Desktop publishing

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Scribus, an open source desktop publishing application

Desktop publishing (abbreviated DTP) is the creation of documents using page

layout skills on a personal computer. Desktop publishing software can generate layouts
and produce typographic quality text and images comparable to
traditional typography and printing. This technology allows individuals, businesses, and
other organizations to self-publish a wide range of printed matter. Desktop publishing is
also the main reference for digital typography. When used skillfully, desktop publishing
allows the user to produce a wide variety of materials, frommenus to magazines and
books, without the expense of commercial printing.
Desktop publishing combines a personal computer and WYSIWYGpage
layout software to create publication documents on a computer for either large scale
publishing or small scale local multifunction peripheral output and distribution. Desktop
publishing methods provide more control over design, layout, and typography than word
processing. However, word processing software has evolved to include some, though
by no means all, capabilities previously available only with professional printing or
desktop publishing.
The same DTP skills and software used for common paper and book publishing are
sometimes used to create graphics forpoint of sale displays, promotional items, trade
show exhibits, retail package designs and outdoor signs. Although what is classified as
"DTP software" is usually limited to print and PDF publications, DTP skills aren't limited
to print. The content produced by desktop publishers may also be exported and used
for electronic media. The job descriptions that include "DTP", such as DTP artist, often
require skills using software for producing e-books, web content, and web pages, which
may involve web design or user interface design for any graphical user interface.
Contents
[hide]

1History

2Terminology

3Comparisons

3.1With word processing

3.2With other electronic layout software

4DTP applications
o

4.1Web-based application

5File formats

6See also

7References

8Further reading

9External links

History[edit]
Desktop publishing began in 1983 with a program developed by James Davise at a
community newspaper in Philadelphia.[1]The program Type Processor One ran on
a PC using a graphics card for a WYSIWYG display and was offered commercially by
Best info in 1984.[2] (Desktop typesetting with only limited page makeup facilities had
arrived in 19789 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. Later on, Adobe PageMaker overtook Microsoft Word in professional DTP in
1985. The term "desktop publishing" is attributed to Aldus Corporation founder Paul
Brainerd,[3] 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.
Before the advent of desktop publishing, the only option available to most people for
producing typed documents (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 entitled The Mac is not a typewriter.
[4]
The ability was revolutionary to create WYSIWYG page layouts on screen and
then print pages containing text and graphical elements at crisp 300 dpi resolution 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 such as Atex and other programs in the early 1980s. By the standards of the
2010s, early 1980s desktop publishing was a primitive affair. Users of the PageMakerLaserWriter-Macintosh 512K system endured frequent software crashes, [5] cramped
display on the Mac's tiny 512 x 342 1-bit monochrome screen, the inability to
control letter-spacing, kerning,[6] 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
fromLinotronic. Later, the Macintosh II was released which was much more suitable for
desktop publishing because of its greater expandability, support for large color multimonitor displays, and its SCSI storage interface which allowed fast high-capacity hard
drives to be attached to the system. Macintosh-based systems continued to dominate
the market into 1986, when theGEM-based Ventura Publisher was introduced for MSDOS computers. PageMaker's pasteboard metaphor closely simulated the process of
creating layouts manually, but Ventura Publisher automated the layout process through
its use of tags andstyle 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 PageStream) for the Atari ST, GST's Timeworks
Publisher on the PC and Atari ST, and Calamus for the Atari TT030. Software was
published even for 8-bit computers like the Apple II and Commodore 64: Home
Publisher, The Newsroom, andgeoPublish. During its early years, desktop publishing
acquired a bad reputation as a result of untrained users who created poorly organized,
unprofessional-looking "ransom note effect" layouts; similar criticism was leveled again
against early World Wide Web publishers a decade later. However, some desktop
publishers who mastered the programs were able to realize truly professional results.
Desktop publishing skills were considered of primary importance in career advancement
in the 1980s, but increased accessibility to more user-friendly DTP software has made
DTP a secondary skill to art direction,graphic
design, multimedia development, marketing communications, and administrative
careers. 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. 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.

