Mostly I use Illustrator files (.ai) for vector graphics but have a few .eps files on my hard disk. Should I resave them as .ai files?

I may have misunderstood you, kc00799, but are you looking for a way to rotate a text frame as distinct from rotating the spread? Even if that is not your concern, it may be helpful to other readers to read this.

As usual in InDesign, there are several ways. Here are the three that are obvious to me; there may well be others. In each case, the selected object (text frame) will rotate around the selected axis point as indicated by the dots in the little nine-point matrix at the left-hand end of the control panel. Click on a dot in that matrix to select it; the selected dot is larger than the other eight:

• Under the Object Menu, the first item, Transform, has a sub-category, Rotate…, which gives you the Rotate dialog box.
• In the control panel at the top of your screen, there are two curved arrows, one rotating the object clockwise and the other (logically) counterclockwise. Beside the arrows is a little representation of the direction text will appear in the rotated object. Obviously, if you want a 180° rotation, click either of the curved arrows twice.
• Less accurately, once the text frame is selected, pressing the R key selects the rotation tool – or manually select it from the toolbox. Click and drag with the rotation tool somewhere outside the text frame to rotate to whatever extent you want.

Hope that helps someone.

I may have misunderstood you, kc00799, but are you looking for a way to rotate a text frame as distinct from rotating the spread? Even if that is not your concern, it may be helpful to other readers to read this.

As usual in InDesign, there are several ways. Here are the three that are obvious to me; there may well be others. In each case, the selected object (text frame) will rotate around the selected axis point as indicated by the dots in the little nine-point matrix at the left-hand end of the control panel. Click on a dot in that matrix to select it; the selected dot is larger than the other eight:

• Under the Object Menu, the first item, Transform, has a sub-category, Rotate…, which gives you the Rotate dialog box.
• In the control panel at the top of your screen, there are two curved arrows, one rotating the object clockwise and the other (logically) counterclockwise. Beside the arrows is a little representation of the direction text will appear in the rotated object. Obviously, if you want a 180° rotation, click either of the curved arrows twice.
• Less accurately, once the text frame is selected, pressing the R key selects the rotation tool – or manually select it from the toolbox. Click and drag with the rotation tool somewhere outside the text frame to rotate to whatever extent you want.

Hope that helps someone.

Since I am running Mac OS X 10.6 on an iMac 24″, doing a Save As… in an OS 9 app like PageMaker is no longer an option. However, I have many, many PageMaker files and find that I am constantly needing to go back to them to retrieve stuff that is now, by computer standards, ancient history. Obviously they only get opened as they are needed, but there is an annoying little quirk.

Kerning and tracking problems I can live with. But is there any reason why the conversion always places the contents of the PageMaker file on a new layer (with red as the layer colour), leaving the default layer (with that nice blue colour) untouched? It doesn't affect my ability to work with the file in any way except that it jarrs with my aesthetic senses.