DESKTOP PUBLISHING (unit 4)

Desktop publishing (also known as DTP) is the creation of documents using  page layout software on a personal computer. The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers. However the term implies a more professional-looking end result, with a more complex layout, than word processing, and so when introduced in the 1980s was often used in connection with homes and small organizations who could not previously produce publication-quality documents themselves.

Desktop publishing began in 1985 with the introduction of MacPublisher, the first WYSIWYG ( What You See Is What You Get. ) layout program, which ran on the original 128K Macintosh computer. (Desktop typesetting, with only limited page makeup facilities, had arrived in 1978–79 with the introduction of TeX, and was extended in the early 1980s by LaTeX.) The DTP market exploded in 1985 with the introduction in January of the Apple LaserWriter printer, and later in July with the introduction of PageMaker software from Aldus which rapidly became the DTP industry standard software.

Before the advent of desktop publishing, the only option available to most persons for producing typed (as opposed to handwritten) documents was a typewriter, which offered only a handful of typefaces (usually fixed-width) and one or two font sizes. Indeed, one popular desktop publishing book was actually titled The Mac is not a typewriter.

The ability to create WYSIWYG page layouts on screen and then print pages containing text and graphical elements at crisp 300 dpi resolution was revolutionary for both the typesetting industry and the personal computer industry. Newspapers and other print publications made the move to DTP-based programs from older layout systems like Atex and other such programs in the early 1980s. The term "desktop publishing" is attributed to Aldus Corporation founder Paul Brainerd

Who sought a marketing catch-phrase to describe the small size and relative affordability of this suite of products in contrast to the expensive commercial phototypesetting equipment of the day. By the standards of today, early desktop publishing was a primitive affair. Users of the PageMaker-LaserWriter-Macintosh 512K system endured frequent software crashes

Cramped display on the Mac's tiny 512 x 342 1-bit monochrome screen, the inability to control letter spacing, kerning (the addition or removal of space between individual characters in a piece of typeset text to improve its appearance or alter its fit) and other typographic features, and discrepancies between the screen display and printed output. However, it was a revolutionary combination at the time, and was received with considerable acclaim.

Behind-the-scenes technologies developed by Adobe Systems set the foundation for professional desktop publishing applications. The LaserWriter and LaserWriter Plus printers included high quality, scalable Adobe PostScript-fonts built into their ROM memory. The LaserWriter's PostScript capability allowed publication designers to proof files on a local printer then print the same file at DTP service bureaus using optical resolution 600+ ppi PostScript-printers such as those from Linotronic. Later, the Macintosh II was released which was much more suitable for desktop publishing because of its greater expandability, support for large color multi-monitor displays, and its SCSI storage interface which allowed fast, high-capacity hard drives to be attached to the system.

Although Macintosh-based systems would continue to dominate the market, in 1986, the GEM-based Ventura Publisher was introduced for MS-DOS computers. While PageMaker's pasteboard metaphor closely simulated the process of creating layouts manually, Ventura Publisher automated the layout process through its use of tags/style sheets and automatically generated indices and other body matter. This made it suitable for manuals and other long-format documents. Desktop publishing moved into the home market in 1986 with Professional Page for the Amiga, Publishing Partner (now Page Stream) for the Atari ST, GST's Timeworks Publisher on the PC and Atari ST and Calamusfor the Atari TT030.

USER FRIENDLY - Once considered a primary skill, increased accessibility to more user-friendly DTP software has made DTP a secondary skill to art direction, graphic design, multimedia development, marketing communications, administrative careers and advanced high school literacy in thriving economies. DTP skill levels range from what may be learned in a few hours (e.g. learning how to put clip art in a word processor) to what requires a college education and years of experience (e.g. advertising agency positions). The discipline of DTP skills range from technical skills such as prepress production and programming to creative skills such as communication design and graphic image development.

SOFTWARE USED

PageMaker : PageMaker was one of the first desktop publishing programs, introduced in 1985 by Aldus Corporation, initially for the then-new Apple Macintosh and in 1987 for PCs running the then-new Windows 1.0. PageMaker was awarded an SPA Excellence in Software Award for Best New Use of a Computer in 1986.

PageMaker relies on Adobe Systems' PostScript page description language, and in 1994Adobe Systems acquired Aldus and PageMaker. As an application relying on a graphical user interface, PageMaker helped to popularize the Macintosh platform and the Windows environment

The last version is PageMaker 7.0, released July 9, 2001, though updates have been released for the two supported platforms since. The Macintosh version runs only in Mac OS 9 or earlier; there is no native support for Mac OS X  and it does not run at all on Intel-based Macs. It does not run well under Classic, and Adobe recommends customers use an older Macintosh capable of booting into Mac OS 9. The Windows version supports Windows XP, but according to Adobe, "PageMaker 7.x does not install or run on Windows Vista

Adobe InDesign  - Adobe InDesign is a software application produced by Adobe Systems. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers and books. In conjunction with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite InDesign can publish content suitable for tablet devices. Graphic designers and production artists are the principal users, creating and laying out periodical publications, posters, and print media. It also supports export to EPUB and SWF formats to create digital publications, and content suitable for consumption on tablet computer devices. TheAdobe InCopy word processor uses the same formatting engine as InDesign.

Quark Xpress - Quark XPress ("Quark") is a computer application for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment. It runs on Mac OS X and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc. in 1987. The most recent version, QuarkXPress 9, allows publishing in English and 36 other languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, German, Korean, Russian, French, and Spanish.  Quark XPress is used by individual designers and large publishing houses to produce a variety of layouts, from single-page flyers to the multi-media projects required for magazines, newspapers, catalogs, and the like. QuarkXPress once dominated the market for page layout software with over 95% market share among professional users. While one publisher estimates that share has fallen to below 25% and Adobe InDesignis now the market leader, QuarkXPress still has significant market share.

QuarkXPress provides the tools you need to ... ENHANCED IN QUARKXPRESS 9. The Glyphs palette provides instant visual access to any character in any font, including modern Unicode and Open Type fonts. You can insert any character into text by double-clicking or click-and-dragging. You can even save favorite characters for easy access.

Corel DRAW  -  CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Canada. It is also the name of Corel's Graphics Suite. Its latest version, named X5, was released in February 2010. In 1987, Corel hired software engineers Michel Bouillon and Pat Beirne to develop a vector-based illustration program to bundle with their desktop publishing systems. That program, CorelDRAW, was initially released in 1989. CorelDRAW 3.0 came into its own with Microsoft's release of Windows 3.1. The inclusion of TrueType in Windows 3.1 transformed CorelDRAW into a serious illustration program capable of using system-installed outline fonts without requiring third-party software such as Adobe Type Manager; paired with a photo editing program (Photo Paint), a font manager and several other pieces of software, it was also part of the first all-in-one graphics suite.