Terminology[edit]
There are two types of pages in desktop publishing, electronic pages and virtual paper
pages to be printed on physical paper pages. All computerized documents are

technically electronic, which are limited in size only by computer memory orcomputer
data storage space. Virtual paper pages will ultimately be printed, and therefore require
paper parameters that coincide with international standard physical paper sizes such as
"A4," "letter," etc., if not custom sizes for trimming. Some desktop publishing programs
allow custom sizes designated for large format printing used
in posters, billboards and trade show displays. A virtual page for printing has a
predesignated size of virtual printing material and can be viewed on a monitor
in WYSIWYG format. Each page for printing has trim sizes (edge of paper) and a
printable area if bleed printing is not possible as is the case with most desktop printers.
A web page is an example of an electronic page that is not constrained by virtual paper
parameters. Most electronic pages may be dynamically re-sized, causing either
the content to scale in size with the page or causing the content to re-flow.
Master pages are templates used to automatically copy or link elements and graphic
design styles to some or all the pages of a multipage document. Linked elements can
be modified without having to change each instance of an element on pages that use
the same element. Master pages can also be used to apply graphic design styles to
automatic page numbering.Cascading Style Sheets can provide the same global
formatting functions for web pages that master pages provide for virtual paper
pages. Page layout is the process by which the elements are laid on the page orderly,
aesthetically, and precisely. Main types of components to be laid out on a page
include text, linked images that can only be modified as an external source, and
embedded images that may be modified with the layout application software. Some
embedded images are rendered in the application software, while others can be placed
from an external source image file. Text may be keyedinto the layout, placed, or
(with database publishing applications) linked to an external source of text which allows
multiple editors to develop a document at the same time. Graphic design styles such as
color, transparency, and filters, may also be applied to layout
elements. Typography styles may be applied to text automatically with style sheets.
Some layout programs include style sheets for images in addition to text. Graphic styles
for images may be border shapes, colors, transparency, filters, and a parameter
designating the way text flows around the object called "wraparound" or "runaround."

Comparisons[edit]
With word processing[edit]
While desktop publishing software still provides extensive features necessary for print
publishing, modern word processors now have publishing capabilities beyond those of
many older DTP applications, blurring the line between word processingand desktop
publishing. In the early days of graphical user interfaces in the early 1980s, DTP
software was in a class of its own when compared to the fairly spartan word processing
applications of the time. Programs such as WordPerfect andWordStar were still mainly
text-based and offered little in the way of page layout, other than perhaps margins and
line spacing. On the other hand, word processing software was necessary for features
like indexing and spell checking, features that are common in many applications today.
As computers and operating systems have become more powerful, versatile and user-

friendly in the 2010s, vendors have sought to provide users with a single application
platform that can meet almost all their publication needs.

With other electronic layout software[edit]

In 2010-era usage, DTP does not usually include digital tools such as TeX or troff,
though both can easily be used on a modern desktop system and are standard with
many Unix-like operating systems and readily available for other systems. The key
difference between electronic typesetting software and DTP software is that DTP
software is generally interactive and "What you see [onscreen] is what you get"
(WYSIWYG) in design, while other electronic typesetting software, such
asTeX, LaTeX and other variants, tend to operate in "batch mode", requiring the user to
enter the processing program'smarkup language (e.g., Hyper Text Markup Language or
"HTML") without immediate visualization of the finished product. This kind of "workflow"
is less user-friendly than WYSIWYG, but more suitable for conference proceedings and
scholarly articles as well as corporate newsletters or other applications where
consistent, automated layout is important. In the 2010s, [when?] interactive front-end
components of TeX, such as TeXworks or LyX have produced "what you see is what
you mean" (WYSIWYM) hybrids of DTP and batch processing. These hybrids are
focussed more on semantics than traditional DTP. There is some overlap between
desktop publishing and what is known as Hypermedia publishing (i.e. Web design,
Kiosk, CD-ROM). Many graphical HTML editors such as Microsoft
FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver use a layout engine similar to a DTP program.
However, some Web designers still prefer to write HTML without the assistance of a
WYSIWYG editor, for greater control and ability to "fine-tune" the appearance and
functionality. Another reason that some Web designers write in HTML is that WYSIWYG
editors often result in excessive lines of code, leading to "code bloat" that can make the
pages hard to troubleshoot.

