What are publishing systems intended for? General information about computer publishing systems. Additional Design Principles
It consists of combining text with the capabilities of graphics and artistic design to reproduce documents at a level that was previously provided only by printing. The computer publishing system is designed to create books, catalogues, booklets, reports, letters, invitations and other printed materials at a high technical level.
- In traditional printing, in order to see your order in its final form, you will have to work with the designer for several days, or maybe more, make your own adjustments and wait the same amount. In the publishing system, you see the designed document on the monitor screen immediately in its final form.
- In traditional printing, the text of your order is typed by a typesetter.
- In addition to the fact that typing takes a lot of time, additional errors are introduced into the text. In a publishing system, you import your text from a word processor.
The computer publishing system provides the user with enormous opportunities for creating high-quality printed products.
To take advantage of the power of desktop publishing systems, you must learn to work with them, and this is a profession. Publishing system components Computer publishing systems are based on a combination of modern computers, laser printers and complex software convert any picture, photograph or text into a file of one of the graphic formats, thereby providing the ability to insert them into the designed document.Comparison of a text editor and a publishing system
Initial requirements. A text editor and a publishing system are designed to solve the same problem of creating documents, but they focus on different categories of users. The word processor is intended for the average user, for whom the main thing is the convenience and simplicity of the interface. The publishing system is aimed at professionals, for whom the most important thing is complete control over the type of document being created.- These orientations are gradually moving closer together as computers and programs improve. Today, the differences appear only in details. For example, WinWord 6.0 does not have export in PostScript format, which is mandatory for publishing systems that must have a developed system for importing and exporting documents. On the other hand, publishing systems may be inferior to word processors in the quality of the document image on the monitor screen, since for the first of them the quality of the printed output (or other specialized output device) is more important. The creation of the publishing system was caused by the special requirements of workers associated with book publishing:
- the system's ability to create newspaper columns;
- the ability to change fonts within one document;
- the ability to incorporate graphics into text;
Many text editors offer you to see in advance (before printing) what the finished document will look like after it is printed on paper. Often timely use of this mode makes it possible to better organize a document without allowing it to be reprinted. Learn to type quickly
. The main limitation in the performance of a text editor is the speed of data entry from the keyboard. Take the time and effort to learn how to touch type (without looking at the keyboard) with ten fingers. We recommend that you use special computer training programs for this.. Instead of deleting text in large chunks. We advise you to better move these pieces to the end of the document or rewrite them into temporary files. When creating a document, work in insert mode, which does not involve possible data loss. Save often. Power outages, product freezes, and other computer annoyances can ruin hours and days of your work. Therefore, it is a good habit to constantly use the save command, especially in cases where you are called to the phone or someone rings the doorbell. Keep copies of all important documents. You can create backup files, copy your documents onto separate floppy disks, or simply print them at the end of your work session. Use small files. Large files take much longer to be processed by text processes than small ones. In addition, if a file is damaged or lost, the damage from a small file will be less. Make yourself comfortable. Check if you are comfortable sitting at the computer. In a comfortable position, you will maintain your performance status longer. Take breaks. Taking short breaks from work will help you keep your eyes from getting tired while working. In conclusion, we note that you should take a balanced approach to the capabilities of publishing systems. These are expensive, large and complex software products that require significant time and effort both to learn and use.There must be a compelling reason to switch from word processors to publishing systems. Even if you fully master all the capabilities of publishing systems, do not expect an automatic increase in the artistic level of your printed products. This will require a lot of time and effort to develop good design taste and master the traditions of book publishing.
BASICS OF DOCUMENT CREATION
One of the main issues in creating a document is choosing the font type, its style and size, as well as determining the requirements for print density on the line and page. The importance of these decisions is due to the fact that the success of a document largely depends on how it looks. The choice of font should match the message you want to convey to the reader: the font should be neither too prominent nor too ordinary. In this case, various parts of the document (heading, document text itself, notes) need to be typed in fonts of different sizes. The correct choice of font, its style (bold, italic, regular) and size emphasizes the content of the message without drawing attention to the font itself. The choice of the degree of sparseness of lines on a page and their length are of great importance.. Font types Font type (or the term typeface adopted in printing) defines the writing features of a whole set of characters, including upper and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks and special characters (for example, Times New Roman or Helvetica). Each font type has several character styles, such as bold, italic, bold italic, and regular. In addition, you can enter underlining for characters and text fragments,. Font sizes Size font or else size is its vertical size, measured in points (1 point equals 0.376 mm). Most documents use 10 ¾ 12-point fonts, while a newspaper page may only have 8-point fonts. Font sizes larger than 14 points are usually used only for headings and highlights. Note that fonts of different types but the same size do not necessarily look the same in size. Thus, 12-point Helvetica has a larger vertical size than 12-point Times New Roman. String and Character Sparsity .. The width of a line (column) is determined by the number of characters that can be placed on it. Typically, the optimal line width is between 45 and 60 characters. Please note that there is a connection between the width of the line (column) and the size of the selected font: the smaller the font size, the shorter the line.In other words, a smaller font size makes it possible to fit more characters on a given sheet area.
