Desktop publishing software - Read all about it

In the 1980s, people used to talk about the 'desktop publishing (DTP) revolution'. In 2002, it's easy to forget what an impact the first DTP programs had, not just on the computer industry, but on the entire printing and publishing sector.

The ability to create high-quality page layouts on a low-cost PC or Macintosh has changed the economics of the entire global industry. New magazines and newspapers appeared overnight and traditional printing companies had to adapt or die.

At first, DTP software was primarily used by professional designers with the skill and training required to use it. But these tools quickly spread beyond the professional printing industry and ordinary business and home users had access to low-cost programs of their own.

In many ways, the DTP revolution was a boon. The clichéd image of the user producing a parish newsletter on a home PC was a reality and one that provided a lot of people with a great deal of personal satisfaction.

It helped many businesses as well, allowing them to produce high-quality materials without having to hire expensive design teams.

There was a downside to all this, though. Giving ordinary business and home users low-cost DTP software is one thing; giving them the design skills to use it properly is something else altogether.

The DTP revolution was responsible for millions of truly awful-looking posters, newsletters and magazines. Even trained designers couldn't resist the urge to experiment with the variety of different typefaces and styles, resulting in layouts that looked great, but were utterly unreadable.

As a result, the DTP market has split in two. At the top are the high-end tools, such as Quark XPress, which is aimed at the professional publishing market.

For the rest of us, a new generation of DTP software was launched, such as Serif's PagePlus and Microsoft's Publisher. These programs are designed with novices in mind; business or home users wanting to produce good documents without specialised design training.

Many of these programs are powerful, providing versatile layout and typographical tools. However, they also cater for unskilled users by including a wide range of ready-made templates, wizards and other tools that help the less experienced to get started.

If you're a complete novice, you can select a template that provides a predefined page layout, complete with headline text and graphics.

The disadvantage of using templates is that your documents won't have individual character but, as you gain experience, you can use other tools to customise them. And, although these programs are inexpensive, they offer a wider range of layout tools.

The ability to create multi-column text layouts is commonplace, along with typographical tools such as vertical text, but you'll find powerful graphics tools as well.

Most DTP programs offer a selection of vector-based graphics tools and clip-art, while some of the products reviewed here even include special effects filters for editing photographs, and all for under £500 (ex. VAT).

There are still differences between these programs, though, so we've reviewed all the current mass-market DTP contenders to determine their strengths and weaknesses.

Canvas 8 Professional Edition

Like the less expensive CorelDraw Essentials, Canvas is primarily a suite of graphics tools, rather than a specialised DTP program. It boasts an even wider and more impressive range of graphics tools than Essentials, encompassing vector and bitmap graphics, animation and presentations work.

It also has a number of powerful text tools, which makes it possible to create text and graphics page layouts.

But, like Essentials, its DTP features are more suited to short graphics-oriented documents, such as posters, rather than reports or newsletters.

The program's cost and complexity suggest that it's aimed at professional designers, but Deneba does make a few concessions to the less experienced.

When you create a new document, for example, you can use choose between four types: illustrations, animations, presentations and publications.

There's a limited range of templates available for each type of document, but these are complemented by a wizard that takes you through the basic layout.

However, once you've created your basic layout, you might find it difficult to modify and edit your design. Canvas has some powerful text tools, including the ability to flow text along a path. Unfortunately, though, our testers found some of these features difficult to locate and use.

Matters weren't helped by the program's cumbersome documentation. There are no less than three separate manuals included with Canvas and these tend to list individual features without giving an overview of how they all work together. As a result, some of our testers were unable to perform relatively simple tasks, such as creating a pullout quote.

Canvas 8 Professional Edition is a powerful and versatile graphics program that can certainly be used for page layout work, but that isn't what it does best. If you're prepared to pay this sort of money for a DTP program, you might be better off looking at PageMaker.

Verdict: Powerful graphics program, but its DTP capabilities are limited.
Pros: Powerful combination of text, bitmap and vector graphics tools.
Cons: Focus is on graphics work, rather than DTP.
Price £280 (ex. VAT)
Contact: Computers Unlimited (UK distributor) 020 8200 8282
www.deneba.com

CorelDRAW Essentials

CorelDRAW Essentials is described as a tool for "graphics and layout, photo editing and painting". Its combination of text and graphics tools is certainly capable of creating a wide range of page layouts and designs.

However, its focus is very much on graphics, so it requires quite a lot of effort to press it into service for DTP work.

Essentials consists of two programs: CorelDRAW, for creating vector-based text and graphics, and PhotoPaint 9, which provides bitmap painting and photo editing tools. Any DTP work is most likely to be done in CorelDRAW, as this includes the main text editing and formatting tools.

