Big-time image enhancement - use of desk-top publishing by small businesses

Nation's Business, July, 1992 by Jon Pepper

You've computerized your accounting records, put your budget on a spreadsheet, and delegated routine correspondence with a word processor. What's the next step?

For many firms, the answer is desktop publishing.

A desktop-publishing program also referred to as page-layout software) lets you give a more professional appearance to all of your documents, from memos and price sheets to technical manuals and even annual reports or presentations.

By doing all or most of the design, layout, and printing work in-house, you can slash printing costs, cut turnaround time, and make even the smallest company look more professional.

But the key questions may well be when you should move to desktop publishing and why you should do it--if you do it at all.

Can't high-end word processors deliver the same sort of spiffy-looking documents?

The short answer is no.

"Even the best Windows word processors aren't as easy [to use] when it comes to creating a high-quality document as a desktop-publishing program is," says Dana Peck, who works in the economic-development department at Pacific Power and Light in Portland, Ore.

While there aren't any hard and fast rules about when to move from your word processor to a desktop-publishing program, there are at least some appropriate measures to help judge your situation.

For general correspondence, large-scale text entry, or the myriad specialized features such as tables of authorities or grammar checkers, you are better off with a word processor. But when the output must be of the highest quality or when you want to prepare material for an outside printer, page layout is the clear choice.

Says Brian Farison, a design engineer at Sealed Air Corp., in Danbury, Conn.: "Any time we want a document that looks really nice, we do it in PageMaker," one of the leading desktop-publishing programs.

Even though high-end word processors offer various type styles and can even integrate graphic elements, the best products are crude compared with the type of output and features you can get with page-layout software. This is particularly true when it comes to the overall quality of the typography and the ability to manipulate blocks of text and graphics, or to view multipage documents.

"It becomes unmanageable to view a technical manual on a word processor," says Farison. By using desktop-publishing software, Sealed Air has eliminated outside art help for preparation of documents and has slashed costs at the same time.

"We get better quality, faster turnaround, and tighter editorial control--the difference is really like night and day," says Farison.

But before you plunge into desktop publishing, consider these three points:

First, sophisticated desktop-publishing software demands a lot of horsepower, so you may have to set up a single high-end system for that purpose, with the fastest available processor, a high-quality large monitor, and a great deal of memory and storage. Such a system can easily cost 10,000.

Second, adding a color printer for in-house proofing can push the system cost even higher, although all of these costs could be quickly recouped depending on your printing budget.

Third, although desktop-publishing software has the power to create anything from a price list to an annual report right on your desktop, it won't confer taste or design experience on the user. You will still benefit from having someone who knows design and printing preparation to run the software for all but the most straightforward tasks. And you will be able to run the tasks quickly only when your operator has mastered the equipment and software--and that can take weeks or even months.

Having considered those points, you could conclude that desktop publishing would be beneficial for your business and be a great complement to your word-processing programs.

The following products range from simple to complex, so remember to look for a program suited to your company's in-house publishing needs, budget, and enthusiasm for the project.

Aldus PageMaker (Aldus Corp., 206-622-5500). This is the program that began the desktop-publishing movement on the Apple Macintosh, and it is still a market leader. PageMaker imitates an electronic version of a designer's paste-up board, which is both appealing to designers and easy to grasp for nonartists.

The interface--which is the way the program looks and accepts commands from the user--provides immense design flexibility and offers unfettered access to PageMaker's rich tool set: excellent typographic and drawing tools, first-rate color production, and enough control for the user to be able to create the general appearance being sought.

Although it is still not quite as strong as some other programs for extremely lengthy books or manuals, PageMaker can handle almost any task, and the latest version includes its own word processor, which can eliminate the need to enter text in a separate word processor before designing it in PageMaker.

Ventura Publisher Windows Edition 4.0 (Ventura Software, 1-800-822-8221). This is the latest update of what used to be one of the leaders in the PC page layout market. It has since lost some luster, but version 4.0 has plenty of impressive color support options, excellent controls for specifying page breaks on long documents, and plenty of add-ons for making any color separations and other prepress operations. Graphic elements can be imported into the program in a variety of formats and then altered within the program.