Page layout. In other words, a smaller font size makes it possible to fit more characters on a given sheet area. General information plays the same role as a drawing before starting the construction of a house. Layout determines the organization of the page, defining the relationships between borders, columns and distance between columns. The first important decision at the layout level involves choosing the number of columns on the page. Single-column layout is typically used for books and letters, while two- and three-column layouts are more suitable for magazines and newspapers. Next, the marked columns are filled with text and drawings. In Fig. 13.7. Document layout options are given. Inserting pictures- . During the layout process, drawings, as well as text, are placed within the boundaries of the established columns. When placing pictures, you must follow a number of rules.
- Place pictures immediately after they are mentioned in the text.
- Leave a centimeter of space between the text and the drawing.
Note that to give the page greater expressiveness, it is possible to place drawings that go beyond the scope of the column (i.e., drawings located outside the designed layout).
Additional Design Principles So, the basis of document design is layout. There are, however, a number of additional document design principles that we would like to dwell on. What is possible and what is not possible in layout . The long tradition of book printing has formulated the following recommendations; Don't write neatly . Leave enough empty space on the paper to give your eye a break. Leave at least a couple of centimeters between the edges of the sheet and the text. Organize the elements of your document so that it looks like a single whole, while occupying a minimum area of the page. Do not use There are many different fonts and designs on the page: remember that they are just decoration of the text. Don't use too long lines : Long lines tire the reader's eye. Compliance with the principle of balance requires that the visual weight of the left and right parts of the page (or the left and right pages of the spread) be approximately the same. With multiple drawings on a page, achieving balance becomes a challenge. Selection. To focus the reader's attention, publishing systems offer a whole range of tools. The simplest of them is changing the font type and size. Headings should be set in a larger font size than subheadings, which in turn should be larger than the main text. Bold, italic and underline font styles are also effective, but should be used sparingly. Avoid capitalizing or underlining long sections of text. An important means of highlighting is to fill the fragment with a gray (colored) tone and/or highlight the fragment in a frame.Editorial and publishing systems - software that allows for the collective continuous work of editorial staff of periodicals - are designed to make editorial processes more streamlined and efficient.
To find out how things work in practice, we talked with employees of publishing houses that have already implemented such systems.
Publishing house "Seven Days"
The publishing house "Seven Days" publishes the magazines "Seven Days TV Program", "Results", "Caravan of Stories", "Headquarters". Since 1996, the publishing house has used the Quark Publishing System (QPS) editorial system. Vasily Cherny, Director of Technology at the Seven Days Publishing House, talks about how the installation process went and how this system influenced the work of the publishing house. ComputerArt:
What was the reason for the introduction of the editorial and publishing system? Vasily Cherny:
The issue of using a production management system was discussed when the publishing house was just being formed.
Firstly, the editorial office of the newspaper Segodnya entered the publishing house, where by that time they already had some developments in automating editorial activities, experience and ideas about how to organize the editorial process.
Third, we needed a system that could be used to produce both newspapers and magazines. During the formation of the publishing house, our strategy was also formed, which required a rethinking of the principle of centralization-decentralization of technical services and the redistribution of responsibilities between designers and layout designers, which is especially important in the magazine editorial office.
But then full support for the project by the management was never achieved, and we returned to this issue only a few years later. At that time, not a single boxed or custom-made editorial and publishing system was presented on the Russian market, since there was no demand for them. Therefore, even those suppliers who understood that such systems were necessary for our editorial staff did not see any reason to invest in promoting these systems on the Russian market. When a certain interest arose on our part, we turned to the Terem company. We began to discuss what system could be used for our purposes, so that at the same time it would be optimal for the Russian market.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. KA:
Why QPS? V.Ch.:
Secondly, the system could be adapted to work with the Russian language. As for the difficulties in implementing and operating the program itself, they were not too great. We only needed to organize basic functionality, and therefore we needed a system that would provide fairly simple interaction between the main participants in the process - journalists, editors, photo editors, leading and chief editors, designers, layout designers and pre-press operators. This is the main, but not the only task of automating editorial work. There are many other tasks that significantly expand and complicate the functionality (and cost) of the system, but for us at that moment purchasing a more “heavy” solution was inappropriate.
There were several reasons for this. Firstly, such solutions, as a rule, are less universal, that is, they are more clearly focused on either the newspaper or magazine niche, or the niche of documentation preparation systems, etc. Secondly, they are related to the specifics of production (planning systems), distribution systems (logistics), financial systems (formation of fee schedules), etc.
Of course, the cost of the solution also played a role. The universal modules of “heavy” solutions were, perhaps, modules for working with news and modules that implement the ideology of digital asset management.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. QPS is one of the simplest and at the same time flexible systems, convenient, reliable and easy to implement and operate. And although it was a fairly expensive product, we realized that the QPS system was the optimal solution for us.
Why QPS? How smoothly did the process of mastering the system go and how did the employees react to the implementation of the system?
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. The process of mastering the system went surprisingly smoothly. We were confident that we did everything right. The training process for employees (more than 100 journalists alone) lasted two and a half months. We compiled a certain methodology and studied according to it, theoretical and practical classes were conducted.
Why QPS? The higher the link in the management hierarchy, the greater its interest in transparency and the ability to manage the process. This is why everything was organized, so, of course, a lot has changed for the employees. In addition to the implementation of a new principle for managing issue preparation, there was a redistribution of many employee responsibilities, including creative responsibilities, principles and procedures for routing materials. You can’t list everything! Even the photo editor’s work with original captions and final magazine captions was organized quite logically. And if our employees are now asked whether they are ready to work without an editorial and publishing system, they will answer in the negative.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. Did you encounter any difficulties when switching to the QPS system?
V.Ch.: Of course, there were difficulties, for example with transfers. This function was implemented, but not according to the scheme that QuarkXPress offers, as a result of which the program incorrectly counted the number of characters. But, by and large, these are little things, especially considering the winnings received. Over all the years of operation, no serious problems were found. The system works surprisingly well and stably.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. In the summer, Quark announced an update to its product line. Do you, in turn, plan to update the system or purchase additional modules?
Why QPS? By the end of the year we are going to conclude an agreement to update the system and expand the number of licenses, but we have no desire to keep up with all the updates. Mainly because existing software meets our needs.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. Has the QPS system helped you cope with publishing publications on the Internet?
Why QPS? This was one of the advantages of implementing QPS. In this system, as expected, the text is stored separately from the layout file, and we thereby avoid the need to pull material out of the publication page. Since texts can be saved in tag format, any flexible translation of printed materials into online ones can be automated as much as possible. Moreover, it is just as convenient to work with photographs.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. What do you think are the most obvious benefits of using a QPS system?
Why QPS? It is important that QPS or another similar solution is used to organize a controlled editorial process with proper distribution of official and creative responsibilities - this is a fundamental point. Thanks to this, any system allows you to create more comfortable conditions for the creative work of employees, which has a positive effect on the quality of texts, layouts, selection of photo framing, etc. in a word, on the quality of the product as a whole.
The advantage of the QPS system is its ease of implementation and operation, flexibility, customizability, low resource requirements and reliability.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. Based on the experience of your publishing house, what advice could you give to those who are now planning to implement QPS?
Why QPS? Keep in mind that the QPS system will not be able to perform absolutely every task in front of you, but what it can do, it does very well.
The interaction of the PC and Macintosh platforms within this system is not as “transparent” as when working with one platform. Therefore, before making a decision to install an editorial and publishing system, you should carefully study this point and decide whether to create a two- or single-platform project. Good luck!
Publishing House "Life"
The newspaper “Life” began its existence 12 years ago in Ulyanovsk, and then moved to the capital. Two and a half years ago, the newspaper switched to daily publication with a circulation of 20 thousand copies. By 2003, the publication's circulation had grown to 170 thousand, and the newspaper itself took second place in Moscow in terms of circulation and first in sales.
