Idiomorphic-Gambollier

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A little History of Desk top publishing

Desktop Publishing (DTP): Combining text and graphics into documents such as books, magazines, brochures, and manuals by using a computer system, special software, and high-resolution output devices. “(Jones Telecommunications and Multimedia Encyclopedia.)

            Desktop Publishing was coined about 1984 and usually attributed to Paul Brainerd who was the developer of the Aldus Pagemaker program which coincided with the introduction of Pagemaker software for the newly released Apple MacIntosh home computer system. Crushing the barrier of DOS[1], the graphical user interface[2] opened the doors to the average home user. It quickly became obsolete for the average user to understand and implement its myriad of commands.  Now, for the first time and with just the touch of a few keys on the typewriter style keypad, the user could open a program and perform the tasks needed. (Western)

            With Canon’s introduction of a low-cost laser printer the year before, which was followed by the HP Laserjet by Hewlett-Packard just prior to the introduction of the Apple Mac in 1985, only the new Adobe postscript language[3] which was also released in 1985, was needed to unite these elements.  Together a powerful package was available for the consumer. Now, even the stay-at-home mom or small business person could get software for their computer that would allow them to combine text and images to create their own holiday cards and banners (see sample HT1 -1) or sales materials.

            Although other text and drawing programs were available, Pagemaker was the first that easily integrated text and graphics into a single document.  Prior to this time text was entered into a typesetter machine which spewed out long lines of text which were then cut apart and pasted into the document, thus cut-and past created the camera ready boards which were then sent to a composing room. Here they underwent several more steps before a final product was produced. (Dennis)

            A revolution of advances in technology followed and as the computer became smaller and more affordable to the home and small office user, word-processing underwent a transformation that changed the way we look at document creation.  Now, with any one of a great assortment of software widely available to the home user, documents could be produced with great sophistication. No longer was our creativity held in check as we typed in plain black, with perhaps the occasional red, text on white or pastel paper. (Haynes)

            I can still vividly recall my first efforts on a Tandy 286 machine with a whopping 20 megabytes of memory. That was enough memory to hold volumes of my favorite books, and lots of images besides. Birthday cards poured from my sophisticated Print Shop program and Brorderbund’s Bannermania (See sample HT2-2) gave me banners that decked every occasion. Newsletters (see sample HT2-3) were a cinch and proved to be a treasure to family and friends. Gone were the days of messy typed rewrites and trash cans full of messy, failed attempts. This machine was a marvel. Now, all I needed was one of the neat new laser printers to replace the old dot-matrix, and I could, literally, be in business.

            Even in those early days, software flooded the market and ranged in price from a few dollars, like the Print Shop program which was about fifteen dollars, to hundreds for the more sophisticated or commercial versions.  We were no longer tied to the typesetter for our document printing. The introduction of the WYSIWYG[4] programs further enhanced the average user’s ability to operate the complex computers with relative ease.  The average Joe, frightened at the thought of using DOS, could now produce a flyer that was as visually pleasing as the local typographer.

            Those, like myself, with the desire to learn more might have taken the time to learn about layouts, typefaces or fonts, and document arrangement or formatting to produce an even more sophisticated printed document, pamphlet (See sample HT3-4) or flyer (See sample HT3-5)  for their garage sale.  These machines and the software that commanded them, by hiding the foreboding DOS in the background while the user clicked on icons,[5] were a viable replacement for the pen, paper, tape, scissors, erasers, rulers, dictionary, and thesaurus for editing documents.

            Deleting, inserting, copying, rewording, rewriting, and so on, now became almost effortless for the practiced user. Suddenly, creativity soared, and the mental powers used for the mechanics of cut and paste design, were free to dream of newer and better applications for this new technology.

            Printers also under went a change for the better. The action of the dot-matrix type of printer was to strike the paper with a number of pins. In the early days a good dot-matrix printer with a 24pin head could produce a fair quality document with about 300 DPI[6].  Even today, these printers are still in use, but the product, while superior to the typewriter, and capable of about 600 DPI, till gives the impression of a cheap home printer. If someone primarily produces documents such as invoices or internal documents within a business, the dot-matrix may be fine, and although I still have a couple of these machines in working condition, I have not seen a use for one, or used one in quite sometime.

            The dot-matrix was closely followed by the bubble jet or ink jet printers. These devices blow minute droplets of ink onto the page, which then passes across a heat element to dry the ink. Often the ink requires additional drying time and the result could be a messy document. With proper care, however, these machines produce a professional product and are a good choice for the home or small business user.

            The laser printer was the next innovation made available to the average user.  A negatively charged laser passes over the image to be printed to a positively charged drum causing the areas corresponding to the image to gain a neutral charge. The drum is then run through a toner, which then adheres to the neutral areas. The page then passes over the drum picking up the image resulting in the most professional appearance (See sample HT4-6).  

            As the size of the files created with this imaging and text software grew, more and more demand was made for printers with their own memory. Today most reasonably good printers come with their own memory and many can have additional memory installed.  The result is faster printing of multiple or detailed documents and photographs.   We also see that most all printers today include color capabilities, some with additional colors, beyond the standard black, cyan, magenta, and yellow, for printing photographs from any of many available capture devices.

            Over the ensuing years, from about 1985 through today, software and home computers have advanced at an astounding rate. That, huge twenty-megabyte hard drive has given way to machines with small hard drives of thirty gigabytes to massive single drives holding hundreds of gigs of memory. The term “the old days” takes on a new meaning, as the average computer user gets younger and younger while the tools of only a couple of decades ago become obsolete.

            Although the Macintosh™ computer remains on the desks of thousands, and is still a popular choice among graphic designers and in many small offices, the IBM based machines have taken over the marketplace.  Names like Microsoft, Adobe and Corel are recognized by most of the population.  IBM has its Ventura systems and Xerox claims the Star system, both aimed at the corporate market. Aldus, later bought by Adobe, can lay claim to an entire suite, which includes the updated version of PageMaker™, Illustrator™ and the Acrobat™ programs, which make any document readable on any system and through web or email delivery.

            Today we can also easily and affordably acquire input devices such as digital cameras, scanners, tablets and audiovisual recording and playback equipment.  Not since the earliest days of transferring thought to a written form, has the individual had total control over the design, typeset, and print of his works, with some of the best of the desktop publishing equipment being made available at a reasonable cost to the general public.

            As the computer continually becomes smaller, more powerful, and more user friendly; and as terms like bits[7], bytes[8], pixels[9], and dpi[10] become parts of our everyday language, the line between the specialized segments of the graphic arts industry and the average Joe become increasingly blurred. We may find ourselves drowning in good, and bad, graphically augmented documents.

            These same advantages and technology have already spilled over to the World Wide Web or the Internet, with unbelievable force. From a scant few thousand pages available to the general public when Prodigy™ made access easy and affordable for almost anyone in the early 1990’s, to the billions of pages of documents, and web pages found today and created by the average home and small business user (See sample HT6- 7), we are facing new frontiers with the same excitement and curiosity as in those early days. What lies beyond only our imaginations can decide what is to come, and I, for one, plan to be in on it.