Learning Resources

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Lesson

Desktop Publishing belong to a category of software designed to facilitate the layout and publication of documents.  They evolved from the traditions of the publishing industry and emulate many of the traditional practices while providing much higher levels of precision and the automation of many otherwise slow and complicated processes. 

Word processors are not like Desktop publishing (DTP) tools.  While word processors have adopted a number of 'publishing features' they do not function the same way, and it is not possible to do many of the things that DTP tools let you do.  Companies do try to sell word processors as if they were the same.  Word processors tie the content to the page.  It has to start at the beginning of page one and continue in sequence until the end of the document.  They do provide some functions with columns and tables, but they are very limited.  The same applies to including images in the document.  Font handling and printing are also done differently than in DTP tools.  In recent years, word processors have also adopted style tags, but they work differently as well and with much less flexibility.

A number of programs are available, including

  • Microsoft Publisher (around $200)
  • Adobe PageMaker (around $800)
  • Corel Ventura (around $1200)
  • Quark Express (around $1400)
  • Adobe FrameMaker (around $1500)

As you can see most of them are quite expensive.  Microsoft Publisher is an excellent entry level tool with quite good features and is relatively easy to use for the beginner.  All of these tools have common features, although each is better at certain types of tasks than the others are.

Major Features of Desktop Publishing

Al the examples below are based on Adobe PageMaker.  Other programs will be similar.

  • Desktop or pasteboard.  (View 1, View 2)
    This is an emulation of the manual paste-up board used to hand assemble the parts of a page for making a printing plate for a press.  The program operates in a work area that is much larger than the page.  Objects (text frames, graphics) can be placed on the page or on the desktop, or even partly on the page and partly on the desktop.  Objects on the desktop can be seen regardless of the page you are looking at. A wordprocessor confines things to the page.
  • Pallets and panels (View 1)
    There are a variety of pallets and panels to provide quick access to related formatting and layout tools, including Tools, Colours, and Styles
  • Rulers, guides, and guidelines (View 1)
    • Rulers are shown at the top and left of the desktop.  Rules can have a variety of units including inches, millimetres, pixels, and picas.
    • Guidelines are non-printing lines used on the page to align items on the page.  Guidelines are usually made by clicking on the ruler and dragging onto the page.
    • Guides are column guides.  Guides are non-printing boxes used to align text frames. Guides are usually created automatically when you define the margin sizes, number of columns, and gutter width.  While text frames can be automatically set to follow guides, you can manually move them away from the guides anytime.
  • Grid (View 1, View 2)
    Grids were well defined in previous lessons.  Grids are based on ruler settings.  Since fonts are measured in points and picas, professionals use points and picas as the ruler unit in DTP.  Columns are based on the units used in the ruler.  A standard page is 8.5 by 11 inches.  This translates into 51 by 66 picas. When planning the columns, you need to include the size for inside and outside margins, gutters and columns.
  • Snap
    Snap is a function that automatically aligns objects to ruler increments.  This is especially useful for ensuring visual consistency across pages.  Snap can usually be set to any ruler increment you want.  It applies to guidelines as well as objects.
  • Text Frames (View 1)
    • Frames are the heart of desktop publishing.  All text lives inside frames. 
    • Frames may be independent from one another, or they may be linked together. 
    • Text flow or snaking.  When text frames are linked they are in a sequence so that if there is too much text to fit in one frame, it will flow into the next frame and so on until all the text is used, or all the frames are filled. 
    • Frames may be added and deleted without deleting any of the text (unless you delete all of them). 
    • Frames can be in any location.  They can be moved around and resized anytime
    • Frames are not tied to pages.  For example, text can flow from from a frame on page 1 to another frame on page 1, and into a frame on page 5 and then to another frame on page 2. 
  • Graphics and text wrap (View 1)
    • Graphics (images) are placed on the page as individual objects.  They may be inline with the text (if the text moves they will move as well), or independently (if the text moves, they stay where they were placed).
    • Images may have text wrap properties set.  Text will flow around the image according to the setting.
  • Use of many different files in same document
    • In most cases, the content is created in other software and placed in a desktop publishing publication.  Content can include wordprocessor files, notepad files, scanned images, illustrations, and so on.
    • While DTP software has text and image productions tools, they tend to be very basic and are used for edits and simple tasks.
  • Drawing tools (View 1)
    • Drawing tools are basic but useful.  They include lines, boxes, ellipses, and so on. 
  • Text Formatting Tools (View 1)
    • Tags (or style tags) are named styles for text that includes font, font size, letter spacing, leading, indent/outdent, hyphenation, paragraph spacing and other formatting information.  Tags apply to the entire paragraph.
    • Rules are lines that are used above or below a paragraph.  They are sized in points, and may be set a specific distance above or below the text.  Rules may be embedded in tags.
    • Stylesheets are collections of tags that may be saved independently of the document and imported into other documents.  Stylesheets are usually set up for a type of document and used over and over.
  • Master pages (View 1)
    • Master pages are special pages in DTP programs that are used to create content (running head, foot, page numbers, folios, column guides) that will be repeated in a number of pages.  Rather that manually place the content on every page, it is placed on the master page.
    • Recto and verso pages may be setup differently.
    • Many DTP programs allow multiple master pages.  One or more pages may be based on one set of master pages, while others are based on different master pages
  • Templates (View 1)(View 2 pdf version)
    • Templates are full documents with dummy content.  They include all the master pages, full stylesheet, sample text frames, graphics, running heads, feet, and page numbering.
    • To use a template, substitute your content for the dummy content, rearrange as you need and you are done.
  • Output options
    • DTP programs provide a wide range of output options, including
      • output to professional printing equipment
      • colour separations to make printing plates
      • printing of printer registration marks
    • Printer drivers must be installed for each output device
    • Documents can be delivered to the print company 'camera ready'

