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PagePlus was a
desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...
(page layout) program developed by Serif for Microsoft Windows. The first version was released in 1991 as the first commercial sub-£100 DTP package for Microsoft Windows. The final release was PagePlus X9, which was released in November 2016. In June 2019 it was officially replaced by Serif with
Affinity Publisher Affinity Publisher is a desktop publishing application developed by Serif for macOS and Microsoft Windows (with an iPadOS version being developed). It is a part of the Affinity product line along with Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. Overvie ...
.


History

PagePlus was first launched in 1990 and was the first sub-£100 desktop publishing program for
Windows 3.0 Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predeces ...
. Three years later, in spring 1993, PagePlus 2 was released and provided full colour printing support. Following this release, a new version of the product was released on a roughly annual basis. Serif did a complete rewrite of the original program source code for the release of PagePlus version 8. Despite the rewrite, at that time the program name was retained and the version number was simply incremented. Version 8 was able to read data files created in previous versions 1 to 7.


Replacement by Affinity Publisher

Serif announced that PagePlus X9 was to be the final PagePlus release. The last build issued to date is v19.0.2.22 from 28 April 2017. Serif ceased further development of all "Plus" products to focus efforts on their 'Affinity' product line. Serif began rewriting their DTP software, to allow a multi-platform implementation, and allow new methods of internal program operation with more modern Operating Systems and the typical current (2018/9) configuration of PCs. A public beta of Serif's
Affinity Publisher Affinity Publisher is a desktop publishing application developed by Serif for macOS and Microsoft Windows (with an iPadOS version being developed). It is a part of the Affinity product line along with Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. Overvie ...
(the closest of the Affinity applications to PagePlus functionality) was launched in August 2018, followed by the first full version of the application in June 2019.


Overview

While PagePlus was generally targeted at the "entry level" DTP user, some of the functionality present in the market leading applications (Quark's XPress and Adobe's
InDesign Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing and page layout designing software application produced by Adobe Inc. and first released in 1999. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, bo ...
) is present in PagePlus, such as working in the
CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...
colour space,
OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...
Feature support, and
Optical margin alignment Optical margin alignment outdents letters like A, V, W, Y, and punctuation into the margins to align the text border optically. Some users remark that it makes the text margin look crooked, but this is because text frames or margin guides are ...
(Optical Justification). PagePlus also has the ability to view, create, edit and publish PDF files, and publish E-books in *.epub or *mobi formats suitable for the Kindle store. It also includes support for EPUB3 fixed layout eBooks for textbooks, children's books etc. PagePlus is primarily written in
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
using Visual Studio 2008, with a heavy dependence on the MFC framework. The Windows
GDI GDI may refer to: Science and technology * Gasoline direct injection, a type of fuel injection * Graphics Device Interface, a component of Microsoft Windows * Guanosine nucleotide dissociation inhibitor, a protein Organisations * Gabriel Dumont I ...
library was discarded early in development in favour of an in-house composition engine supporting advanced bitmap and typeface operations. The text engine supports
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
text entry.


Supported platforms

PagePlus was first developed for 16-bit Microsoft Windows v3.0 running on PC/MS DOS but the final releases support
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
,
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
(32/64bit),
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
(32/64bit),
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
(32/64bit) and
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
(32/64bit).


PagePlus data file compatibility

The format of the .ppp data file has also evolved over time. Until the switch to an XML-based format with version X3, each release of PagePlus could read current and previous version data file formats. Before X3 there was no facility to save back into an earlier format, so a modified file could not be read by any version previous to the version that was last used to save it. However, once the change was made to XML format at X3, later data files from release X4 to X9 inclusive could be read by earlier versions (back to X3), though with the loss of any unsupported features. The backwards compatibility of being able to read older non-XML .ppp datafile versions was dropped from later 64-bit PagePlus releases. As a result, PPX6 (2011) is the last release that can read PP5 (1997) and PP3 (1994) format data files after a standard install on a Windows 64-bit system. To read older files with PagePlus versions X7, X8 and X9 on a 64-bit Windows system, a special manual 32-bit PagePlus installation must be done from the program disc or downloaded file. Also, when Serif ended development of PagePlus with version X9 and began concentrating on its Affinity line, they did not include in Affinity Publisher the ability to import .ppp format files from the X6–X9 versions into Affinity; neither did they provide a batch conversion program into Affinity format. This upset many long-time PagePlus users, who felt they had supported the company for many years, and often had hundreds of documents in the .ppp format. Serif's suggestion was to redo the document in Affinity Publisher, or export the file in .pdf format, and then import into Affinity (which makes it a picture and loses all page formatting info). Many users did not feel this was adequate.


Version history

* PagePlus: 1990 * PagePlus 2: 1993 * PagePlus 3: 1994 * PagePlus 4: 1996 * PagePlus 5: 1997 (revised for XP compatibility and reissued in 2002) * PagePlus 6: 1999 * PagePlus 7: 1 October 2000 * PagePlus 8: 2001 * PagePlus 8: PDF Edition, 9 September 2002 * PagePlus 9: September 2003 * PagePlus 10: 11 October 2004 * PagePlus 11: 3 October 2005 * PagePlus X2: 19 February 2007 * PagePlus X3: 21 April 2008 * PagePlus X4: 11 September 2009 * PagePlus X5: 18 October 2010 * PagePlus X6: 5 December 2011 * PagePlus X7: 3 June 2013 * PagePlus X8: 4 August 2014 * PagePlus X9: 16 November 2015


See also

*
Comparison of desktop publishing software The following is a comparison of major desktop publishing software. Overview This table provides general software information including the developer, latest stable version, the year in which the software was first released, and the license und ...
*
Desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...
*
DrawPlus DrawPlus is a 2D vector graphics editor and animation software developed by the UK-based software company Serif, also responsible for PhotoPlus, PagePlus, WebPlus, Digital Scrapbook Artist, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and other titles. ...
vector graphics editor *
List of desktop publishing software The following is a list of major desktop publishing software. A wide range of related software tools exist in this field including many plug-ins and tools related to the applications listed below. Several software directories provide more compre ...


References


Bibliography


PagePlus official user guide


External links

* * The CommunityPlus Forums were closed on 5th July 2022
Alfred's Serif Users' Forums
is a fan-based forum for users of the legacy Serif products


Reviews




Affordable Desktop Publishing From Serif – PC Mag



Review of PagePlus X5 – PC PRO
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