Pages or InDesign

60 page instruction manual from scratch that will include large bodies of text, photos, diagrams

Obviously, this was possible in Aldus PageMaker 1 in 1985 and QuarkXPress 1 in 1987, and it is also obviously possible in layout mode in Apple Pages and Microsoft Word.

A word or two of warning.

1. Imported diagrams and illustrations in EPS format and PDF format with typesetting in diagrams must be manually audited for search support after saving the final form manual into PDF irrespective of which application was preferred for pagination (InDesign, QuarkXPress ... whatever) and irrespective of which font file format was preferred for typesetting (Apple advanced typography, Microsoft advanced typography aka OpenType, Apple and Microsoft TrueType 1, Adobe Type 1).

2. Type set in any and all font file formats must be manually audited for search support after saving the final form manual into PDF irrespective of preferred application for pagination (Apple advanced typography and Microsoft advanced typography may either not compose, or compose in InDesign and not decompose for search support in PDF, for instance).

3. Before Peter Breis makes a note of this (... -:)) the PDF/X-3 template for preparing printing masters in Apple Mac OS X is complex and saving the configuration is in part unsupported. Also note that type MNTR Monitor is eligible in the Destination Profile dialogue along with type PRTR Pritner whether with data space CMYK or with data space RGB.

It never was the case and it never will be the case that preparing a master for publication is for the technically uninitiated.

/hh

My thoughts are really simple.

iWork costs 79€ (in France)
Pages is 1/3 of iWork so its cost is 30€

inDesign costs 1015€ (in France)

So, a fair comparison must take care of the gap.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE mardi 16 juin 2009 14:14:28)

My thoughts are really simple.

My thoughts are really simple, too. They are the same thoughts as those of Jonathan Seybold, chief editor of Seybold Publications. They are also the same thoughts as the thoughts stated by the developers of Apple TrueType and Apple ColorSync.

In the turn from physical documents on paper to portable digital documents, the operating systems will in the nature of the case have to incorporate advanced typography (for non-Latin and Latin support) and advanced portable digital documents in an increasingly networked world.

In this process there will be less and less space for software publishers that arose in the Desktop Publishing period, because the essential services they sell will be part of the operating systems and they will have less and less space for adding value that is worthwhile for the everyday enduser.

At the same time, operating systems that do not incorporate advanced typography and advanced portable digital documents will fail to supply the essential services that everyday endusers expect in order to serve information interchange in a networked world.

Competition is both creative destruction and creative construction.

/hh

I've never used Pages but have had some experience with Adobe InDesign.

If this is how you are making your living, I would certainly choose the pro app you are familiar with over the amateur app where you are going to have to learn for yourself whether it can even do what is required for your particular project.

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:
Competition is both creative destruction and creative construction.

Most of the users don't need the features which you are often describing.
So there is no reason to ask them to pay for features which are useless for them.
Of course, the result is that professional tools are bought by a "small" number of customers.
Greater development cost / smaller number of copies sold, mathematically gives a high price.

From my point of view, it's perfectly normal.

What I feel "bizarre" is the fact that for Adobe products, an English user (from Great Britain) will pay twice what is asked to a customer from the United States (quite same ratio for other European versions).
But I will not write more about that, it's not the thread's subject 😉

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE mardi 16 juin 2009 18:52:46)

Apple's advice by example would be to use InDesign.

They use it for their own manuals.

I would forget Pages if you are going to print it in spot color or process color or with photos/drop shadows/reflections at a commercial printer. It won't do the 1st, the 2nd is overinked and the 3rd the dpi is too low or uncertain. You may even get pixellated text if it overlaps other images.

Be aware that Pages does not have crop marks or bleeds.

Pages is really only suitable for desktop printing.

Peter

I use Pages extensively for professional printing, but it does have limitations in that domain. However, I simply find it so far easier to use than InDesign that I'm (for the most part) willing to put up with those limitations or work around them.

Tulse,

How do you get past the resolution, overinking, color management issues?

Peter

How do you get past the resolution, overinking, color management issues?

1. Prior to placing an RGB TIFF photograph, (a) check that it has the dots per inch for the lines per inch for the intended printing condition, (b) check that it has the size for the intended picture frame in the pagination, (c) check that it has the right ICC MNTR Monitor or ICC SPAC Colour Space profile embedded. This is precisely the same process in any ICC-enabled application, whether Apple Pages, Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress (7 or higher). Adobe InDesign cannot raise the resolution if the resolution is too low in the first place nor can Adobe InDesign recall from the remote system operated by the photographer what ICC source colour space should have been embedded in the photograph.