This summer, the Terem company announced the successful installation of the K4 Publishing System (K4) editorial and publishing system at the Zhizn publishing house. This was the first installation of the K4 system in Russia. Sergei Konovalov, deputy executive secretary of the Zhizn publishing house, shares his impressions of how the implementation of the K4 system affected the work of the editorial office.
The publishing house "Seven Days" publishes the magazines "Seven Days TV Program", "Results", "Caravan of Stories", "Headquarters". Since 1996, the publishing house has used the Quark Publishing System (QPS) editorial system. Vasily Cherny, Director of Technology at the Seven Days Publishing House, talks about how the installation process went and how this system influenced the work of the publishing house. Please tell us why you decided to install an editorial and publishing system?
Sergey Konovalov: The main reason for introducing the K4 system was the increase in newspaper circulation.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. Work at the publishing house before the installation of this system was carried out quite chaotically. And with the increase in volumes, our delivery schedules sharply tightened, so the editorial process needed to be automated somehow. For a year and a half we used our own automation system, written by me. It served us quite well, but was not tied to any typesetting system, that is, it united journalists, editors and proofreaders - people working directly with the text. With the help of this system, we were able to improve our work to some extent.
But as the circulation grew, it was necessary to optimize the layout process. Did you decide on the choice of the K4 system right away or did you consider alternative proposals? After all, the most popular in Russia is the QPS system from Quark.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. S.K.:
But as the circulation grew, it was necessary to optimize the layout process. We immediately rejected the option of installing a QPS system. Mainly because we work on a PC platform, and layout is carried out in Adobe InDesign. Now, besides Moscow, the newspaper is published in more than 60 regions of Russia, and transferring all employees to Quark is problematic. In addition to QPS, we also considered the proposal of the Woodwing company, which produces a plug-in for the InDesign program. But since it is too simple and does not meet our needs, this option was also dropped.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. How was the system installation? Was additional staff training required?
But as the circulation grew, it was necessary to optimize the layout process. Installation of the K4 system went very smoothly and took no more than three days.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. About a month after installation, this system was fully debugged by us.
But as the circulation grew, it was necessary to optimize the layout process. Previously, the technological process was structured as follows: while journalists, editors and proofreaders were working on the material, layout designers had nothing to do.
All they could do at this stage was look at the photographs. Layout could begin only when the texts were completely ready. It often happened that several materials were received for layout at the same time.
And although our layout designers work quite quickly, not a single person is able to layout several materials at the same time. Then the real chaos began.
In addition, due to the efficiency of our journalists, relevant material could appear at the last minute before the issue was delivered, and sometimes because of this it was necessary to remove an entire page. And with the transition to the K4 system, everything has changed so much that the layout process has now been postponed to the morning. Layout designers know the stated topics and volumes in advance, and thus can start working on ready-made layouts ahead of time.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. When the material is sent to the proofreader, the layout designers already know exactly its volume.
But as the circulation grew, it was necessary to optimize the layout process. By itself. Initially, the K4 system did not cope well with Russian-language materials.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. But within a few days we easily resolved this issue, and now there are no such problems anymore.
But as the circulation grew, it was necessary to optimize the layout process. Since September of this year, the volume of your newspaper has increased to 24 pages. Is this due to the introduction of the K4 system?
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. The K4 system had a very serious impact on the increase in newspaper volume.
But as the circulation grew, it was necessary to optimize the layout process. It allowed us to save a lot of time, which was very important for the efficiency of our publication. As I already said, when the circulation increases, the printing house requires that the issue be submitted to printing earlier than usual; this became possible mainly thanks to K4.
As a result, the QPS system was chosen. Do you plan to continue working on further automation of your editorial office?
Yes, sure. The K4 system united all our departments, except for the photo illustration department.
We have a very large photo archive, and it is often very difficult to immediately find the right photo. Now we are just thinking about how to solve this problem.
Since your editorial office is the only one using the K4 system in Russia, I would like to hear from you recommendations or wishes for those who are now faced with choosing an editorial and publishing system.
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Federal State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education
"SAINT PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, MECHANICS AND OPTICS"
Faculty: "Humanities"
Specialty: “Organization Management”
Abstract on computer science on the topic:
"Publishing systems"
Completed
1st year student Group 1050
Shteyngart S.A.
Scientific director
Associate Professor of the Department of PeiM Petrov V.Yu.
