Magazine Layout Question

I might be hired for a new magazine coming out next year and I was wondering, for doing the Layouts, Graphics,etc. Does it make a huge difference if I do it on the Mac or PC?

Since you will be having it printed through a printing company, I would see what they prefer if it makes no difference to you. Most likely they are running Macs, so that may be the best thing to do.

Ok, I will have to check that out, but quality wise, there shouldn't be much difference in a magazine layout between a PC and a Mac,right?

No. There are better color management and matching features for the Mac though, so I guess that could affect the final output a little. But other than that no, the programs you use for layout are basically identical on the Mac or PC as far as the final product is concerned.

...what Dek said.

All the print shop i went to use Mac to print. I just bring a Zip disk with my merged PDF file in 300 dpi and they take over from there.

If you are using new software, it makes no difference what so ever what platform you use. Especially with todays PDF workflow. However, get to know your printer. See if they support Indesign and all its capabilities (if you use it). You need to find out about dot gain, line screen, and all the other fun stuff about printing. The computer is the easiest part about a magazine.

and a lot of times an .eps file will be sufficent, which can be imported - exported from - to about any program.

Yeah, well they want to use Quark, but I hate quark. Isn't Illustrator good enough to do magazine layouts on?

[QUOTE=lowizzy]Yeah, well they want to use Quark, but I hate quark. Isn't Illustrator good enough to do magazine layouts on?[/QUOTE]

NO. It's do-able I suppose, but Illustrator is not a page layout program. Are you familiar at all with Quark or Indesign? If you are, you should know exactly what the differences and the lack of efficiency using Illustrator would create.