Re. PageMaker Mac vs. PC

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     Kelly Thomson wrote to ask about compatibility problems between the
     Mac and PC versions of PageMaker. I haven't tried to exchange files
     between the two versions, but here are some important tips that
     concern any cross-platform file exchanges:

     1. Make sure you both have the same fonts. The biggest source of
     problems is that Adobe Times is not the same as Linotype Times, and
     certainly not the same as Microsoft TrueType Times. This causes all
     sorts of havoc in page layout and typesetting. If you have any custom
     kerning tables or other tweaks to your fonts, make sure everyone has
     the same files. (For ex., I think that the kerning files used to be
     called "AFM" (Adobe Font Metrics) files... don't know if they still
     are.) Beware!

     2. Similarly, make sure you match your style sheets precisely. There
     are tons of apparently trivial changes that can trip you up. For
     example, one of you might set tracking to loose while another sets it
     to normal. Bang! Different line breaks.

     3. Test your graphics files, and expect some incompatibilities. I'd
     suggest not embedding graphics (reference them instead with hot links)
     because your files will be trimmer and you can work faster with them.
     This also avoids any potential problems involving file formats that
     differ across the two platforms. For example, the TIFF "standard"
     (sic) has at least three flavors that I'm aware of, more if you add in
     the compressed variant. I wouldn't want to bet the farm that PM will
     get the translation flawlessly correct, and small errors can cause big
     problems down the road. Use your graphics as FPOs (for position only),
     and make sure all the external files get shipped to the printer along
     with the final layout file.

     4. Make sure that your character sets are fully compatible. The upper
     128 characters of the Mac and PC ASCII sets are different, and this
     may cause problems. Using the same fonts should solve the problem, but
     test this to be sure. A quick and not exhaustive test would be to
     exchange a file that contains only accented characters, superscript 2
     and 3, several Greek letters, bullets and any other special characters
     you might use (e.g., the British "L" pound symbol, French cedilles,
     Spanish enyas, the oe and ae ligations, etc.). Anything that doesn't
     come across right should become a checklist item for your final edit.

     That's all I can come up with in 5 minutes. One last Luddite fear:
     since the file formats aren't likely to be 100% compatible, take your
     test document (item 4) and pass it back and forth half a dozen times.
     This means you'll be converting the format this many times. If
     anything screws up during the conversion, your final file won't print
     the same as your original... and that will tell you to expect a
     problem and to start working now on a solution. Hope this helps!

     --Geoff Hart     #8^{)}
     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

     Disclaimer: These comments are my own and don't represent the opinions
     of the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada.