Jeanie,
The only sort of transparency PageMaker knows about is that created by a clipping path in a file saved as EPS or TIFF.
If you have a transparent b/g, select Help>Transparent Wizard>For Print. That will create a clipping path from the transparency and Save As EPS for you.
You may want to look at upgrading to InDesign which has much better transparency abilities and will respect transparency in .PSDs
Hi Jeannie,
Here is another method for getting your transparent background into PageMaker.
In order for Pagemaker 7 to ignore the white background when you load the image , you need to save your image in Photoshop with a clipping path.
This means that you need to select the part of the image you want to see using the selection or pen tools, and then define the selection as a clipping path.
Assuming you have an image ready to be saved for Pagemaker, try the following procedure.
Select the part of the image you want to see in Pagemaker. Open the Paths pallet and select "Make Work Path" from the pallet menu.
Open the Paths menu again and this time select "Save Path". Go to the Paths menu again and this time select "Clipping Path" from the pallet menu. When asked, select the name of the Path you had previously saved.
Save the image as a Tiff file.
Now when you place the image on a coloured or textured background in Pagemaker, it should only display the part of the image you selected in Photoshop. The clipping path you created in Photoshop will hide the unwanted white background of the image.
As Len says…
A clipping path is the only option (other than faking by matching paper colour to background colour) in Pagemaker, but InDesign allows for transparency. The latter method is much preferable, as one can have degrees of transparency. Clipping paths are all or nothing. Pagemaker has no future.
