DTP Today: 1995
by Alan Zisman
(c) 1995. First
published in Our Computer Player, April 1995
The word 'revolution' gets over used... for everything
from a new minivan
to a new skirt length. Like other areas of commercial life prone to
media
hype, the computer industry has not been immune to this tendancy
towards
over-exaggeration.
Nevertheless, DTP, short for desktop publishing, has
been one of a few
areas by which personal computers have revolutionized the world of work
and play.
Prior to the coming together of the Macintosh, a laser
printer, and
dtp software in the mid-80s, graphics and design were relegated to
high-priced
professionals using higher-priced equipment. And personal computing in
a business environment meant text mode word processing and
spreadsheets.
Aldus Pagemaker version 1 changed all that for ever...
(I was going
to say 'for good', but the graphics professionals might disagree that
anything
that has resulted in so many documents using so many fonts can be
called
'good').
Suddenly, documents could be produced in-house with
camera-ready layout...
ready for printing. Or if a lower resolution was okay, simply laser
print
the original, and send it for photocopying.
And as laser and inkjet printers came home, so did
page design. School
and church bulletins took a big leap past the PrintShop/dot matrix era
of the early 80s (if I see one more blocky teddy bear, I'll scream!)
Like other great democratizing movements, not
everything, or even most
pages produced could make claims to great design-- but slowly, there;s
been an improvement, as amateurs discovered the value of white space,
and
keeping the number of fonts per page under control.
THAT WAS THEN...
Today, the DTP revolution has slowed down, moving to a
more mature phase.
Like many MAC-based areas of computing, there has been a movement to
Windows--
in fact, Aldus PageMaker migrated to the Windows environment as early
as
1987, making it one of the first power applications on that platform.
Today, the classic heavy-weight Mac applications all
have nearly-identical
clones that run on Windows PCs... Pagemaker and Quark XPress for page
design,
PhotoShop, Illustrator, and the like for graphics and photo
manipulation.
Much of the exciting stuff has moved from the strictly page design
programs
(like Pagemaker or XPress) to the illustration programs (like Adobe
Illustrator)
and on to photo manipulation (with Adobe PhotoShop supporting a whole
sub-industry
of add-ins and hardware enhancements).
In the sub-universe of PhotoShop professionals, the
Mac continues to
be the platform of choice. Some of this is conservatism-- yes,
yesterday's
revolutionary is today's standard-bearer. But there are still good
reasons
for the Mac-centrism. While the main applications are available for
Windows,
the wide range of add-ons available on the Mac have been much slower to
migrate. And Mac hardware and software remains better integrated-- a
vital
necessity for users who need to hop between programs.
As well, if you need to send your work to a
professional service bureau,
for high-resolution output (2400 dpi linotype, for example), you'll
find
PC files treated as second-class citizens at best. Service bureaus
still
are not used to working with such files, and many, if they work with
PCs
at all, will have a lone machine abandoned in the cornmer, surrounded
by
a host of Macs.
With the price of a fully equipped Pentium still a
couple of thousand
dollars less than a comparably equipped PowerMac, there are pressures
towards
change, but DTP remains a Mac strength.
In professional circles, a growing focus has been
towards colour output.
Here standards are still emerging (watch for WIN95 to include Kodak
colour-matching
built-in, for example). Professional-level software has begun to
include
the capability to properly trap output for colour separations, while
the
slow drop in colour laser prices, and fast improvement of low-end
colour
inkjets have made colour output more possible for more users.
Another area of change has been the strengthening of
low-end options
for home and small business-- users who have no pretense of being
professionals,
but need to create attractive documents from time to time. While the
high-end
has remained dominated by Mac users, the large installed base of
Windows
machines has attracted vastly improved low-end software.
Two products of note include Microsoft's Publisher
(now in version 2.0),
and PagePlus, from Serif.
Publisher was the pioneer in Microsoft's Wizard
concept-- helpful super-macros
that walked a user through the entire design process, resulting in a
usable
document (or in Publisher's case, paper-airplane or origami swan). The
resulting documents are surprisingly usable, considering their
automated
ancestry.
PagePlus lacks Publisher's Wizards (or its annoying
moving van cursors,
for that matter). What it succeeds at is bringing most of the features
of high end programs (incuding colour support, for example) to home
users
in a relatively simple-to-learn package, for a deciding low-end cost
($99
US). If you're interested, there's a free limited working version of
PagePlus
(maximum four page documents) available for a phone call plus about $10
shipping (call 603-889-8650 for more information).
Combining one of these programs with a low-cost laser
or colour inkjet,
and many users will find that they can produce everything they need,
right
on the desktop. And using PagePlus's higher end features, gives them
lots
of room to grow, with the possibility of producing almost
professional-quality
output.
DTP may no longer be revolutionary-- the next fad may
be electronic
hypertext publishing (including Internet Web pages). But whether
producing
a leaflet or two with Publisher, or taking the plunge into the depths
of
PhotoShop, it remains an area where individuals can build some basic
standards
of good taste into a career, and do it on their desktop.