Desktop Publishing
Desktop publishing involves the production of printed matter performed on personal computers for much less cost and effort than traditional printing methods. Desktop publishing became possible in 1985 with the introduction of several page-layout programs, including AldusÕs PageMaker which remains a market leader in 1998. Using a personal computer (usually a Macintosh), a laser printer with PostScript page description language, and this software, users could design page layouts, including fonts and graphics, right on their computer. There have been two areas of competitive controversy in desktop publishing. One is over the preferential software for page layout design. PageMaker has been challenged by Adobe's version, QuarkXPress. The latter is especially favored by magazine designers. Another contention concerns Macintosh or IBM-type personal computers (PCs). The Macintosh has been favored from the beginning and is usually considered the most desktop publishing friendly. However, PCs have improved in this area throughout the 1990s.
In the late 1980s, software was released that could output complex drawings, such as Adobe's Illustrator and Aldus's FreeHand. In these programs, a user could create art that could be placed in the page layout program. In 1990, Adobe Photoshop was introduced. With Photoshop or other similar software, photographs, both color and black and white, are scanned into the computer for image editing using a scanner. A flat-bed desktop scanner became another piece of essential hardware in desktop publishing, a favored input device. By 1991, Apple introduced TrueType fonts that allowed the fonts themselves to be manipulated by designers. One drawback to desktop publishing in this area is the massive amounts of memory these programs and their documents take up. As the technology has improved, more memory and ways of storing it have become available.
In its beginning, desktop publishing was primarily used for publications such as newsletters and other smaller publications. As the technology has improved and become less expensive, more and more magazines, newspapers, even books go through the pre-printing process on desktop publishing software. Desktop publishing is an attractive option for publications because of the flexible control over design, and the less time, money, and labor it takes to produce a publication. The only area in desktop publishing that still can require outside service is high-quality color photos which have to be taken to a service bureau to be scanned on a certain type of high-end scanner. Throughout the 1990s, the quality of desktop scanners keeps improving and with the advent of digital cameras, a totally digital, totally in-house publishing experience is a real possibility early in the next century.
Desktop publishing software is also used to create on-line documents for the World Wide Web. Specific programs like FrameMaker allows desktop publishers to manipulate images and text for electronic publication much like PageMaker does for printed matter. In the mid to late 1990s, desktop publishing software has been developed that can morph images, and edit sound and videotape, which also can be posted on the Internet. With this technology, the tools of publishing are literally available to anyone with access to a computer.
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