Desktop publishing is the use of the computer and software to create visual displays of ideas and information. Desktop publishing documents may be for desktop or commercial printing or electronic distribution, including PDF, slideshows, email newsletters, electronic books, and the Web.
Desktop publishing is a term coined after the development of a specific type of software. It's about using that software to combine and rearrange text and images and creating digital files for print, online viewing, or websites. Before the invention of desktop publishing software, the tasks involved in desktop publishing were done manually by people who specialized in graphic design, typesetting, and prepress tasks.
Things You Can Do With Desktop Publishing
Desktop publishing is expensive you think? Read this 2015 review about the best free desktop publishing software. Find out what our top pick is. You will also find many more freeware reviews in countless categories at Gizmo's. QuarkXpress is a desktop publishing software for Windows and Mac OS created in 1987 by Quark Inc., with QuarkXpress 2016 being the current version. The main features of QuarkXpress are optimal performance, the high degree of control over an element’s position on a page (0.001 mm precision), and a software that is greatly expandable with binary code modules developed by Quark or by a third party.
If you purchase iStudio Publisher from our web store you will receive a License Activation Code to use with this same download. There are video tutorials showing the download and install process. Earlier Versions. For Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, download iStudio Publisher 1.2.1. For Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard, download iStudio Publisher 1.1.10.
With desktop publishing software and hardware you can:
- Design print communications such as brochures, fliers, ads, and posters.
- Design print communications such as catalogs, directories, and annual reports.
- Design logos, business cards, and letterhead.
- Design and publish newsletters, magazines, and newspapers.
- Design books and booklets.
- Convert print communications to formats for the web and smart devices such as tablets and phones.
- Create resumes and business forms including invoices, inventory sheets, memos, and labels.
- Self-publish books, newsletters, and e-books.
- Design and publish blogs and websites.
- Design slides shows, presentations, and handouts.
- Create and print greeting cards, banners, postcards, candy wrappers, and iron-on transfers.
- Make digital scrapbooks and print or digital photo albums.
- Create decorative labels, envelopes, trading cards, calendars, and charts.
- Design packaging for retail merchandise from wrappers for bars of soap to software boxes.
- Design store signs, highway signs, and billboards.
- Take work designed by others and putting it into the correct format for digital or offset printing or for publishing online.
- Create more attractive, readable reports, posters, and print or on-screen presentations for school or business.
How Desktop Publishing Has Changed
In the '80s and '90s, desktop publishing was for print almost exclusively. Today, desktop publishing includes much more than just print publications. It's publishing as PDF or an e-book. It's publishing to blogs and designing websites. It's designing content for multiple platforms, including smartphones and tablets.
Desktop publishing is the technical assembly of digital files in the proper format for printing or for electronic distribution. In practical use, much of the graphic design process is also accomplished using desktop publishing, graphics software, and web design software and is sometimes included in the definition of desktop publishing.
Comparison of desktop publishing, graphic design, and web design:
- Desktop publishing is the process of using the computer and specific types of software to combine text and graphics to produce documents such as newsletters, brochures, books, and web pages.
- Graphic design uses text and graphics to communicate an effective message in the design of logos, graphics, brochures, newsletters, posters, signs, and other types of visual communication.
- Web design is a spin-off of graphic design and desktop publishing that focuses exclusively on visual communications for display on websites and mobile devices – to include text, graphics, sound, animation, and video.
Someone who does print design may or may not also do web design. Some web designers have never done any type of print design.
The Present and Future of Desktop Publishing
At one time, only professional graphic designers used desktop publishing software. Then along came consumer-level desktop publishing software and an explosion of people who did desktop publishing for fun and profit, with or without a background in traditional design. Today, desktop publishing is still a career choice for some, but it is also increasingly a required skill for a wide range of jobs and careers.
You’re an author, and you want to self-publish. After all, the juice seems to be flowing toward self-publishers, more authors are rethinking their approach to publishing, and new opportunities seem to be opening up to self-publishers every day.
The indie spirit in self-publishing leads lots of authors to want to take ownership of the entire process of book making, not just the writing. For most people trying to create a truly professional-looking book, the best solution will be to simply hire a professional.
But there’s no reason you can’t produce a reasonable-looking book if you’re willing to put in the time and educate yourself about books, and about the software you’ll use to create your book.
Desktop Publishing Technical Manual Mac Pro
Here’s a guide to help you get oriented to this task if you decide to do it yourself.
Guide to Book Design & Page Layout Software
There are three levels of software generally available to you if you decide to go the do-it-yourself (DIY) route:
- Word processors—Microsoft Word has long had a chokehold on the word processing market due to its complete domination of the corporate environment. And don’t forget all those PCs that came with MS Office pre-installed on them.
