phonogfp wrote:There's quite a back story to this issue, and it was only through the herculean efforts of Editor Rene Rondeau that the journal made it out on time. Or at all...!
I could write a book about publishing this issue. (A horror story at that.)
But the Cliff Notes version: ever since I took over as editor in 2004 I have used Pagemaker for desktop publishing. I've been working with that software since the late 80s and know it inside out, so it was a breeze to lay out a magazine.
But Pagemaker was killed off in 2004 and has not been supported by Adobe since then. I knew that someday my old XP computer would die -- I was on borrowed time the past two years. Sure enough, right after finishing the June issue that dreaded day arrived. Pagemaker went kablooie, and the software won't run on Windows 7.
So after publishing 42 (!) issues with that familiar program I was suddenly left with nothing. Well, nothing but a looming deadline.
A mad scramble for a replacement ensued. Suffice it to say many hours of research and discussions were undertaken. The 'official' replacement for Pagemaker is Adobe InDesign, but today they no longer sell the software outright; the new business model for many major programs is to offer subscriptions. Roughly $240 a year, every year, if we choose to go that route. That is a huge financial burden for a small, volunteer-operated club like ours.
Finding an older version that can be purchased outright, is not an upgrade or educational version, capable of running on Window 7, and is legal and can be registered, is not easy. And it is
very expensive.
There's much, much more to that story but suffice it to say that in the end we decided to go with Micro$oft Publisher since our needs are fairly basic. We aren't designing for tablets, embedding videos, adding interactive features, or many of the other complicated things the latest top-end programs do.
But although Publisher is theoretically capable of handling the very basic sort of layout we need, dropping in text and wrapping around illustrations, the program is underpowered, incredibly buggy (even after being on the market well over a decade) and downright wonky. Here's where I could go on for hours with the bizarre and frustrating problems that occurred every 5 minutes, but I won't bore you. Suffice it to say that working with the pre-press director at our printer, we were able to work around the biggest problems. But with difficulty.
I really don't know how he did it, to be honest. The latest version of Publisher has removed some earlier features, the most important being CMYK output. Anyone who works with commercial printers will know what I'm talking about. Publisher can only output RGB. Converting the photos over to CMYK was a minor problem for the printer. The real problem is the Publisher outputs text in RGB as well -- not true black as did Pagemaker.
What that means is that to print text in black, it must be converted to CMYK along with the photos, then four separate layers of colors are laid over each other to make what amounts to a color picture of black & white. It is virtually impossible to align all four passes so perfectly that the print shows sharply, without a halo effect. And it still wouldn't look true black.
I don't know how he did it but after hours of experimenting the pre-press genius found a work-around.
So, long story short (well, not short enough I'm afraid) we ended up with an issue that surprised me. I really feared that this one would be dramatically lower in quality than past years and was literally embarrassed to put it out as it stands. Thank goodness it worked out!
But the amount of work it took to do it is not sustainable. This issue represents a couple of hundred hours of effort. Really. (All I can say is thank goodness I'm semi-retired. I could not have done this if I still worked full-time.) A better solution will have to be found. It is unlikely we can do that in time for the December issue, but by next March I hope we have software that can create a more professional finished product.
I should add that my job as editor is pretty simple. That is to say, we have such fantastic contributors (for example, George Paul and Bob Baumbach have not missed one single issue in 11 years!) that 'editing' really just means laying out the text and pictures in a manner that makes sense. I very rarely have to suggest any changes in the text (though it can be hard to decide which out of many supplied photos must be cut in order to fit the page).
So I definitely credit our contributors. Without them there would be no magazine. (This is a good point to mention that we welcome new contributors to join in. If you have ever thought about writing an article about a topic that interest you,
please do! If you don't feel you can write 'professionally' I will be happy to work with you to create something we can all be happy with.)
I'll also add that the merger of CAPS and MAPS was not only a tremendous boon to the hobby overall, creating a single, much stronger organization better equipped to serve the members. It has resulted in a finer magazine as well, with an ever-growing number of contributing writers. We grew from 36 pages to 52. We also moved on to full color throughout (though that happened shortly prior to the merger). I hope everyone will agree that the new, combined magazine is the finest publication in the hobby, with a little of something for everyone.
We all appreciate your support!
I find the idea of simply dragging a file over into an unsupported OS, without installation, and having it work to seem utterly implausible. But with nothing to lose I went ahead and tried your trick, and I'll be damned if I don't have Pagemaker up and running. Holy crap! This simply can't be true, can it??