Do-it-yourself publishing - desktop publishing software - includes related article

Black Enterprise, August, 1993 by John Raymond

These days, everyone is trying to save a buck. A few years ago, one budget buster was the unavoidable cost of publishing - in-house newsletters, sales brochures or annual reports. Companies used to spend exorbitant amounts annually to print business materials. But not anymore. Desktop publishing is taking business to a new level - and leaving some money in the till besides.

Desktop publishing software first became popular in 1986 as an application for the revolutionary Apple Macintosh. Now corporate heads are turning to the flexibility, speed and quality output of PCs loaded with software.

Then and now, leading the pack of designer layout programs are Aldus Pagemaker by Los Angeles-based Aldus Corp. and QuarkXPress by Denver-based Quark Corp. Yet it was the overwhelming success of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp.'s Windows application that prompted vendors to bring out Windows-based desktop publishers for IBM compatibles.

It's no surprise that Quark and Aldus have developed enhanced Windows versions of their popular desktop programs. in response to the growing demand for Windows color capability, (QuarkXPress for Windows offers 20 new features. Not to be outdone, Pagemaker for Windows has added enhancements for generating process color separations.

Currently,there are about a dozen desktop software programs trying to tap into the "do-it-yourself" market. These programs are targeted at educators, students and professionals who want to produce materials as expertly as a full-fledged print house.

The Right Choice

You should assess two factors when considering what software is right for you: How sophisticated is what you want to publish? And how many hours are you willing to spend doing it yourself? Top-of-the-line programs, such as QuarkXPress and Aldus PageMaker are costly, retailing around $900. And they are marketed as designer tools for graphic artists who work with page layouts day in and day out. Still, more and more corporate workgroups are using high-end desktop programs to produce company publications, policy manuals, technical user guides and marketing materials.

A favored program for layout-intensive publishing, PageMaker 5.0, lists for $895. Chief among its enhancements, its control palette allows you to fine-tune the appearance of text and graphic elements - you can manipulate words and pictures within increments of 1/100th of a degree.

PageMaker lets you scan color and black-and-white images directly into the program. Using Aldus Photostyler and the new Eastman Kodak Photo CD format, you can also import compact disks images into PageMaker. Other new and improved features include faster printing speeds and the ability to print nonconsecutive pages. The latter is available from Quark, but only as an optional extension package.

On PageMaker 5.0, you may open many documents at once, and move any element from one into another. You can work on a multiple number of documents at one time, depending on system resources (whereas QuarkXPress has a seven document limit).

If you're among the millions of computer users hooked on Windows, you'll thank PageMaker for letting you share files between any Windows applications. And both PageMaker and (QuarkXPress support OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), another piece of software that imports text and graphics.

PageMaker also allows for opening a file on one platform that was created on a different platform. This is a definite plus for professionals working in both Macintosh and IBM-compatible computer environments.

Presently, QuarkXPress 3.1 (also $895) doesn't support such file translation, so you won't be able to bring up a Windows file in a Macintosh program yet. Later this year, however, a new Macintosh version of QuarkXPress will.

Other functions common to PageMaker and other high-end programs include built-in color separation and automatic kerning (for adjusting the spacing between letters). Also, most high-end programs enable you to create documents as extensive as college textbooks.

The leading software programs for generating such lengthy documents are FrameMaker from Frame Technology Corp., San Jose, Calif., and Ventura Publisher 4.1 from Ventura Software Inc., San Diego. At $795 each,they are available in Macintosh 3.0 and Windows versions.

Both let you produce more than one version of the same document. What's so special about that? Such a feature comes in handy when creating a corporate handbook, for example: one version for managers, another for support staff. On FrameMaker you can design electronic publications, then view them on-line as well.

When it comes to image manipulation, Ventura Picturepro 1.1 for Windows is every graphic artist's dream. This program offers such features as an image editor, color corrector, photo and illustrator retoucher and image restyler. At $795, it also has advanced drawing, painting and scanning features.

Not-so Rich Packages

As appealing as the high-end packages might be,the low-end, low-priced desktop publishing software programs are ideal for home-based businesses. And the market is loaded with them. These programs are great for producing small scale documents such as organizational newsletters, fliers, business forms, stationery, resumes, invitations and much more.