Most people use Word, and we also have the useful open source Open Office that reads and writes Word files, too. Other choices in this range include Apple’s Pages; Storyist and Scrivener, word processors that are also story development tools; Word Perfect, the old PC warhorse still in production, and a host of others. These are the programs writers are most familiar with, and in which you’ve probably spent the last couple of years writing your book. - Layout programs—Since the advent of “desktop publishing” programs have been available that perform the functions usually taken care of by a layout artist.
Now we have programs like Adobe InDesign and Quark Xpress to perform these functions. They allow you to bring together all the parts of a publication and manipulate them, then output the resulting job to a variety of devices for reproduction. - Hybrids—There is also a midrange type of software that attempts to combine the word processing functions with layout functions. For instance, Microsoft Publisher is popular for flyers, business brochures and similar projects, and there are a lot of templates available to make creating jobs easier.
Likewise, Apple’s Pages is really a hybrid and can be used either as a word processor or as a layout engine, depending on the type of document you create. This category is showing the most growth in recent months, with more programs coming onto the market that attempt to be “all things to all people.”Now Pages offers EPUB output, as does Storyist. Any program that provides a clean word processing environment as well as the ability to combine text, graphics and output to reproduction devices might fall into this category.
Which Option is Right For You?
It’s pretty seductive to use your word processor for putting your book together. After all, you’re already familiar with the program and that should save you a ton of time. But a word processor is a poor choice for some kinds of books:
- Illustrated books—It can be very frustrating to try to position graphics with any precision in a word processor. These programs usually lack sophisticated color-handling also, limiting their use for illustrated books.
- Heavily formatted books—The more formatting involved, like sidebars, pull quotes, tables, charts, illustrations and anchored graphics, the less appropriate a word processor is as a layout solution.
- Typographically sophisticated books—Word processors do not have the very fine typographic controls you find in sophisticated layout programs. And hyphenation and justification of text simply will not look as polished as it would in dedicated software.
Pros and Cons for Each Type of Software
No matter what you choose to use as a vehicle to publish your book, there are tradeoffs. They are not always apparent, and might not affect you from day one of your project, but before you lock yourself into one solution or another, consider these:
- Word processors, Pro and Con
- Pro: You already know how to use it
- Pro: The least expensive of the three alternatives, particularly if you already own it.
- Pro: The shortest learning curve of the three types of programs
- Con: You may not know how to use the functions you’ll need to do your book.
- Con: Get ready to be frustrated if you’re trying to do exact placement of images on your pages
- Con: Your options to output your pages may be severely limited, and you’ll have no support for color corrections, color calibration or many other advanced functions needed for some kinds of books.
- Hybrids, Pro and Con
- Pro: Less expensive than dedicated layout programs.
- Pro: Easier to learn than dedicated layout programs.
- Pro: Pre-built templates are available to get you started.
- Con: Compromised functions of both word processors and layout programs may fail to satisfy or give the range of options of either type of program separately.
- Con: Idiosyncratic. These programs may use “dumbed down” functions and language to describe the processes in an attempt to appeal to the widest variety of users.
- Con: You may be frustrated by the availability of some, but not all, the functions of a higher-level layout program.
- Layout programs, Pro and Con
- Pro: You get complete control of your pages, with precise placement of all elements.
- Pro: Robust support for output to all kinds of reproduction devices from low-end to high-end reproduction
- Pro: Huge market of add-on and supplemental programs that supply even more functionality to these programs, and integrate with image editing functions as well.
- Con: These babies are expensive to buy, and if you will only do one book, it may be hard to justify the expense.
- Con: If you haven’t used this type of software before, get ready for some intensive training. And you can start by trying to figure out what a “pica” is.
- Con: The variety and precision of commands and functions can be overwhelming for new users.
Recommendations
What kind of software you end up using to do your book will rely on lots of factors. But generally speaking, I would recommend:
- Word processors if you’re on a budget, if your book is basically running text without much formatting, or if you only want to print up a few books for private use. You can dedicate yourself to learning how to manipulate these programs into producing a decent-looking book, but it may not be the best use of your time. Microsoft Word remains my choice here.
- Hybrid programs if you’re willing to pay a few dollars for software that will give you a lot more flexibility with page layout, effects, placement of non-text elements. And if you are only a casual user, these programs will be easier to learn. I’m impressed with Apple’s Pages for layout and output to EPUB.
- Page layout programs if you foresee doing more than one book a year, you like the idea of learning printing terms and procedures, or if you want to have complete control of an illustrated or heavily-formatted book. Keep in mind that the first books you produce will still look like first efforts. Plan to devote time to learning the software with some kind of training before diving into your project. Standards here include Adobe InDesign and Quark Xpress.
Mac Desktop Publishing Apps
And if you do decide to design and produce your own book, check out the Understanding Fonts & Typography page on this blog. It will give you a leg up in getting your book to press.