I don't care if it will give make you coffee now. Ragemaker is the absolute worst software for page layout. It is not professional but for somebody who doesn't know any better and is too cheap for Quark. There are workarounds for ripping Pagemaker files I know but why should there have to be.

For me, seven is not the PM lucky number. The application became too old, without new features or even the improvements desired since version 6. The core program resembles from 1994, when version 5.0 arrived.

Let me remember some PM problems that are still the same in 7 version:
01. no internal table editor.
02. no character styles.
03. no vertical alignment.
04. very poor automactic kerning.
05. poor screen preview (text anti-aliasing produces weird results)
06. almost no undo.
07. illogical menu disposal.
08. no gradients.
09. very limited drawing tools.
10. text tools (as substitution and speeling) just work in story view.
11. the drop cap feature does not work very well.

And, of course, there are lots of new features we can see in InDesign 1.5 which are lacking in PageMaker:
01. precise typographic control.
02. automactic oldstyle and ligatures applicable to text/styles.
03. multi-line hyphenation.
04. smart punctuation.
05. OpenType support.
06. Bézier lines and options for the starts/endings (like arrows).
07. gradients.
08. much improved color correction and control.
09. multiple undo.
10. rescue feature to save a document when the program/computer crashes.
11. character styles.
12. possibility to attribute keyboard shortcuts to paragraph/character styles (this is really wonderful)
13. editable keyboard shortcuts.
14. text on path.
15. vertical alignment (another outstanding resource).
16. compound paths.
17. insert character tool.
18. insert special character with contextual menu.
19. a really working drop cap feature.

OK, we're all anxious for ID 2.0, with transparencies, tables, indexes and XML. ID 1.5 there is also its problems: it needs a powerful computer to run smoothly, its PDF export options are very limited, there are no tables, page imposition or indexes.

But the truth is that PageMaker 7.0 does not bring us an attractive upgrade. Quark 5.0 beta brings almost the same old typographic controls and also shows a "90's face". The future is InDesign.

While it appears that PM7.0 has two features that appeal to me (that being the integration with PDF and merging data for direct mail), it still won't hold a torch to InDesign.

I've worked on PageMaker from its inception. I still prefer to use it over Quark for longer "book-style" documents because of its straight-forward layout ability and simple booklet-building utility. However, it has not kept up with evolving interface tools, and the 6.5 upgrade has been unstable on both my PC and Mac platforms. It's always a toss of the dice whether my PageMaker files will open on a double-click or not, whether it will close out the program upon start-up, or crash my computer completely, forcing a re-boot in the middle of a project.

Having seen a demo recently of InDesign 2.0 (due for release Q1 2002), I would be more willing to take a chance on that than upgrade my PageMaker software. Adobe fixed many of the glitches that users complained of in version 1.x, and in fact have integrated tools that won't even be available in the next version of Quark, which isn't due for another year to 18 months.

As for the two features mentioned above: Illustrator 10 has a variable-data merge capability as well, and both Illustrator and InDesign are more advanced in their transition to web-based applications with GoLive, PDF and XML.

Personally, my prediction is that there may be a version 8.0 of PageMaker, but likely no 9.0. Adobe will gradually phase out PageMaker and position InDesign as their No. 1 layout software. It's a wiser move to invest in an up-and-coming young throroughbred than to try to whip what was once a reliable old farm mule into shape for a race it's not likely to win.