Pagemaker on Mac Zip disks

[defaultehwmw5o5armd]

Hello...anyone have experience with opening Pagemaker for Mac on newer applications?  What is your experience.....I have a Macbook Pro with OS 11.3 and an external zip drive...

kim

[BobLevine]

You will need to throw yourself on the mercy of folks with some old computers with either Pagemaker or InDesign CS6 or earlier. Note that only PM 6, 6.5 and 7 can be opened with InDesign.

[defaultehwmw5o5armd]

ok...thank you....

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You can try contacting Markzware--they offer a conversion service. They don't specifically mention PageMaker anymore, but they used to. 

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

In the past, some have had better luck converting PageMaker files to QuarkXPress--and then Quark to InDesign--using Markzware plug-ins. These plugins are discontinued but Markzware might still run them. 

To do it yourself, you have to overcome a number of obstacles...

• Finding a Zip drive (I tossed my a few years back.)
• Finding working version of PageMaker 6.5 or 7
  • Most likely this will be on Windows. There is a PageMaker user group (I believe it is on Yahoo)
  • You will need to make sure your files have extensions on them; extensions were not commonly used on older Mac files since they were not required. If the files do not have an extension, it may be difficult to tell what type of file it is.
• You will need to find someone running InDesign CS6 (there are still a number of users running it)

Addendums:

There are a number of Zip drives on ebay.

Here is an old, but useful article: https://wyman.blog/zip-disk-data-recovery-how-to-do-it/

To read/write the disks on Windows (or Windows disks on Mac), I'm a big fan of Paragon Software: https://www.paragon-software.com/

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

I assume you mean "opening Pagemaker FILES"?

As Bob says, you are at the mercy of those "out there". The last InDesign that could open PageMaker files is CS6, but even if you could find that (it's no longer available from Adobe) it wouldn't run on your Mac anyway as it's a 32-bit application and Big Sur 11.3 cannot run those.

As for the ZIP drive... Same issue. I'm prettty certain they no longer work with any Mac past 10.11, even if you had a Mac USB version and an appropriate USB-C adapter, but I could be wrong

That being said, if your ARE able to retrieve the files off the ZIP disk, I and a couple others here are able to convert them for you, but I sense from your post you don't have InDesign at this point anyway, so this may be moot. I also have access to a working ZIP drive on an old Mac so could retrieve files for you if this whole endeavor is worth the trouble and time (and money).

Sorry.

[defaultehwmw5o5armd]

Hello...actually I have 6 Mac zip disks and I was able to get them to list on disk utility using an Iomega zip 100 external drive on a new Macbook Pro OS 11.3....4 listed as "No Name" external drive and mount point /volumes/no name. and 2 listed as zip 100 yet when i tried to mount them I received error 49153....
I have a trial version of the latest InDesign and photoshop...when I try to open file the 2 "no Name" do list yet no files are listed....
thank you for your offer to open the files on an older Mac...will consider....the disks have been lost for 15 years with a very special book on them...!

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

I looked up that error, and, as it turns out, Apple has dropped support for the old Mac Standard HFS file system starrting with Catalina, so there's a good chance that's why you can't read the files on your new Mac. ( I actually just tested this with some old burnt CDs and sure enough they won't mount on my iMac on which I am currently typing this (running 10.15), but do mount fine on my old Macbook Pro running 11.6). Sooo, if you know anywone with an older Mac, I suggest you try hook up your ZIP drive to that and see if you can copy the files over.

That being said, if your trial version of InDesign CC is a current verison, it won't convert PM files anyway. You still need to find someone with an installl that's CS6 or older.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

As I mentioned, I personally do have the capability to do all this, but I'm probably further away than you might want to trust shipping your ZIPs (I'm in Alberta, Canada).

A hint to other places you could try: I used to work for a printer and our prepress department would always hoard old tech just in case of issues like this. Maybe such a place exists near you.

If it's indeed an important book, it might be worth your while.

-Brad

[defaultehwmw5o5armd]

Has anyone run Pagemaker on Mac OS 11.3?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Not even remotely possible.