What is desktop publishing

Computers are used to design various layouts for print or online publications. Things like font, spacing, text, background colour, and illustration size have to be considered in order to make each page look as good as possible. Desktop publishers are often responsible for correcting spelling errors and punctuation, and occasionally write their own original content.

After they are satisfied with the finished project, they will send it to the official publisher for review. Final layouts can be seen in magazines, books, brochures, webpages, and newspapers. So, which should you use? There is no consensus on this point. Most design decisions are subjective. There are only guidelines, not hard and fast rules.

However, if you decide to justify the text, set minimum and maximum spacing between words to help prevent "rivers of white space" from cropping up between words. They claim that even word spacing makes it easier for readers to recognize word groups.

Parker claims that many newspapers and magazines use justified type to increase word density and save money. He prefers ragged-right text because the open space at the end of each line lightens the appearance of a publication. Following the flow of a document can be difficult when the columns are either too wide or narrow.

However, you can't determine column width without considering type size and leading. With narrow columns, for instance, the eye scans down the page very efficiently, unless the type size is too large. A point type in a narrow column will result in fewer words per line. On average, try to fit at least five to fifteen words per line. Create a few templates, compare them side by side, and then ask yourself these questions:.

Orphan is a term used to describe a single word appearing at the bottom of a paragraph or column. A widow is a single word or short phrase appearing alone at the top of column. They add "rivers" of white space and interfere with eye movement from one line of text to the next.

You should also avoid putting less than three lines of a new paragraph at the bottom of a column. Fewer than three lines will make it harder for the reader to keep information organized. The example below demonstrates all three points. White space can be under-used, overused, or just carelessly used.

Good control of white space can improve reader comprehension. For instance, too much space between a column of text and a new subhead can interrupt the eye movement of your readers. Generally speaking, it's easier for people to read quickly if the spacing between words and lines isn't too lose.

Also, pay close attention to the space between paragraphs. If you indent the first line of text, then don't insert extra spaces between paragraphs. Do one or the other.

Magazines generally indent and minimize space between paragraphs. Some newsletter designers use block paragraphs and add space between them. A halftone is a reproduction of a photograph on paper. That's the definition, but if you want learn more about the technology behind halftones, read the next two paragraphs.

To learn more about creating halftones with your scanner, go to the next page. To reproduce the gray tones of a black-and-white photograph, printing services convert the photo into a series of black dots so small that the human eye blurs them together with the surrounding white paper.

The lighter areas of the photo are created by small dots and the darker areas by large dots. You're more limited when you try to reproduce a photo using your personal computer. Since your output device can only make dots of one size, it has to group the dots together into halftone cells. Then it reproduces the lighter tones by turning some of the dots off in each cell, while turning more of them on to create the darker tones.

Okay, you've taken the photographs, now what? You have a few options. Use a scanner to create digital images of the photographs. Have a printing service create halftones with traditional methods. Do both. If you have an 8-bit scanner, creating digital files is fairly simple, and you can use the images during the layout. However, if you use your scanned images as the final for printing, you also have the burden of making them look good. The typical printing service won't take responsibility for photos unless it creates the halftones.

Most services charge somewhere between seven and fifteen dollars to shoot each halftone, but the responsibility is all theirs. On the other hand, if you have image editing software, such as Adobe's Photoshop, with practice, you can create fine camera-ready images and save money.

The Freestone had around 30 photographs, and we saved a considerable sum of money by scanning and editing the images ourselves. We're not going to teach how to scan photos here, and chances are you've already done it.

But we will discuss getting your scanned images ready for your printing service. Photos and screens are all halftones. Remember those boxes we talked about earlier. Why is this important? Well, there are coarse screens and fine screens, which are all measured by the number of dots per line. For instance, coarse halftones may have less than 60 rows of dots per inch. The more rows of dots per inch, the finer the appearance.

This is referred as the line screen and is measured as lines per inch lpi. Finer line screens, around lpi, have more cells per inch. The lower the lpi, the more visible the rows of dots, especially when printed at a low resolution, such as dpi. Images with a high lpi, look better when they're reproduced by output devices with a high dpi.

So higher is better, right? Not necessarily, and this is where good communication with your printing service is important. The line screen you choose should be based on a combination of factors: the quality of the inks, paper, and printing device being used.

If you set the lpi too high, your printing service may have trouble reproducing the images on the paper stock you've chosen, so ask them for a recommendation. Specify the line screen through your image editing software, or in PageMaker, open the Elements pull-down menu and select Image Control.

