Book Publishing

[johnnywyoming]

I am looking into desktop publishing software, Adobe Pagemaker in particular for in-house book publishing. Does anyone know if there is a maximum number of pages that this software can handle. I keep reading references to this being great software to put together brochures, but what about book length with photos?

[novie]

I can't answer the page limit question in pagemaker, but if you're going with an offering from adobe, i would suggest InDesign.

[glc]

Are you going to be printing the books in-house, or sending them out to a commercial printer? If the latter, ask the printer what THEY prefer you use.

[novie]

You should be able to output to a high resolution PDF/X document that pretty much any print shop, be they digital or offset can use - though glc's point is still valid.

[johnnywyoming]

sending them out to be printed. My local printer mentioned that .pdf is somthing that most printers can use.

[glc]

I would think that most printers can deal with Pagemaker and Quark documents directly.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Probably a mite late here, but anyway, my first book was formatted in Pagemaker 7, so I know it has no limit or trouble with the length of documents. Sadly, Adobe is phasing out Pagemaker in favour of InDesign. You could try Quark Xpress, as glc said most printers should support it right off the bat, and it's good for whatever kind of publishing you need -digital or physical.

[novie]

I use Quark and more or less recommend it, the one advantage to buying InDesign is that it comes as part of the Adobe Creative Suite - and so has a bit better integration with AI or PSD files, and since most people use and are somewhat familiar with Photoshop at the least, having the tool palettes and whatnot look the same may make it an easier transition.

[XenaWP]

I'm a technical writer doing manuals for medical instruments. I've done manuals up to 350 pp in Pagemaker, broken into individual sections (discrete file for each section). The book features in Pagemaker are pretty lame. I used it for many years, but as it is discontinued, have been transitioning to Framemaker. Framemaker has a steep learning curve but it is robust and it's book features are killer. Just killer. Both programs handle large files with linked graphics with ease, provided your PC has adequate memory (at least 1 GB, preferably 2-3 GB). Quark is a great layout program but is primarily intended for creative page layouts like ads and such. I doubt it even has serious book features.