Adobe Table in PageMaker?

Subject: Adobe Table in PageMaker?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com, pollywise -at- fsvmail -dot- net
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:13:40 -0500

pollywise wondered: <<My company just purchased Adobe PageMaker 7.0 for me. However, I cannot locate anywhere Adobe Table. Can anyone help me to locate it?>>

Odds are good it's still on the installation CD; it's generally not installed by default, and MIS people responsible for software installations often miss it. On the whole, that's probably a good thing, since it's not very good or useful software, and in my opinion, causes more problems than it solves.

The most effective way to create tables in PageMaker is to create named styles (e.g., "Table 1") that contain the type characteristics and the tab stops you need to define the table's columns. Export the table contents from the software you used to create them with the columns of data separated by tabs. Then apply the style to this text and you've got a table. Readjust the tab settings in the style definition until the contents of the table line up as desired. Then use the drawing tools to create horizontal and vertical rules, shading, etc. If memory serves, you can even group the lines and the table text so that you can treat them as a single object.

The advantage of treating tables in this manner? Well, you can spellcheck the contents and apply styles based on the existing styles in the document. Plus, you don't have to leave PageMaker and launch Table each time you need to make a change, and it's easier to flow tables across multiple columns.

One important note: Adobe has recently discontinued development of PageMaker, and will shortly be trying to force everyone to migrate to InDesign. They'll be offering a relatively inexpensive upgrade to InDesign too. Given that InDesign is far, far superior to PageMaker and represents the future of DTP at Adobe, you might want to upgrade right now to InDesign rather than going through a second learning curve in the future.

Haven't heard whether they're planning a cheap upgrade to Frame. Anyone know?

--Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)





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