Producing Adobe® Acrobat® PDF versions of your page-layout files is a smart and efficient way to deliver content. In this tutorial from Acrobat guru Ted Padova, see how four different page-layout applications create PDF files.

Contenders in the high-end imaging arena with regard to layout applications are Adobe Systems and Quark, Inc. Adobe markets Adobe PageMaker®, Adobe FrameMaker®, and Adobe InDesign®. Quark’s flagship program is QuarkXPress. Although Microsoft Publisher is a favorite among Microsoft Office users, it hasn’t had much impact within the professional design market. The remaining layout programs are all suited for handling PDFs, so let’s look at them individually.

With all the layout programs listed here you have options for both exporting and importing PDFs. With InDesign, the export and import features are built into the application. With PageMaker and QuarkXPress you need a plug-in or XTension, respectively.
Exporting to PDF from Adobe InDesign

To begin this discussion on InDesign I want to offer a confession and perhaps some personal opinion. For years I favored either Aldus/Adobe PageMaker or QuarkXPress. I grabbed one or the other routinely to produce all the files seen at my conference sessions, hosted on my Web site, and any other document with multiple pages that was ultimately converted to PDF.

Frankly, when Adobe InDesign was first introduced, I was disappointed and experienced problems with printing files on commercial printing equipment as well as just adapting to the new user interface in InDesign.

All that changed with the introduction of System X on the Macintosh and InDesign’s support for running native in Apple’s new operating system. Since that time and since the introduction of Acrobat 6, I find Adobe InDesign to be one of the best applications to work with Acrobat. As a personal choice, InDesign is my favorite program for page layouts and seamless support for producing PDF documents.

With InDesign, you create PDFs via the File > Export menu. Before you begin, be certain to select the Adobe PDF Printer. When the Export command is executed, the Export dialog box opens asking for the destination and filename. Advancing to the Export PDF dialog box is where you make choices for all the document attributes for links, bookmarks, compression, printer’s marks, security, and document information. Click on the Export button and the InDesign file is converted to PDF.

For prepress and commercial printing, when using InDesign 2.x you have two choices. Either create a PDF file and handle conversion to PDF/X in Acrobat, or print the file to disk as PostScript and use Acrobat Distiller to produce a PDF/X file. The best method is one you need to discover for your personal print requirements.

If your output is not intended for commercial printing, use the Export to Adobe PDF command from InDesign. When exporting to PDF from InDesign you can create accessible files with structure and tags.
Exporting to PDF from PageMaker

Adobe PageMaker has an export command that permits export to PDF first by printing the file to PostScript, and then automatically launching Distiller in the background. With PageMaker you have a choice of holding off on the distillation by creating PostScript files that can be distilled later.

In order to export a PDF from PageMaker in versions earlier than 7.0, you must have the Export PDF plug-in properly installed on your computer. This plug-in is available free for downloading from Adobe’s Web site. After you install the plug-in choose File > Export. The option available is Adobe PDF. This command only appears when the plug-in is available. If you don’t see it, then the plug-in is not properly installed in the PageMaker plug-in folder. For users of PageMaker 7.x, support for export to PDF is built into the application. Just choose File > Export to export a PageMaker 7 document to PDF.

I know many users of PageMaker exist who have not switched to newer layout applications. We all tend to like the programs we know and dislike the programs we don’t understand. Unfortunately, PageMaker’s development has not been aggressive and support for native operation in Apple’s System X is not available, nor are any of the newer compatibility formats for Acrobat PDFs available. If you decide to continue using PageMaker, your best option for producing PDFs for commercial printing is to print PostScript and let Distiller apply newer Adobe PDF settings during distillation.

Like InDesign, if your output is intended for anything but commercial printing, use the Adobe PDF Export command. In PageMaker 7 you can create accessible and tagged PDF documents like those produced from InDesign exports.
Exporting to PDF from QuarkXPress

QuarkXPress has been the premier choice of layout applications for design professionals on Macintosh computers. Quark, Inc., has paved its own road and traveled the digital highway in its own way. What has been accomplished in page layout for high-end design professionals has been magnificent, and one only needs to look at the incredible number of Quark XTensions to see the pinnacle of success accomplished by a company that has survived on a single product in a fiercely competitive world. For all intent and purposes, the company has literally maintained its dominance in page layout software prior to version 4.0 without a major revision for almost a six-year period. No other off-the-shelf product can claim such success.

On the Windows side QuarkXPress has taken a backseat to Adobe PageMaker. More high-end professionals working in Windows tend to prefer PageMaker to QuarkXPress. Both programs are completely cross-platform and you’ll find little difference between the two running on either platform.

Like PageMaker, QuarkXPress uses an addition in the form of a Quark XTension to export directly to PDF. For versions earlier than QuarkXPress 6.0, you need to an XTension from Quark’s Web site. In QuarkXPress 6 and above, support for the PDF format is installed with the program. You can export to PDF and import PDFs in a Quark layout. QuarkXPress uses settings from the Adobe PDF Settings assigned in Acrobat Distiller. You can change the Adobe PDF settings from within Quark XPress and choose the options best suited for your output needs.
Exporting to PDF from Adobe FrameMake

Adobe FrameMaker has been the choice for technical documents and publications produced by many publication designers and companies. The user guides you see shipping with all the Adobe software are created in Adobe FrameMaker. Adobe’s award-winning publications such as the Classroom in a Book series are all printed from FrameMaker files. FrameMaker doesn’t have the installed user base to match PageMaker or QuarkXPress, but the product does have significance among those who produce substantial publications and technical documents.

FrameMaker handles both an export to PDF, in which case Distiller is introduced in the process, and importing PDFs. FrameMaker combines many of the features from Microsoft Word, Adobe PageMaker, and QuarkXPress all into a single PDF producer that rivals most other application programs. If in the market for a software program needed for creating long documents, technical manuals, books, or briefs, you can find none better than the easy-to-use, feature-rich application of Adobe FrameMaker. The FrameMaker user is well advised to export documents to PDF for digital imaging and portability. Because FrameMaker exists more often in the commercial publications market, average consumer use is quite limited.

FrameMaker appears to be a simple program when you first look at the user interface, but it offers a robust set of tools that enable you to deliver HTML content, XML tags, and PDF structure to the PDF files exported.

From “Adobe Acrobat 6 PDF Bible” by Ted Padova. Copyright © 2003 Wiley Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced here by permission of the publisher. To buy this book, visit www.wiley.com.