DTP applications[edit]
For a more comprehensive list, see List of desktop publishing software.

Adobe FrameMaker

Adobe HomePublisher

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe InDesign

Adobe Muse

Adobe PageMaker

Adobe Photoshop

Aldus Personal Press

Apple Pages 4.x

Banner Mania

Corel Ventura

Coreldraw

iStudio Publisher

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Publisher

OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice

PageStream (used to be "Publishing Partner")

Printworks (Mac App Store)

PTC Arbortext

QuarkXPress

Ready,Set,Go

Scribus

Serif PagePlus

Xara Page & Layout Designer

Swift Publisher (Mac App Store)

Web-based application[edit]

365Layouts.com

Fatpaint

Lucidpress

File formats[edit]
The design industry standard is Encapsulated Postscript. Adobe InDesign proprietary
format is also common among graphic design professionals. Microsoft Publisher format
is common for home users. Open formats include OpenDocument Graphics used as
default in OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice.

See also[edit]

Comparison of desktop publishing software

List of desktop publishing software

Document processor

Camera-ready

Desktop video

E-book

Electronic publishing

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ "What You See Is Pretty Close to What You Get:
New h&j, pagination program for IBM PC," Seybold Report on
Publishing Systems, 13(10), February 13, 1984, pp. 21-2.
2. Jump up^ "Type-X '85: Fulfilling the Promise of the PC,"
Seybold Report on Publishing Systems, 15(2) pp. 4-5.
3. Jump up^ Stiff, Paul (13 September 2006). "The Stafford
papers". The optimism of modernity: recovering modern
reasoning in typography. Retrieved 27 December 2009.
4. Jump up^ Robin Williams, The Mac is not a typewriter: A style
manual for creating professional-level type on your
Macintosh (Berkeley: Peachpit Press, 1990), 11.
5. Jump up^ Thompson, Keith (8 June 1987). "MacIntosh Layout
Package Remarkably Fast, Powerful". InfoWorld. 9 (23): 51.
Retrieved2011-04-15.
6. Jump up^ the addition or removal of space between individual
characters in a piece of typeset text to improve its appearance
or alter its fit

Further reading[edit]
An early (and comprehensive) reference book on the art of desktop publishing
is Desktop Publishing For Everyone by K.S.V. Menon. This publication deals with
virtually every facet of publishing and nearly all tools available at the time (2000). It is
currently out of print.

External links[edit]
Library resources about
Desktop publishing

Re
sources in your library

Re
sources in other libraries

Desktop Publishing Tips and Tutorials

[hide]

v
t
e

Desktop publishing software

Scribus
Free software

LyX
Apache OpenOffice Draw
PagePlus SE

Software freeware

Proprietary software

PDF-XChange
Fatpaint (Cloud-based)
Acrobat
FrameMaker
InDesign

PageMaker
Calamus
Corel Ventura
Microsoft Publisher
PagePlus
Pages
PageStream
QuarkXPress
Timeworks Publisher
Web design
Mobile publishing
Electronic publishing

See also

Printing
List of PDF software
Comparison of e-book readers

Category

Comparison

List

GND: 4139389-2

Authority control

NDL: 01188189

Categories:

Publishing
Graphic design
Communication design
Desktop publishing software
Typesetting
News design

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This page was last modified on 26 August 2016, at 18:22.

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