Software > Graphics & Publishing

In Graphic Detail

By Lasa Information Systems Team

Desk top publishing makes it possible for small organisations to produce professional publicity materials - without paying expensive professionals like a graphic designer or typesetter. You can even use your office inkjet or laser printer instead of having materials printed professionally. But to take advantage of these opportunities, you have to know what you're doing.

Basic DTP - Your Word Processor Does More Than You Know

DTP software first became available on Apple Macs in the 1980s. At that time, output from word processing software on PCs looked like a typewriter. With DTP you could use different fonts in different sizes and colours, and add pictures and graphic elements like lines and boxes. Since then, things have changed.

A more modern word processor - like Microsoft Word or the Open Source (free) OpenOffice Writer on a PC - does many of the things that DTP software used to do. You can change font sizes and colours, and add pictures and boxes. Microsoft Word and Open Office Writer will do fancy effects like white text on a black background, columns of different widths, dropped caps, and so on. Word also includes some clip art - pictures you can add to your publications - and there are lots more for free on Microsoft's web site.

So you don't need new software if you want to do basic DTP and print out your creations on a printer in your office. This saves money on software, and also means you can build on existing skills.

Intermediate Level - Getting a Bit Flash

Although Word and Writer can do basic DTP, it is at the edge of what the software can manage. Neither of these are dedicated DTP tools and both have limitations.

For example both packages only deal with different colours at a basic level so you can run into problems if you want to send documents which use a lot of colour to commercial printers for printing. If you're doing a lot of work this complex, you need to look at buying new software.

Packages aimed at people who have no graphic design training, but need to produce reasonably sophisticated publications, include:

• Serif PagePlus - includes hundreds of fonts, has wizards and colour schemes, can publish to web or commercial printers
• Microsoft Publisher - templates, wizards, colour schemes, photos and clip art, can publish to web or commercial printers

Both of these cost around £100 - though remember to budget for staff training.

Advanced Level - Professional and Pricey

The software most often associated with DTP - such as Quark Xpress and Adobe products like PhotoShop and Illustrator - is powerful stuff. The Guardian newspaper is produced, for example, using a modified version of Quark Xpress.

Software at this level assumes you have design skills and a knowledge of the technicalities of printing, and therefore it doesn't have templates or wizards to guide you through each step of the process. Quark say that Xpress is meant for people who use it every working day. This is a crucial point - just as buying Word doesn't in itself make you a great novelist, so buying Quark Xpress or Adobe Illustrator doesn't make you able to design attractive leaflets or newsletters.

To this, add the high price of this software - the industry-standard package of Xpress, Illustrator and Photoshop costs over £1800, and then you'll need to buy fonts and other utilities as well. This may be appropriate for an agency which produces publications as a core function - books or a monthly magazine, say - and employs staff with graphic design skills to do the work. But most organisations only want to produce a newsletter and occasional leaflets, and have staff who do DTP as only a small part of a wider role. For these agencies, this kind of software is inappropriate.

A Cheaper Alternative

If you really need the power of Xpress or Photoshop, but you can't afford them, you might consider CorelDraw. The package includes drawing and layout software (like Xpress plus Illustrator) and bitmap editing software (like Photoshop), plus over a thousand fonts and loads of clipart - all for a few hundred pounds. However, like the expensive packages, CorelDraw doesn't lay your design out for you - it assumes you know what you're doing.

There are other issues - CorelDraw only become available on the Mac since version 10. This means that many commercial printers may have no experience of working with the files it produces.

How to Choose

If you're producing materials in-house, make sure you're using your word processing package to the full. Your local computer training company may offer training in using Microsoft Word for newsletters  covering its DTP capabilities.

If your word processing package can't do what you need, consider a package like PagePlus or Publisher.

If you're using a commercial printer, the most important link in the chain is your relationship with them. Will they be able to read your (presumably, Windows) files on their (almost certainly, Mac) computer? If you have a good relationship with your printer, ask their advice about what software to buy. If you don't have a regular printer yet, get quotes and ask what kind of files you need to supply, from what kind of software.

As with other key business relationships, don't just go on price - you need a printer who will help you along, not baffle you with printing technicalities and jargon.

Finally, remember that it's the content of your publications that matters. People will never see your software, but they will see your graphics and read your text. Think about devoting some of your budget to developing staff's design and plain English skills, rather than spending it all on software.