St. Petersburg 2009
4. Problems solved by NIS and examples of their packages
1. Desktop Publishing Levels
Let's define the term publishing system once again: PUBLISHING SYSTEM (DESKTOP PUBLISHING SYSTEM, COMPUTER PUBLISHING SYSTEM) - a complex consisting of personal computers, scanning, output and photo output devices, software and network software, used for typing and editing text, creating and processing images, layout and production of original layouts , proof sheets, photo forms, color proofs, printing forms, etc., i.e., to prepare the publication for printing at the level of pre-press processes.
DeskTop Publishing (Desktop Publishing System), or DTP (DTP) for short.
The Russian version, which although sounds more prosaic than its English counterpart (“publishing house on the table top”), nevertheless more accurately reflects the essence. And the key word here is system, since only a systematic approach guarantees a successful and rational solution to many problems. We can distinguish at least three main levels (Fig. 1), the presence and correspondence of which to each other ensures the reliable functioning of this system.
Rice. 1 Desktop Publishing Levels
Hardware level(hardware level) is a set of material elements - devices with the help of which information is entered, processed, stored, transmitted and output.
Software level(software level) is a set of information elements (programs and their commands), with the help of which both textual and visual information itself, and hardware equipment are managed.
User level The "brainware" level is a collection of creative individuals, highly qualified specialists and ordinary users who integrate their creative potential, as well as hardware and software levels to create creative works.
Hardware level
The hardware level, in turn, consists of the following components (Fig. 2):
· information input devices, which provide the conversion of any type of information on a wide variety of media into digital form, which creates conditions for its further computer processing;
Rice. 2 NIS hardware components
· devices for processing, storing and transmitting information (process, storage and transfer devices), which are the core of the hardware level;
· output devices, which provide “return” of digital information into a form understandable and accessible to humans.
Software level
The computer itself, even in its most complete configuration, does not perform any actions and does not have knowledge in any area of its application. All actions are determined by programs and all “knowledge” is also concentrated in programs.
The software level of desktop publishing systems is characterized by even more rapid development than was noted in the hardware, although some software applications have existed for a good dozen years.
For designers and specialists involved in visual types of information, the following main classes of software can be distinguished (Fig. 3):
· pixel graphics programs;
· vector graphics programs;
· layout programs;
· 3D graphics programs.
In addition, a large set of additional, auxiliary software may be in demand, starting from the operating system itself and ending with a variety of small utilities and plug-ins. The auxiliary category includes programs for working with fonts, viewers (viewers), file format converters (converters), browsers, archivers and much more.
Most likely, it would be a great exaggeration to call the operating system (OS) a supporting program, but from the point of view of the user of graphics programs, it is not the object of primary attention, and, as a rule, interest in it is acquired on the periphery. Of course, insufficient knowledge of the operating system can cause the user a lot of unnecessary trouble.
User level
The user level is you and me, since hardware and software developers call us “users.” At this level there are no technical conditions and parameters, but only the requirements of the profession and the business for which a person musters the resolve and sits down at the computer.
If we talk about computer design and graphics, then, in my opinion, the most important thing is knowledge of the subject area - an understanding of the concepts of fine (visual) art and a sense of composition. This is all the more important because computer technology, being a concentrated experience and a sum of skills, quite easily and simply allows you to perform all the formal actions inherent, for example, in page layout, and the result - alas - cannot be considered not only a fact of art, but even an elementary craft .
Indeed, it is relatively easy to type text, assign it a wide variety of formatting, scan any image or select it from a huge number of libraries, import and use some “tricky” filter (or several that will transform the original image beyond recognition), place all this on any number of pages. It’s just as easy to continue the technological chain, namely, print on a decent color printer and get the go-ahead from the customer, send it for color separation and get a circulation for a very reasonable price.
All these actions are technologically correct and reasonable, but the result from a design point of view can be (and, unfortunately, happens) quite disastrous. Aesthetic and artistic components - alas! - are not part of computer, technical and software systems, but are placed entirely on the shoulders of a person who proposes an idea and implements his plan using computer technology. Therefore, a computer and all its contents are nothing more than a tool, like a brush, pencil or pen. Only unlike them, a computer is a tool that accumulates technological experience and knowledge.
Next most important, in my opinion, is knowledge of specific software applications and related technologies.
Finally, successful work certainly requires general computer knowledge. This includes the ability to work in one or more operating systems, understand the principles of file organization, understand the management of peripheral devices (monitor, scanner, printer), use storage devices, e-mail, the Internet, etc.