2. Inking is completely defined in the ICC destination profile for the intended printing condition. There is nothing an ICC-enabled pagination application can do to cause overinking other than selecting the incorrect ICC destination profile for the intended printing condition as OutputIntent whether in PDF/A for archiving or in PDF/X for printing. Overinking or underinking happens either if colour management is disabled, if an incorrect ICC destination profile for the printing condition is embedded as OutputIntent, if the software that built the ICC destination profile supported overinking (as some older software does), or if the person who configured the software that built the ICC destination profile had no concept at all of the relationship between colour gamut and ink limiting (as some production managers don't). But to repeat, this is nothing to do either with Pages or InDesign or Quark or what have you.

3. There are colour management issues, because the way the system is wired means that the user always gets the default rendering intent in Adobe's Portable Document Format which is 'Adobe Perceptual' meaning ICC standard Relative Colorimetric with Adobe's proprietary Black Point Compensation. No matter how good the Perceptual print table is, Apple makes it impossible to use that table which is counterproductive because the point and purpose of the ICC Specification is to permit product differentiation in the quality of the Perceptual table. Which one cannot use. Meanwhile, if Apple implements interface to use the Perceptual rendering intent for the printing transform and for the Relative Colorimetric rendering intent with or without media white point simulation for the proofing transform, Peter Breis will be asking a lot of questions.

Fair is fair.

/hh

Most of the users don't need the features which you are often describing.

This one does, to be sure. Furthermore, no customers whether individual, corporate or government will accept that their work is not searchable. Of that I am absolutely sure.

/hh

Henrik,

1. There is nothing checking resolution in Pages nor providing warnings. It is rendering shadows, reflections, and even some text at 72dpi. All without warnings to the user.

2. I did the tests, it is applying far too much ink, close to 400% in some cases.

3. I can not call this color management if you can not manage the color to fix the problems. On this point we seem to agree.

The F I give Pages' color management is not for Fair.

Peter

no customers whether individual, corporate or government will accept that their work is not searchable. Of that I am absolutely sure.

But I thought you were always very concerned that in fact lots of unsearchable digital work is in fact being produced (and thus "lost"). Or have I misunderstood....

Or have I misunderstood...

No, you have not misunderstood. What you have misunderstood is the moral obligation to point out that customers are not informed, or misinformed as the case may be.

/hh

1. There is nothing checking resolution in Pages nor providing warnings. It is rendering shadows, reflections, and even some text at 72dpi. All without warnings to the user.

Placed photographs: It has always been the case that the person preparing the printing master has to collect information on the production parameters.

A placed photograph should be the right size, the right resolution and the right ICC source colour space before it is placed, because a pagination application is unable to address these problems.

An application only has information on the name of the ICC destination profile in the OutputIntent, it does not have information on the lines per inch, tone value increase, paper and so forth.

The ICC architecture is a help in communicating colour, but it does not do away with the knowledge to configure the printing master and the printing process compatibly.

Transparency support: If the default OutputIntent is SWOP/TR001 for offset at around 2450 lines per inch, then the default flattening at 72 dots per inch is too low as Magnus pointed out.

The PDF/X specification defines transparency flattening but not the resolution for transparency flattening, that is left to user intelligence and application intelligence in unholy unison -:).

2. I did the tests, it is applying far too much ink, close to 400% in some cases.

The inking is a function of the destination ICC profile for the printing condition and not a function of anything in Pages / InDesign / Quark.

There are ICC profile building packages, including professional packages, that do not deliver the ink limit input into the interface of the profiling package before the profile is built.

The F I give Pages' color management is not for Fair.

That I have understood -:)

Meanwhile, the question is, If not like this, then like what?

/hh

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:

Most of the users don't need the features which you are often describing.

This one does, to be sure. Furthermore, no customers whether individual, corporate or government will accept that their work is not searchable. Of that I am absolutely sure.

It's one of your old favorite theme.
In short you are sure that what you defined as an indispensable feature is indispensable for all of us.
Your 'searchable" definition is not matching our needs.

As far as I know, we are numerous thinking that Pages fit our needs and that we may use it daily without your obsessional feature.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE mercredi 17 juin 2009 09:20:25)