet: å©èoǵÇP
@style sheet: å©èoǵÇQ
@style sheet: Normal
@style sheet: Title
@style sheet: Body Text 2
@style sheet: Body Text

@header:H&Js
@h and j: None

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Also, I have been able to somewhat recover the file by converting it to (choke) Quark Xpress, then bring that into InDesign. However, the layout is pooched due to the corruption, but each chapter's story is still there. Of course, since I do not have the fonts, I cannot tell if this is at all usable for you, but I can send a sample. As Joel has mentioned the Linguistic fonts available today (unicode) are not interchangeable wit the old ones.

I'm wondering if you want to try send the other parts of the book for testing?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

A bit more to add to this:

I have found that files made with a double-byte system like Pagemaker Japanese will not open successfully on a  Western(Roman) version. They will invariably fail with the dreaded Bad Table Index error, which is exactly what I encountered, as my PM is Western.

In theory it should be able to convert to InDesign if it was version 6.5 or 7.0, but the file is v6.0J, so it can't possibly open it anyway. It would need to be upgraded to v6.5J or v7.0J first.