Need MS Publisher Replacement (and Importer)

[ingenious]

I'm trying to get the office at my church to swith to mac. The problem is, they're heavily based on MS Publisher. The only thing I've found to convert this to a nice format is Adobe's MS Pub to Page Maker. The problem is, this only works for Pub 98 and they've got 2000 and Page Maker doesn't convert to anything else....

Help?


thanks...

ingenious.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I don't know... do their other needs outweigh the difficulty of transferring their Publisher documents? Is a Mac really the best solution for them?

MS Publisher is such a piece of trash.

Off-hand, I guess one route would be to save down to an earlier version of Publisher, transfer them to an old version of Pagemaker (which no longer exists BTW) then use Markzware's Pagemaker to Indesign plug-in but I can't see a church-group wanting to spring for InDesign or the Creative Suite.

Any conversion route usually brings additional headaches with fonts as things tend to reflow, unless you can get the PC Truetype fonts running on the Mac.

Or... try to get reliable PDFs out of Publisher so you can print (but not) edit them on the Mac.

But seriously, it's a pretty problematic process. If I were you I'd either:

A) Re-examine my motives for wanting them to turn their work routine upside-down just to use Macs and...

B) If you're still determined to go ahead, persuade them to adopt a year-zero approach and start from scratch with Pages or something a little more heavyweight like Quark or InDesign, recreating their most important documents first.

Edit: Or... running Publisher through VirtualPC could be a relatively painless method.

 

[ingenious]

<snip>
B) If you're still determined to go ahead, persuade them to adopt a year-zero approach and start from scratch with Pages or something a little more heavyweight like Quark or InDesign, recreating their most important documents first.

This is probably the best idea. I'd thought of it, too, but I'd hoped there would be another direct-transfer method... Anyway, thanks, I look some more into it.

 

[grapes911]

A) Re-examine my motives for wanting them to turn their work routine upside-down just to use Macs and...

I really have to agree with BV on this point. Not only will everything have to be converted, but everyone involved will have to learn new programs. I'd really reconsider if Macs are the best idea in this case. I'm not saying not to get a Mac, I'm just saying that you may want to put a lot of thought into this before you make a decision. Try to be an unbiased as possible.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Edit: Or... running Publisher through VirtualPC could be a relatively painless method.

Or still keeping one or two PCs around just to do their newsletters. Maybe upgrading them and hooking them up to a Mac network.

 

[ingenious]

I really have to agree with BV on this point. Not only will everything have to be converted, but everyone involved will have to learn new programs. I'd really reconsider if Macs are the best idea in this case. I'm not saying not to get a Mac, I'm just saying that you may want to put a lot of thought into this before you make a decision. Try to be an unbiased as possible.

It's just so tiring to support Windows PCs with the same problems over and over again...

The Senior Minister is interested in looking into one, I think. In fact, if Song Show Plus link had been available on Mac he would've purchased a 15" PowerBook G4 last April. Now we're all (Projection Team + others) fed up with SSP and I'd like to try MediaShout link. I think most are open to it...

The Senior Minister is especially interested in "the graphics abilities... Aren't Macs supposed to be better with Graphics?" He'd really like to see that and is very impressed with GarageBand and other iLife applications.

 

[ingenious]

Or still keeping one or two PCs around just to do their newsletters. Maybe upgrading them and hooking them up to a Mac network.

It may be time for a fresh start anyway, though... Publishing is done a 500 MHz Celeron PC and a 733 MHz Celeron with *gasp* Win ME!

 

[grapes911]

As long as the decision makers are on board and willing to learn things all over again, then it's not such a big deal. Just make sure everyone knows they will be using different software that they are not used to.

 

[Blue Velvet]

It may be time for a fresh start anyway, though... Publishing is done a 500 MHz Celeron PC and a 733 MHz Celeron with *gasp* Win ME!

As a print designer and having handled one platform transition (OS9 to OSX) at work, it's best to keep certain things as similar as possible at first in order not to:

A) throw too much change at people at once and
B) keep the production schedule going

I would keep the PCs around regardless of their age, while people and publications are bought simultaneously up to speed on new software. Don't underestimate the need for a period of familiarisation and training and if deadlines get tight, they can always fall back to the old ways of doing things with Publisher pretty easily.

 

[ingenious]

As a print designer and having handled one platform transition (OS9 to OSX) at work, it's best to keep certain things as similar as possible at first in order not to:

A) throw too much change at people at once and
B) keep the production schedule going

I would keep the PCs around regardless of their age, while people and publications are bought simultaneously up to speed on new software. Don't underestimate the need for a period of familiarisation and training and if deadlines get tight, they can always fall back to the old ways of doing things with Publisher pretty easily.

Good point.

Do you think that BeLight Software's Swift Publisher is a good replacement? What about Apple's Pages?

Most of the publishing is newsletters, postcards, bulletins, that kind of stuff.

Thanks for all your help,

ingenious.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Do you think that BeLight Software's Swift Publisher is a good replacement? What about Apple's Pages?

Most of the publishing is newsletters, postcards, bulletins, that kind of stuff.

I don't know about those two apps having never used them. There's also Ragtime Solo as well...

Some (not all) small community groups that I have worked with here in London will still purchase Quark or InDesign/Creative Suite because they can more easily find volunteers that know these packages, and they also know that they can get press-quality artwork done with them.

In the UK at least, Adobe extends their educational pricing to also cover registered charities which makes the Creative Suite extremely affordable.

It depends on how much stuff is run out in-house on lasers, inkjets and photocopiers and how much actually goes to print.