Activity

Assigned activities

The purpose of this activity is to develop beginning capability with using layout software to create print publications.

You will need to save the following files to your computer

  • brochure (Corel Draw 8 file)
  • copy to use in the layout (.txt file)(right-click on the link and select Save target as.  Make sure you remember where you put it)
  • images to use in the layout (right-click on the link and select Save target as.  Make sure you remember where you put it)

You will need to print the following pdf file

Complete each of the following

  • Open the text file and each of image files and review the material you have
  • Using the planning grid you printed, plan a layout for the material
  • Using Corel Draw, open brochure.cdr
  • Save your file as u2s4l4activity1.cdr
    • You will see a number of guidelines on each page.  Don't worry, they won't print.  They are locked.  Place your content inside the major blocks of the grid.  The guideline between the three columns is the folding line for the brochure.
  • Import the copy.txt file and place it using a text block on the desktop (area outside the pages)
  • Import each image and place on the desktop
  • Arrange and format the copy according to your design from the second step
    • you may need to stretch the images smaller to fit
    • you will need to cut pieces of the text and paste them into text blocks on different parts of the pages
    • You will need to format the text with appropriate fonts and sizes for headings and for body text. 
    • you may wish to have pull quotes from the content
    • you will need to create an opening page and a back page.  You can use your imagination and create titles, credits (use your name, make up fictitious company names.  Have fun with it)
  • Save the file frequently.
  • When you are done, scan your mock-up
  • Make a new entry in your course portfolio and import the scans of the mock-up and the u2s4l4activity1.cdr file.  Make appropriate comments and links
  • Publish your entries to your course portfolio web.

How-to's

For help performing these tasks, check these tutorials

  • CorelDraw Total Text Control: Part1 Step through the pages
    • Text Tool Overview
    • Create Artistic Text
    • Create Paragraph Text
    • Change Font
    • Set Default Font and Size
    • Align Artistic Text
    • Align Paragraph Text
  • CorelDraw Total Text Control: Part2 Step through the pages
    • Set Line Spacing
    • Set Character Spacing
    • Edit Individual Characters
    • Create Columns
    • Link Text Areas
    • Check Spelling
    • Customizing Type Assist
  • Additional Tutorials in this series

Test Yourself

There is no self test for this lesson.