Thus, a serious user who aspires to become a professional should discard the illusion that the computer does anything on its own (the computer only breaks down of its own free will) and, rolling up his sleeves, begin to master all the highways, and then the nooks and crannies of a huge and a continuously developing country called Computer Technology.
2. Desktop Publishing Components
NIS components are presented in the following diagram:
Typesetting machine.
The computer models and software used for typing are not so important; it is a matter of taste and corporate preference.
Graphics station.
The hardware of the graphics station, in addition to the computer itself, must include a professional color monitor, a universal scanner, a device for viewing scanned originals and a set of devices for reading external media.
Layout station.
The hardware solution for the layout station must be oriented towards the graphics station platform. The required number of typing stations, graphic stations and layout stations are combined into a common network. Peripheral devices are connected to this network: black-and-white and color printers, proofing devices, laser exposure output devices.
Printing devices.
The publishing industry is dominated by laser printers, which are used both for printing proofs and for printing black-and-white original layouts. Color laser printers are used, as a rule, to coordinate a color layout with the customer and less often as a device for making color proofs, which very conditionally fulfills this role.
3. Operating principle of desktop publishing system (NIS)
A typical desktop publishing system is represented by the following diagram:
4. Problems solved by NIS and examples of their packages
Desktop publishing systems are used for professional publishing. They allow you to carry out electronic layout of a wide range of basic types of documents such as a newsletter, color brochure, catalog, reference book. Allows you to solve problems:
1. arrange (typeset) the text;
2. use all kinds of fonts and produce printed images;
3. carry out text editing at the level of the best word processors;
4. process graphic images;
5. output documents of printed quality;
6. work in networks on different platforms.
NIS motto: Edit text better than any editor!
Examples of such packages are: Corel Ventura, Page Maker, QuarkXPress, Frame Maker, MS Publisher, Page Plus, Compu Work Publisher, Adobe InDesign CS3, etc.
Desktop publishing systems are a rather complex complex of hardware devices, software and the “human factor”.
For the reliable and effective functioning of a desktop publishing system, it is necessary that all levels correspond to each other.
List of used literature
Hinderliter H. Desktop publishing systems.
Shaposhnikov A. Publishing computer systems.
Illustrated self-instruction manual on digital graphics.
N.F. Gusarova, Yu.V. Dorogov, R.V. Ivanov, A.V. Mayatin.
Publishing systems. Computer publishing graphics.
Systems of this class are designed not so much for creating large documents, but for implementing various types of printing effects. NIS programs allow you to easily manipulate text, change page formats, indent sizes, make it possible to combine different fonts, work with the material until you are completely satisfied with the appearance of both individual pages (strips) and the entire publication.
In a number of functionalities, NIS packages are similar to the best word processors, and the boundary separating them is becoming increasingly invisible. However, NIS packages differ from word processors in two important ways. Firstly, they have greater control over the preparation of text, for example, compressing and stretching lines, rotating text and changing the distances between lines and paragraphs in very small increments, etc. Secondly, materials prepared in the NIS package look like publications of the highest level of quality, and not just elegant printouts.
- - professional desktop publishing;
- - entry-level publishing systems.
The systems of the first subgroup are designed to work on editions of documents with a complex structure. These include QuarkXPress, FrameMaker, PageMaker. However, mastering expensive and difficult-to-use “desktop printing houses” usually requires a significant amount of time, so it is hardly advisable to use them for those specialists whose occupation only occasionally needs to prepare documentation, a letter or an advertisement beautifully and fairly quickly.
Systems of the second group are usually not designed for industrial printing products. Users of this class of NIS usually use other programs to solve their problems, and use NIS sporadically, for example, when creating a newsletter or creating a greeting card for circulation in a small company. The most common NIS packages in this group are Microsoft Publisher and Pageplus for Windows.
The process of preparing any material for publication - printed or electronic - can be divided into several stages:
- - The first stage - preparing the text - is carried out using word processors.
- - The second stage - preparing illustrative material - is carried out using graphic editors such as Adobe Photoshop and CorelDraw.
- - The third, final stage - layout - the process of turning simple text and illustrations into a publication fully prepared for printing, for example, a page (strip) of a newspaper or magazine, a brochure or book, an advertising brochure or leaflet.