When it comes to scanned images, a higher resolution isn't always better. Image resolution is measured as pixels per inch ppi , and images scanned at a higher resolution store more information in the digital file. You should relate ppi to lpi. Set the ppi at roughly 2 times the line screen lpi. If your printer suggests that you use an lpi of somewhere between 70 and , you'll probably want to scan your photos with a ppi of between and If you hire a service bureau to produce your camera-ready copy, you can scan images using the higher ppi.

In any case, it's a good idea to discuss both scan resolution ppi as well as line screen lpi with your printing service ahead of time. The Freestone is a high-end newsletter because it's printed on magazine quality paper with a slightly glossy finish, and the final product is printed by a professional printing service.

This also makes it more expensive to produce. So if you're on the Freestone staff this semester, you now know that you won't be printing 3, copies of this year's edition on a laser printer. However, if you have to produce your newsletter on a tight budget, using a high-end laser printer might be an acceptable option. Unfortunately, you won't get the same quality from a laser printer as you will from a commercial printing or quick printing service.

If you've already decided to use a printing service, then the next decision you have to make is whether to give them a final proof from your laser printer, or hire a service bureau to make a camera-ready copy on an imagesetter. If you really want high-quality results, go to a service bureau.

Service bureaus take electronic copies of your publication and create camera-ready output to either paper or film for your commercial printer. They are a middle-man in the process. Commercial print shops make printing plates directly from the film negatives. Imagesetters can print to paper or film at resolutions up to dpi.

This is very high considering that most laser printers only have a dpi of Your print shop should be able to direct you to a local service bureau. Remember, you don't have to use a service bureau. Printing services can shoot film negatives from a laser printout.

However, the quality of the finished product will be higher if you take advantage of the high-resolution output of the imagesetter. One word of caution: if you hire a service bureau, proof read a draft of what they plan to shoot on film. It's much more expensive to have them to redo the negatives later. Often printers begin with an 11 x17 inch piece of paper and print one page per quadrant, but this can vary from press to press.

Each quadrant is 8. The first 11x17 inch piece will have pages 1 and 24 facing each other on one side, and pages 2 and 23 on the other. The second 11x17 inch piece will have pages 3 and 22 facing each other on one side, and 4 and 21 on the other. Each printer spread is then folded into a booklet form known as a reader's spread, where the pages face each other in sequential order.

Why do you need to know this? Your printer may ask you if you'll be providing your file as a printer spread or reader spread. Sometimes they charge you a stripping fee to turn the pages into printer spreads. Next, after everything is printed, the papers are bound together with saddle-stitching or a side-stitching.

Smaller publications are usually saddle-stitched, meaning that the staples are driven through the spine of the booklet. Nonetheless, your printer may ask you what type of binding or stitching you prefer. Your other major decision is what type of paper to use, coated or uncoated.

Coated papers produce better clarity, especially for halftones. This is because uncoated papers absorb more ink. But if you really need to keep costs down you might have to choose lower grade paper. The easiest way to choose a paper is to touch different samples. Papers are described in pounds and finish. The Freestone was printed on a 70 paper with a matte finish. Generally speaking, 60 and 70 are adequate. The different finishes are offset, linen, smooth, matte, and gloss.

If this is your first major project and you don't yet have a printer to work with, then find one early on. Compare prices, but also find one who you feel will give you the attention you need to learn the ropes. See if they'll meet with you one-on-one. If you know what they expect of you, and what you can expect in return, you'll save yourself trouble later on.

What could be worse than spending countless hours making a great product on computer only to have it turn out wrong at the print shop? Doty, David and Joe Grossmann.

Newsletters from the Desktop: The desktop Publisher's guide to designing newsletters that work. Ventana Press, Evans, Poppy. How can Translation affect Desktop Publishing? Translations pose a number of design challenges. For example, many languages expand upon translation, so whilst we may begin with source words, the translation can total to over words. This means to say that, if we try to fill the fixed space with words instead of words, it can cause problems with the layout.

Equally, with languages like Arabic or Farsi, which read from right to left, or Chinese and Japanese which are read in columns from top to bottom, Desktop Publishers must consider these different reading formats when laying out the pages.

Graphic Designers manipulates text and graphics, and Web Designers exclusively focus on visual communication displays on websites and mobile devices, whereas a Desktop Publisher will use specific software to arrange page layouts, with the aim to produce a document identical to the original, but with the source language.

With desktop publishing software and hardware you can:. 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. Comparison of desktop publishing, graphic design , and web design:. Someone who does print design may or may not also do web design. Some web designers have never done any type of print design. 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.