When you launch Essentials, you have the option to start from scratch with a blank document or use one of the many supplied templates, such as business cards, calendars, posters and newsletters.

The graphics tools are quite extensive, but DTP work requires the ability to combine text and graphics in your layouts, which is where it proves slightly cumbersome.

The program allows you to create two types of text: paragraph and 'artistic'. Paragraph text is used for larger amounts of text, such as the main text in a newsletter, while artistic text tends to consist of individual lines or words that can be used for headlines or logos.

Paragraph text can be formatted and edited with conventional word processor tools, while artistic text can be formatted with various graphics effects, such as colour blends.

These tools are useful, but Essentials stumbles when it comes to combining text and graphics on the page. Our testers struggled with simple tasks, such as creating multi-column text and running it from one column into another.

There's no doubt that Essentials contains powerful graphics tools and it can be used for simple DTP work. However, people who want to create longer multi-page documents will find the more specialised DTP programs in this round-up more suitable.

Verdict: A good, all-round graphics suite, but not ideal for DTP work.
Pros: Wide range of graphics tools.
Cons: Limited page layout features.
Price: £59 (ex. VAT)
Contact: Corel 01628 589 800
www.corel.com

PageMaker 7.0

In the 1980s, PageMaker was the program that kick started the DTP revolution. It was originally aimed at professional designers, but soon lost its crown to Quark XPress and has recently been superseded by Adobe's newer InDesign.

But rather than kill it off entirely, Adobe has attempted to move PageMaker downmarket to appeal to business users and the more ambitious home user. The problem here, though, is that PageMaker is still a complex program and Adobe's attempts to make it more accessible are only partially successful.

The program's opening screen is a bit of a mess, with several windows and palettes floating around. The largest of these is the Template window, which presents you with a gallery of templates to help get you started.

Alongside this is a clip-art library and three tool palettes, which are of no use at this stage and merely serve to confuse the inexperienced user.

Admittedly, there's a good selection of templates, with a variety of newsletters, reports, brochures and business cards. However, the presentation of these features is untidy and, once you've selected the type of document you want, you're more or less left on your own to master this beast of a program.

Our testers immediately recognised PageMaker's power, realising that it could handle any design task they were likely to throw at it. The autoflow feature alone is immensely powerful, allowing you to instantly flow large amounts of text across any number of pages and columns.

However, other aspects of PageMaker reveal its advancing years. For example, its single level of Undo can be immensely frustrating and it doesn't allow you to create vertical text or to flow text along a path.

The most disappointing aspect of PageMaker these days, though, is its price. At almost £400 (ex. VAT), it's attempting to appeal to entry-level users with a professional-level price tag.

PageMaker is still an excellent DTP program, but it needs a thorough update and a large price cut if it's to survive in this crowded software market.

Verdict: A great DTP program that's too complex and pricey for non-professionals.
Pros: Powerful; versatile layout tools.
Cons: Difficult for beginners to master.
Price: £386 (ex. VAT)
Contact: Adobe 020 8606 4001
www.adobe.co.uk

PagePlus 8.0

Serif is a relatively small company compared to giants like Microsoft, Corel and Adobe, but its PagePlus layout program has made a good name for itself in the DTP market. Its great strength is that it manages to combine a wide range of powerful layout tools with admirable ease of use.

When you launch the program, for example, it gives you a simple choice between creating a blank document or using templates. The templates include a wide range of business documents, as well as calendars, cards and posters for home users.

If you opt to start with a blank document, you're given a choice of various paper sizes, as well as options for creating folded documents or posters spread over several pages.

Another nice touch is the option to switch into Web Publishing mode. This activates additional tools, such as the ability to create hotspots, which aren't needed for paper documents.

Once you've created your basic document, you're taken into the program's main workspace. This is well designed, with basic tools for manipulating text and graphics positioned on the left-hand side of the screen.

You also have the option of opening another panel on the right-hand side, called the Studio. This provides more in-depth features, such as the ability to alter colour and font schemes.

In addition to its basic document templates, PagePlus also has a number of wizards devoted to particular design tasks. For instance, there are options for creating calendars, tables, headline text and logos.

This wide range of time-saving features makes PagePlus an excellent program for beginners and accounts for its Usability Seal of Approval. Our testers also felt that PagePlus was powerful enough to allow users to experiment with custom designs as they gained experience.

It's not the cheapest program in this group, but PagePlus 8.0's wide range of features and ease of use make it hard to beat as a DTP program for the less-experienced business or home user.