Layout is a job for real professionals who not only know the entire list of actions necessary to create a finished publication, but also have some aesthetic taste. After all, any publication should not only be technically flawless, but also simply beautiful and pleasing to the eye.
Like any professional programs, layout programs require the user to have special skills and a good knowledge of terminology. And they are by no means cheap. However, the exception is Microsoft Publisher, which is included with Microsoft Office. This program is easy to use and inexpensive.
Microsoft Publisher is designed in a manner that is the opposite of traditional desktop publishing programs. Immediately after launching the program, the user is faced with wizard programs that accompany him throughout the entire publication process. This process is fully automated in Microsoft Publisher. The user just needs to give the program the source text and pictures and select the required publication type - Publisher will try to do the rest itself. The user's task is to periodically allow the wizard to move on to the next step, select color schemes (Publisher offers more than 60 for each type of publication) and options for the arrangement of elements in each document. You can completely automate the process of creating some simple publications, since upon first launch the program will ask the user to enter information about himself and the company for which he works. Publisher will then automatically insert this data into the appropriate fields in the publication, giving you the ability to create the same business cards with a few clicks.
The Publisher program will help you prepare the following types of publications, such as newsletters, invitations, postcards, business cards, calendars, advertisements, labels, stickers, all kinds of programs and menus.
Publisher can deliver both print and electronic publications with equal ease. The similarity of its interface with other programs in the Microsoft Office family, the presence of a large number of wizard programs that support step-by-step document creation, and a large archive of ready-made templates allow even a user ignorant of the art of layout to quickly master the program.
Adobe PageMaker, unlike the previous program, is a professional product, as it behaves quite passively, not offering the user ready-made solutions. Everything is at the discretion of the layout designer himself. Thanks to this, publications designed in PageMaker are more individual than works created in the Publisher program. PageMaker allows you to create multi-page publications of large area and volume: books, newspapers, magazines with multi-column layout and insertion of graphic images of popular formats, as well as tables, into the text. In addition, PageMaker is equipped with a built-in spreadsheet editor and word processor, and also allows you to export texts in most popular formats. During layout, you can use previously created templates and styles for each text element. In addition to standard printed publications, PageMaker can also create hypertext documents on the Internet, which allows it to be used as a professional Web page editor. It is also possible to create publications in the universal Adobe Acrobat format, which look and read the same on any computer, regardless of the fonts and operating system installed on it; this is often used by professional layout designers.
PageMaker is compatible with other Adobe products - Illustrator and Photoshop, creating a single graphic and publishing office. Thanks to this, PageMaker supports the ability to work with multiple layers of text and illustrations. The proposed classification of text preparation systems is largely arbitrary, since some functions of systems of different classes overlap, new versions of processors with more advanced and complex processing procedures are constantly appearing, which blurs the boundaries between classes.
Summarizing the results from the first chapter, we can highlight that among systems for preparing texts in natural languages, three large classes can be distinguished that have relatively blurred boundaries: text editors (formatters), word processors and desktop publishing systems.
A text editor is a program that provides input, modification and saving of any symbolic text intended for preparing program texts in high-level programming languages, since they do not require formatting (i.e. automatic conversion of the arrangement of text elements, changing the font and etc.).
Among the many available text editors, the following can be distinguished: Norton Editor; SideKick; Brief; multifunctional multi-window editor Multi-Edit. Turbo systems editors also fall into this category.
A word processor is a text preparation system that, in its internal representation, supplies the text with special codes - markup and is intended for preparing texts with subsequent printing on paper. Such programs are focused on working with texts that have a document structure, i.e. consisting of paragraphs, pages and sections.
Currently existing word processors differ significantly from each other, and these tools can be divided into three large groups:
- - entry-level word processors (WordPad, C-WordPad, WordMagic, YeahWrite, Crypt Edit, TextViewer, MS Works and the domestic system "Baikal");
- - powerful professional word processors (MS Word, Corel WordPerfect, Lotus WordPro, StarWriter, domestic word processor Lexicon);
- - specialized word processors (LaTex, PlainTeX and AMS-TeX, LyX).
Desktop publishing systems (desktop publishing, DTP or NIS packages) are a set of hardware and software designed for computer typing, layout and publication of text and illustrative materials.
Systems for preparing text documents of this class can be divided into two subgroups:
- - professional desktop publishing (QuarkXPress, FrameMaker, PageMaker);
- - entry-level publishing systems (Microsoft Publisher and Pageplus for Windows).
