Free Page Laout Software
Someone was nice enough to give me a copy of Adobe PageMaker7. I thought that was the cat's meow, because it's impossible to design one-piece book covers with anything other than a page layout program.
PageMaker, it turned out, is actually an old Aldus application that Adobe purchased, and, shined up a little bit, and hasn't supported much since. They've moved on to bigger and better things (which I can't afford). Meanwhile, PM isn't easy to learn. It's workspace is strange, and non-intuitive. After finally getting the hang of it, I did manage to layout some 8.5" x 11" and 6" x 9" covers successfully.
But there were color issues, mainly because PM doesn't support transparency. That makes it difficult (and usually impossible) to match the background color of placed images with the background color of the cover itself. PageMaker also automatically converts sRGB (the Windows default red-green-blue color space) layouts to CMYK (the cyan-magenta-yellow-black press standard). On a couple of occasions, the cover colors of first proofs didn't come very close to desktop printed versions.
I decided that Adobe's "unfair to poor people" pricing justified my turning into a crook, and I turned to the warez groups in USENET to find a solution. I downloaded a copy of Creative Suite 3 Standard, and the "crack" to go with it. Then I began to have second thoughts.
For one thing, I don't like being a crook. Adobe's price tag is $999 which, in my opinion … oh, well. I won't get into name-calling. Anyway, my self-respect is probably worth more than $1,000. For another thing, I did that once before, and the "crack" had a payload that filled my computer with all sorts of nasty problems. I just got done dealing with a situation like that, after one of my daughter's young friends downloaded and installed a "free" music thing on her mother's machine, and wasn't eager for an encore. So I decided to thoroughly scan the CS3 files and the crack. Sure enough, the crack included a Trojan.
"Screw this!", says I as I clicked the big red X.
In desperation I decided to Google "free page layout software." Why hadn't I thought of that before? That came up with a link to http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/, which featured several free tools including once called "PagePlus SE." Clicking on the "Download Now!" button popped up another page offering a better version, "PagePlus9"; "Originally $129.95 … Download Now For Just $9.99!" Oh, sure - the old bait 'n switch bit. I went ahead and downloaded the free version, without great expectations.
Surprise! Surprise! As far as I could see, it was as good as PageMaker, and easier to learn and use. In no time at all I'd duplicated one of the covers I'd laid out in PM. PagePlus SE crashed a lot while trying to insert images with transparent backgrounds, so that was an unfortunate nuisance. But then I learned it had the capability of setting transparencies anyway, so the work-around was to just not try to insert images with alpha channels.
PagePlus SE worked so good, in fact, that I decided to reward it's maker Serif Europe Ltd by splurging for the $9.99 version. That worked even better, and didn't crash when I attempted to place images with alpha channels.
If you're a beginner, and/or on a tight budget, go to www.freeserifsoftware.com and spend $10. If you are impressed, go to http://www.serif.com and have a look at "PagePlus X2," the latest and greatest version, still only $129.99.
As I proof read this yet again, I realize it sounds like a not-so-subtle plug. Here's the disclaimer: I don't know anybody at Serif, and I'm not on their payroll. I'm very favorably impressed for two reasons. First, because they're nice enough to provide a very useful tool for free. Rich people do not ordinarily write and self-publish POD books. Second, Serif's give-away strategy is good example of artful marketing. I'll probably buy "X2" next time I have to do some covers. I might even get carried away to the point of learning how to use that to create the book's interior pages, instead of MS-Word 2002 and Acrobat Distiller.
[-=glw=-]
Serif Free Software
Serif Main Site
PageMaker, it turned out, is actually an old Aldus application that Adobe purchased, and, shined up a little bit, and hasn't supported much since. They've moved on to bigger and better things (which I can't afford). Meanwhile, PM isn't easy to learn. It's workspace is strange, and non-intuitive. After finally getting the hang of it, I did manage to layout some 8.5" x 11" and 6" x 9" covers successfully.
But there were color issues, mainly because PM doesn't support transparency. That makes it difficult (and usually impossible) to match the background color of placed images with the background color of the cover itself. PageMaker also automatically converts sRGB (the Windows default red-green-blue color space) layouts to CMYK (the cyan-magenta-yellow-black press standard). On a couple of occasions, the cover colors of first proofs didn't come very close to desktop printed versions.
I decided that Adobe's "unfair to poor people" pricing justified my turning into a crook, and I turned to the warez groups in USENET to find a solution. I downloaded a copy of Creative Suite 3 Standard, and the "crack" to go with it. Then I began to have second thoughts.
For one thing, I don't like being a crook. Adobe's price tag is $999 which, in my opinion … oh, well. I won't get into name-calling. Anyway, my self-respect is probably worth more than $1,000. For another thing, I did that once before, and the "crack" had a payload that filled my computer with all sorts of nasty problems. I just got done dealing with a situation like that, after one of my daughter's young friends downloaded and installed a "free" music thing on her mother's machine, and wasn't eager for an encore. So I decided to thoroughly scan the CS3 files and the crack. Sure enough, the crack included a Trojan.
"Screw this!", says I as I clicked the big red X.
In desperation I decided to Google "free page layout software." Why hadn't I thought of that before? That came up with a link to http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/, which featured several free tools including once called "PagePlus SE." Clicking on the "Download Now!" button popped up another page offering a better version, "PagePlus9"; "Originally $129.95 … Download Now For Just $9.99!" Oh, sure - the old bait 'n switch bit. I went ahead and downloaded the free version, without great expectations.Surprise! Surprise! As far as I could see, it was as good as PageMaker, and easier to learn and use. In no time at all I'd duplicated one of the covers I'd laid out in PM. PagePlus SE crashed a lot while trying to insert images with transparent backgrounds, so that was an unfortunate nuisance. But then I learned it had the capability of setting transparencies anyway, so the work-around was to just not try to insert images with alpha channels.
PagePlus SE worked so good, in fact, that I decided to reward it's maker Serif Europe Ltd by splurging for the $9.99 version. That worked even better, and didn't crash when I attempted to place images with alpha channels.
If you're a beginner, and/or on a tight budget, go to www.freeserifsoftware.com and spend $10. If you are impressed, go to http://www.serif.com and have a look at "PagePlus X2," the latest and greatest version, still only $129.99.As I proof read this yet again, I realize it sounds like a not-so-subtle plug. Here's the disclaimer: I don't know anybody at Serif, and I'm not on their payroll. I'm very favorably impressed for two reasons. First, because they're nice enough to provide a very useful tool for free. Rich people do not ordinarily write and self-publish POD books. Second, Serif's give-away strategy is good example of artful marketing. I'll probably buy "X2" next time I have to do some covers. I might even get carried away to the point of learning how to use that to create the book's interior pages, instead of MS-Word 2002 and Acrobat Distiller.
[-=glw=-]
Serif Free Software
Serif Main Site
Labels: Book Crafting
posted by BoysMind at
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