When you create a publication, PageMaker opens the Publication window, which contains an empty page or facing pages of your current document centered on the Pasteboard.

A PageMaker publication window is made up of the following layout components:

1. Pasteboard             6. Palettes
2. Printable area        7. Title bar
3. Toolbox                 8. Menu bar
4. Rulers                    9. Scroll bars
5. Page icons             10. Pointer


The Pasteboard

The Pasteboard is the large blank area surrounding the page. This is where text and graphical objects are placed before arranging them neatly on the printable area. 

Note: You can move text and graphics to the pasteboard until you need them again.

The Printable area

This is the area that looks like a page surrounded (enclosed) by margins on the pasteboard. Any object or text that is intended for printing should be placed on the printable area.

The Toolbox

It contains a set of buttons that represent the various tools that can be used to create and manipulate publications. 
Tool                        Purpose
Pointer tool-           Select, Move, and Resize blocks of text and graphical objects.
Text tool-                Type and Select text.
Rotating tool-         Rotate selected graphics or text blocks.
Cropping tool-        Trim imported graphics.
Line tool-                Draw vertical or horizontal lines.
Rectangle-              Draw rectangles and squares.
Ellipse-                   Draw circular objects
Ellipse frame-        Create a circular or oval placeholder for text and graphics
Polygon-                Helps to draw basic polygons such as triangle, pentagons, starts, etc
Hand-                    Scroll the page
Zoom (magnifier)- Magnify or reduce an area of the page.
  • To select a tool, click on it.
  • If the toolbox restricts the view of your work, drag its title bar to move it.

Displaying or hiding the Toolbox

  1. Click on Window, then choose Hide Tools (to close the toolbox) or click Show Tools (to display the toolbox)

Rulers

Each publication window has a horizontal ruler that extends along the top & a vertical ruler that extends along the left boarders of the window.

Rulers are used when you want to position text and graphics accurately on the page. They help the user to create ruler guides and measure an object size manually. 

Note: You can display rulers when you need them, and hide them when you want more room on the screen to view a publication.

Page icons (Page Thumbnails)

They are found at the bottom left-corner of the publication window. Each icon presents a page in the publication.

Each publication has 2 types of Page icons:
  1. Master Page icon, i.e., the icons marked L and R.
  2. Actual page icon.
  • To move to a page, just click its thumbnail.
  • To display a master page, click a master page thumbnail.
A Master page is used to design the general layout that needs to be applied in all other pages of the publication.

The Palettes

There are windows that contain the tools you can use to ad and change text & graphics in your publication.

There are 4 commonly used palettes in Adobe PageMaker: 
Color palette. 
Control palette. 
Master page palette.
Tools palette.

Control palette

It is a shortcut toolbar (or a strip) that contains text & paragraph formatting command buttons and list boxes.  It enables the user to assign attributes to text and graphical objects.  

Color palette

Can be used to apply colors or view the kind of color applied to the selected text or object.  
    1. To display or hide the Colors palette; click on Window, then choose Show Colors or Hide Colors.
Tip. Drag the palette to a convenient place on your desktop and leave it open while you work.

Pointer

This is a position pointer on the screen & its shape depends on what you are doing.  
  • An Arrow (ë) – to point & select objects.
  • An (I ) beam – to write and edit text. 
  • A Hand (I) – to grab the screen. 
  • A Cross-hair cursor (É) – to draw.  

Menu bar

It is a pull-down menu at the top of the screen.

Zero Lock

These are page position gridlines of the Horizontal & Vertical ruler that mark the page to start at 0 (zero) on both rulers.

Scroll bars

They are used for moving vertically and horizontally on the publication.  

Comparison between DTP software & Word processor software application window

- Both have a title bar, menu bar and scroll bars. 
- Word processing software has a Status bar; DTP software has no Status bar. 
- DTP software has its printable work area centered on a pasteboard.  

Changing the Document Setup.  

To change setup options of a publication, e.g., page size, orientation, margins:  
  1. Click on File, then choose Document Setup, then select the required page setup options.
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