How to Use PagePlus for Word Processing, Page and Book Production, Plus Web Pages

There are many good software systems you can use to produce pages, paper books, and PDF publications. Some can be had for free ("Open Office" from OpenOffice.org) and some cost you money, often considerable money. Here we are going to deal with the one I use the most - Serif (Europe) Ltd's "Page Plus" for desktop publishing. It is a commercial product and costs, but it does not cost an arm and a leg.

Right now, the list price is around $100 for the complete package. Updates cost about half that much. I started using Serif Page Plus a long time ago, back when the company was shipping its PagePlus-3 version. Quite honestly, that was a toughie to use and I mostly gave up trying. But then, along came Windows. and Serif adapted. Their software has been improving and improving such that, now, I am on PagePlus "X2" (version 12). It suits me just fine, so I have not upgraded to X3 or X4, and I may not. Who knows?

So that you know - I do not own a piece of Serif, nor do they pay me anything at all. In fact, if I want something from them other than technical assistance (which they freely and smilingly provide) I have to pay for it (unless I manage to sweettalk my wife or a buddy into paying the invoice for me).

Instead of going through the entire user manual to tell you about all of the stuff that PagePlus can do, let's simply list some of the things for which I use it the most. Whatever is left out you will be able to find on one of the 250+ pages of the regular user guide or on the equal number of pages in their "Resource Guide," a printed manual full of templates and writing/publishing gems.

Let's do this first: What I tell you here won't do you a lick of good if you don't know where to go to get your hands on PagePlus. You can get the facts at serif.com. If you do go on to buy their stuff, I believe that they have a guarantee period of at least 30 days, so you can try it and keep it if you like it. I have found Serif to be honorable in their dealings with me and so I believe that their guarantee is a good one.

What I do with my PagePlus

It might be best if I first tell you what I do not do with the software. A whole lot of the page-type items I receive are produced by others who use Microsoft "Word" or Corel "Word Perfect" word processors. Recently I upgraded to a newer Microsoft Windows operating system such that the Word Perfect word processor version I own no longer works with incoming Word Perfect documents. But, guess what, the free (open source) system, "Open Office" works like a charm wth those files. Once into "Open Office." I can plug those files right into PagePlus with a click on the mouse. Same goes for Microsoft "Word" or any plain text file. Saves re-typing everything. I have done that with huge copyright-free books presented in plain text over the Internet. That is really handy and inexpensive for our Academy Central non-profit high school library (academycentral.org).

Those text items downloaded from the Internet are then plugged directly into PagePlus. Once they are in there, I can change the fonts, text size, configurations and so on. It is really easy to do.

Simple Stuff

Starting off with the simple stuff - I make our own business cards (It was fun to have a card that told the world that I was "Employee of the Month."), shipping labels, invoices, and addressed envelopes with PagePlus. I set up useful templates and simply fill in the blanks for different jobs. Piece of cake!

Paper Pages, Books, Tomes

Anything that I want to produce as a paper page, a group of paper pages, an entire book, and so on, I type in or download its text into PagePlus. If there are images to be included, I grab them up from my image files and install them onto the pages where and how I want them to be. The page size selections are many, and you can set up your pages for a book such that your publisher or print shop (for the next 1,000 or so copies) will not have to wonder how to order your pages, your tables of content, bibliographies, footnotes, indices, and so forth. You can make your publications all look like the Encyclopedia Brittanica if you want them to be super-professional in appearance and function. Color handling for professional publication is a snap.

Web Pages

One of the things I do, is produce and manage Web sites. Smarter folks than I use PagePlus to come up with "entire" Web sites at a whack, but I like to mess around with one page at a time. Either way, it is easy work. The way I do it is to go into PagePlus and come up with a "paper page" that I like and of which I can stick a copy into my referral notebook so as to keep track of what I did. When I believe that my new page is what I want it to be (or close), I click on "Convert to Web Publishing" and tell the system my Web page's name and the like. Next, I click on "Publish the Web Page." The system asks me to where I want to publish the page, to my disk or to my Web site. A mouse click on my choice "publishes" my Web page. It is really as quick and as easy as that. If I like the page, I keep it as is. If it needs help, I simply edit what I have done and then repeat the process of "publishing" it.

PDF

One of my favorite features in PagePlus is its one-click ability to produce PDF ("Portable Document Format") documents. PDF is the brainchild of the Adobe folks, whose PDF software is freely available (and cost-free) as "Adobe Reader." Anyway, once I have produced a "paper document, book, etc." using PagePlus, all I have to do to make a PDF document is to click on the menu item that says to make one. Ipso-facto, there it is. I have my paper pages saved, maybe my Web pages saved if I made those, and, now, here are my PDF pages. Let me tell you, nice people, there is probably no easier way to produce an E-book than that !

PDF Forms

There is one more thing that a person can do with the PDF stuff, and the Serif people have given us some tools to expedite our use of it. There is a thing known as a "PDF form." You can post them onto your Web pages and your readers can fill them out according to whatever it was you asked of them. When they click "Submit," the form contents come to you. You can handle that transmission in several ways, but Serif has made it easy for you. If you want, and only if you want, the form contents are transmitted to a special site maintained by Serif at no charge to you. Then the information is "redirected" to the E-mail site you have specified. I have used this service. My testing showed that I got the form contents in less than one minute after I submitted them.

Have a Question or a Problem?

Serif has a fine "help" facility, but if you want a quick answer to what may be a common question, there are a zillion user forums and FAQ (frequently asked questions) facilities that all user and even non-users can access. That may save a person a day or more in getting solutions for what, to that user, may be problems, but which, to others, have long ago been solved. Sure does beat hanging around, doesn't it?

Let's See Your Stuff

So, there it is, a bunch of information telling you a things about Serif's PagePlus software. I wish that I could make a buck or two by promoting their stuff, but that is not going to happen. I am relating all of this good info to you because I really do believe it is going to be of help to you in your work as writers. It has been to me, The easier it is on the fingers, the better you will write. I'll be looking to read your best stuff.