Okay, so I'm going great guns now, except that I'm working on the template of the CD itself. Just going to do something simple put a color on it and the musician's name. Here are my questions: 1. How can I get colors beyond the basic palette of cyan, magenta, yellow, etc.? 2. I'm using the circle function to put color on the CD template (provided by the company who will reproduce the disc and CD jackets), but can't figure out how to keep from coloring the hole in the center?
Hi Michelle--I'm not Connie, but I think I know what you're trying to do-- IIRC, if you want custom colors---just click twice on the basic color in the palette...then a screen will appear that you can create your own custom color, and include it in the palette. About the only way I know to keep from coloring the hole in the center: Draw a circle there, and use white for the "fill." (Also, either white, or a reverse border, or you'll have a black border around your white circle) OOoooo..I really miss playing with Pagemaker.
Another way to get a larger palette is to open the color palette, and choose to open a new swatch library (most likely Pantone - be careful, though, because Pantone are spot colors and don't always print to CMYK reliably). But even if you use a Pantone color, you can always double-click on the color which will open a dialog box (with specs such as the color sliders, "spot" name, etc) and you can define whether or not the color prints as "Spot" or "CMYK" ... or even "RGB."
To get to that option, you should be able to click on an area in the palette (I'm sorry I can't remember where - but if you upload a screenshot of your screen within PM, I can give you better guidance - yes, it's been THAT long since I've used PM ... like I said, I usually use InDesign) and a drop-down menu should appear with the option to load a preset swatch palette.
As for the circle ... in InDesign, I'm able to "combine" the two shapes/circles to create a "donut" with a transparent center ... if you can give me a quickie screenshot I can find the menu item you'd need. For PageMaker 7 you would find that option under Object (?)>Element>Mask - make sure that the object you want to be transparent (the center circle?) is selected.
I'd do that rather than just create a circle with "white" in the center if you're sending this file off to a professional printer. If there are ANY mistakes, it'll show up on the prints and you could (though not definitely) get charged for an extra spot color.
Do you know how to print to separations? Or is the printer not askin' for that??
Again, I'm more'n happy to help wherever I can!! :) If you let me know what version you're using, I think I could help more ...
Thanks Sherry! I'm going to go play with the colors. I kind of cheated and drew a disc template in Microsoft Word, the laid it over the Pagemaker template sent by the disc reproducer. I also used MS Word colors and I'm afraid they may not be CMYK.
The disc reproducers are very adament about the colors being in CMYK, so I'm glad you clued me in that Adobe has other color schemes that don't fit those parameters.
Actually, I managed to create a donut in Microsoft Word and import it. But now that you've given me an idea about where to look, I'm going to go check it out.
Thanks so much! Michelle > Another way to get a larger palette is to open the color palette, and choose
If you "imported" your palette and need to make sure that they're CMYK, just double-click on the color in the palette and the swatch dialog box will open ... from there you can convert the color from "Spot" or what have you into CMYK ... use the drop down menu that specifies the kind of color
Or double-click on the little square to the right of the color name on your main color/swatch palette. That way, you don't even have to futz with the color/swatch dialog box!! :)
That's one of the reasons Pagemaker has gone the way of the dinosaur. (Actually, I thought I was the last holdout--it became increasingly difficult to find a printer here who would accept a job done in PM)
Very true ... I've only come across a few printers who don't stop and stare when you say "PageMaker" ...
But really, as long as you output to PDF and realize PDFs foibles and issues and avoid them, the printers can't say much about the originatin' application.
Next time a printer gives you crappy attitude over PM, just make sure they know that you're providin' the file in PDF, no editin' on their end is necessary, and you've crossed all your "i's" and dotted all your "t's!" ;)
If you REALLY want to give a printer a heart attack, just tell'em the originating app was Publisher. They'll either turn you away, snort derisively, or add 10% (or more) to your final bill!! Publisher gives printers more heartaches than even the oldest version of PM. With older versions of PM, most print production artists can figure out a workaround if editin' is needed or if they don't print to seps right ... but Publisher is another horse entirely!!
If you can get past the price tag for InDesign, it's really that much better than PM ... more reliable in terms of printed results, support for transparency (than PM EVER even considered), and advanced drawing tools ... and that's just the tip of the iceberg!!
They keep telling me that my artwork doesn't imbed properly in the PDF. Sounds like *possibly* a problem on their end, no? I do the newsletter for local Humane Society. Last time I sent them to that printer, the photos looked like doo-doo. This time I printed out the photos in Photoshop with a coarse dot pattern, pasted them to the hard copy, and ran the $ $##@@ thing off on a photocopier. It actually looked *better* than the last one the print shop did. The local newspaper donated an old Imac to me (maybe 5 or 6 years old)....it has Indesign loaded on it. I'm having a hard time learning it. Depressing. Since "back in the day" I was the manager of the art/creative services department at a metro newspaper, and I was a whiz on Pagemaker. (Now when I say that, I feel like I'm saying I was a whiz at the Linotype machine)
Weeeellll .... what version of PDF are you exporting/printing to??
PDFs, no matter how much they've improved over the years (and they REALLY have), there'll still be issues. When you take a PDF that was generated with version X in application X and output it on an Imagesetter model X runnin' PS X ... well, you can see that YMMV.
Take fr'instance ... I did a magazine for 4 years - well over 300 unique 5x3 images per issue, each one transparent and overlappin' other images. Soooo ... after several dry runs, and going to bluelines, we discovered that that particular combination of elements would only print well using PDF 1x version 5.
Can you tell me what version you're using? And what your settin's are when you print/export to PDF? Last version of PM I used, you had to use Distiller to print to PDF ...
And I don't quite understand artwork not embeddin' properly in the PDF - by the very definition and nature of PDFs that's what it DOES - embed, I mean. So, I do think it's quite possible that your leg's bein' pulled.
Enh ... InDesign, once you play with it, isn't REALLY all that much different than PM. InDesign is ... let's say more of a cross between PM, Illy and a teeny-tiny bit of Photoshop ... the basics of PM is still there, just with a tiny bit of added value.
I learned InDesign after being strictly PM for YEARS. We were beta testers for PM since Aldus owned it! :) And the learning curve for InDy was fairly steep in some areas, but the basics of setting up your doc/publication, accessing the palettes and setting type and images, have stayed virtually the same.
The biggest area of improvement has been the addition of "books." You can take several docs and incorporate them into ONE book. So, say that you have
30 individual articles (or docs) in one "book" and you need to swap three articles out and add another three ... you can do that without ever opening the individual docs - AND the pagination and numbering are automatically updated!! The mag I worked on would usually have upwards of 40 "docs" or articles - and the editor would often change he order at a moment's notice.
Also, InDy has better support for imposition ... it's no longer a matter of having to create a paper dummy ... you can just spec it in InDy and GO!!
Just a few reasons why I'm a huge fan of InDy ... :)
But really ... sit down in InDy and look at like PM but with all the improvements that you've always wanted ... all the opportunities to let your creative wings stretch ... InDy's actually very intuitive (especially if you're a PM person - switching from QXP to InDy is NOwhere as easy!!)!! :)
Hey, thanks ... I always appreciate any chance to talk about graphics (and the apps) ... and I don't venture into the design groups so much anymore (too many jerks and prima donnas). So this is a REAL treat for me!!
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