Moving from Pagemaker to Adobe InDesign

[Jimmyhill]

Hello, I'm thinking of getting In Design for printing a long running print magazine. For decades I've been using Pagemaker and it works fine. I know it's very old but it ain't broke - so I haven't fixed it. Saying that the printer I go to would prefer me to use In Design - more straightforward for them. Is there much difference between the two programmes and would I pick up In Design fairly quickly? Any help appreciated.

{Renamed by MOD}

[BobLevine]

There is a huge difference between the two and you're going to be in for a rude awakening when you find you can't open any of your old PM files. Adobe removed that capability from ID after CS6 so if you need to do those conversions, you'll need to find someone with an old version installed to do it for you.

Finally, InDesign system requirements far exceed those of PM. I assume you're on Windows since you'd need a very ancient Mac to run it on. Even on Windows, Win 7 was a crapshoot with PM.

[Eugene Tyson]

You could use something like PDF to InDesign converter to get you most of your content and layout. 

But I'd recommend starting from scratch. Happy to help with your layout and talking you through it. 

[Eugene Tyson]

What I was originally going to say is why can't you just keep using Pagemaker and supply a PDF? 

Once the PDF works for printing it shouldn't matter what program you use. 

Why do they want you to use InDesign? I would rarely supply InDesign files, and just a PDF is mostly what I send, and all the time for magazine work.

[Barb Binder]

Is there much difference between the two programmes and would I pick up In Design fairly quickly?

If you have strong PageMaker skills then yes, you will pick up InDesign fairly quickly. I find that when my students arrive in class with a background in PageMaker, Quark, Ventura or even Publisher, they already understand the design workflow and just need to figure out where the commands they rely on live. That's not to say that you won't need to put in the work—InDesign is significantly more powerful than PageMaker—so set aside time for a class, or to watch videos, or to work through a book.

~Barb

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi Jimmy,

Thanks for reaching out. In addition to the responses given earlier, if you need help learning InDesign, please check out Adobe InDesign help articles and video tutorials on https://helpx.adobe.com/support/indesign.html

Articles on https://indesignsecrets.com/ can be a huge help as well. Hope these help you.

Regards,

Ashutosh