Verdict: Power and simplicity make this a good choice for less experienced users.
Pros: Powerful; easy-to-use DTP tools.
Cons: Slightly more expensive than some of its rivals.
Price: £99.95 (ex. VAT)
Contact: Serif 0115 914 2000
www.serif.com

Publisher 2002

Publisher 2002 doesn't make the best first impression. Its installer rather confusingly refers to Microsoft Office rather than Publisher and also uses Microsoft's annoying and intrusive Product Activation feature.

However, once you get past these irritations, Publisher proves to be a powerful, yet easy-to-use, DTP program.

When you launch Publisher, it divides the workspace into two areas. The Task Pane on the left-hand side of the screen lists the types of templates available, while the rest of the screen provides a miniature preview of each set of templates.

There's certainly an impressive range of templates, including newsletters, catalogues, websites, greetings cards and business forms. It even lets you print origami patterns on paper, which is something we've never come across before.

When you select a template, the program automatically guides you through a series of additional options, such as selecting a suitable colour scheme.

This template-driven approach certainly makes it easy for less-experienced users to get started, but it can cause problems if you decide you want to work with a completely new document.

You can select 'blank document' from the Task Pane, but setting basic options such as the page size, will send you scuttling to the manual for help. And even when you're working with a blank document, you still get the feeling that Microsoft wants to nudge you back in the direction of using a template.

Microsoft's manual is also rather odd. It concentrates on vague discussions of 'design strategy' and makes little effort to explain specific features within the program itself.

Users who want to experiment with their own designs, rather than using Publisher's templates, will therefore find that they have to put in a bit of effort to locate the various tools and features they need.

Even so, Publisher provides a useful set of design tools at a very reasonable price and it's worth making the effort to uncover the power hidden beneath the ever-present templates.

Verdict: The templates are good for beginners, but could prove restrictive for some.
Pros: Template-based tools provide lots of help for new users.
Cons: Less flexible when working with custom designs.
Price: £74.80 (ex. VAT)
Contact: Microsoft 0870 601 0100
www.microsoft.com/uk/

Publisher 4 Gold Edition

At just under £50 (ex. VAT), Publisher 4 Gold Edition is the cheapest product here. But it's still a good option for novices who need help getting started with DTP.

When you first start work, you're given the option of creating a blank document or using one of the many templates. These include dozens of brochures, newsletters, web pages and labels. Publisher 4 then guides you through a series of simple steps that allow you to customise the basic template.

For instance, you can select from a range of colour schemes and typefaces and include useful features, such as a sliding control bar that can be used to alter the font size. There's also a preview of the document provided, so you can see the effects of any changes before making your final selection.

Once a basic document has been created, you can use a number of handy tools to quickly create additional content. The Table tool, for example, includes a number of ready-made table templates and there's a matching Chart tool that allows you to create a variety of 2D and 3D graphs and charts.

There are two additional utilities included on the CDRom. PhotoFX is a basic photo editor, while PowerText 3D is essentially a wizard that allows you to create 3D text and logos. Both work well enough, but they ought to be integrated into Publisher itself.

While Publisher 4 is good at creating simple documents and content, it's more limited when it comes to creating custom designs. Our testers had problems setting up custom documents and found it difficult to precisely position elements on the page.

Publisher 4 isn't the best choice for people wanting freedom to experiment with their designs. However, it does provide a good solution for beginners who want to produce competent page layouts with the minimum amount of time, effort and money.

Verdict: It's not the most powerful, but it's a quick and affordable entry into DTP.
Pros: Easy-to-use, template-driven program.
Cons: Limited freedom to produce custom designs.
Price: £49.99 (ex. VAT)
Contact: Greenstreet Software 01480 496 789
www.greenstreetsoftware.com

PC MAGAZINE EDITOR'S CHOICE

It's hard to beat Publisher 4 Gold Edition on sheer price, as it's the only product in this group to cost less than £50 (ex. VAT). When compared to expensive behemoths, such as PageMaker 7.0 and Canvas 8 Professional Edition, Publisher 4 seems an absolute bargain. It also boasts a useful range of layout and graphics features. However, there's an important proviso.

Some features, such as the web output option, counted towards its feature score, but didn't work as effectively as similar features in many of its rivals. As a result, we can recommend Publisher 4 Gold Edition only for complete beginners who aren't likely to need a full range of features.

USABILITY SEAL OF APPROVAL

PagePlus 8.0 wins our Usability Seal of Approval. Although it was beaten into second place on the Satisfaction index by Publisher 2002, it achieved the highest overall score on our Usability graph and exceeded the other products in terms of productivity and intuitiveness.

Our testers felt that this was the best all-round product for beginners and that it offered sufficiently advanced features to support more ambitious users.

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!