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Adobe Retires PageMaker
2004-03-15 12:12  ???:1844

　　Adobe announced this week plans to halt development of PageMaker, the page layout program that helped launch the desktop publishing revolution nearly two decades ago. At Macworld, Adobe unveiled a PageMaker edition of InDesign CS that it hopes will convince PageMaker customers to switch over to InDesign, Adobe's new layout program.

　　Even though the installed base of PageMaker is much larger than that for InDesign, InDesign has been outselling PageMaker ever since the release of InDesign 2.0. Adobe said it will continue to sell PageMaker, but the potential sales from upgrade editions no longer justified the development investment.

　　Following the release of PageMaker 7, Adobe surveyed its PageMaker customer base and found that "virtually all of the customers were asking for the same things, and those things are all in InDesign," according to Jo Ann Buckner, senior product manager for PageMaker. Among the most frequently cited requests were compatibility with OS X, interoperability with Adobe and third-party applications, and advanced design features.

　　The PageMaker Edition of InDesign CS "puts the PageMaker ecosystem in the box," said Buckner. It includes the PageMaker Plug-in Pack, templates and video training materials.

　　The Plug-in Pack provides a PageMaker Toolbar and a utility for converting PageMaker 6.0 files. (InDesign natively reads PageMaker 6.5 and 7.0 files.) It also provides plug-ins for making booklet impositions (written by A Lowly Apprentice Productions); for merging data into documents from database exports; for using PageMaker keyboard shortcuts; and for automating bulleted and numbered lists.

　　PageMaker customers will be able to upgrade to InDesign for $349. For those who already have InDesign, the PageMaker extensions can be downloaded from Adobe's Web site for $49. Adobe is also offering special deals on the full Creative Suite to the estimated 80 percent of PageMaker customers who own Photoshop.

　　Our take. Once Adobe chose to outmuscle Quark by developing a new program (InDesign), rather than merely upgrading PageMaker, the writing was on the wall for PageMaker. Its low-end appeal has already been ceded to Microsoft Publisher, and the overlap in features for graphics professionals was too great to warrant continuing both products. Though long-time users may be sad to let go, they can take heart that at least they are being offered an upgrade to a better product, which is more than was ever offered to customers of PageMaker's long-time rival, Ventura Publisher.