Any logo, greeting card, photo collage, newsletter, or book cover that might be created using desktop publishing techniques is composed of a combination of specific elements. They are the individual building blocks that all come together to make what we instantly recognize as the About logo with its red ball, the cover of PC World magazine, or our own face rendered as a caricature.

People go to college and take hours and hours of classes to learn all about the elements of design and how to use them but you’re going to get a crash course introduction in today’s daily dose – without stepping foot in a classroom.

Class Notes: This is not simply a word-a-day course. The lessons follow a specific order in roughly the following groupings: General concepts > Things you need > Font specifics > Image specifics > Prepress & Printing > Rules & Tutorials (bold indicates the stage in which this lesson falls)

Today’s Definition
Elements of Design
Can you draw a straight (or crooked) line, pick a color from a box of crayons, or put a square peg into a round hole?

Today’s Trivia
Digital Elements of Design
Much like molecules are made up of atoms which in turn are made up of even smaller components, the elements of design can be further broken down into more basic bits – a drop of ink, a dot made with the tip of a pencil. In desktop publishing one of the tiniest elements is a pixel – short for picture element. A pixel is the digital equivalent of a drop of ink or that pencil dot. It’s the smallest element that makes up what you see on your computer screen. Learn more…

Printing is easy, right? You just push the print button in your software and a few minutes later that printer sitting next to your desk starts churning out the pages. But what if you need hundreds or thousands of copies? What if you need to use paper larger than your laser printer can handle? What if you want to use metallic inks or raised printing?

There are dozens of ways to go about printing the files you create doing desktop publishing. In today’s daily dose of DTP I’ll break it down into two main methods to give you a taste of how printing works beyond the print button.

Class Notes: This is not simply a word-a-day course. The lessons follow a specific order in roughly the following groupings: General concepts > Things you need > Font specifics > Image specifics > Prepress & Printing > Rules & Tutorials (bold indicates the stage in which this lesson falls)

Today’s Definition
Printing
If you’re doing desktop publishing, chances are you’re going to want to print your fabulous creations. Get a taste for what that really means.

Today’s Trivia
Printing On and Off the Web
Both sheetfed and Web presses are used for some types of commerical printing. A Web press has nothing to do with the Internet. It’s just a type of printing press that prints on continuous rolls of paper. You’ve probably seen a Web press on TV or in the movies – it’s those monster presses used to print newspapers. A sheetfed press, as you may have guessed, prints on single sheets of paper (sometimes very large sheets of paper).

Q&A
What’s the Difference Between Commercial & Desktop Printers?
It’s man vs. machine when comparing a commercial printer with a desktop printer. Discover what each means and how to tell by context which printer is meant in desktop publishing articles and tutorials about printing.

How Do Commercial & Desktop Printing Differ?
The two primary differences in offset printing and desktop (inkjet) printing are the colors of ink and the way the ink is placed on the paper. The method of printing dictates how the desktop publishing document must be prepared.

Prepress
Before you press, prepress

Today’s Trivia
Prepress Exposed
Traditional prepress uses camera operators and strippers. No, I’m not talking about making X-rated movies. The camera operators take a picture of the material to be printed and make negatives. Strippers cut the negatives to the required size and arrange and tape the film negatives onto flats or sheets from which printing plates are made for the printing press. These types of prepress jobs are on the decline, in large part due to desktop publishing. Learn more

What Are You Learning?
Time for a Testimonial
In case you started wondering whether this was any way to learn desktop publishing… Posted in the DTP Classroom:

“I have noticed, and not only me, that since I have been doing the classes, my designing is improved, even though DTP is not design, it certainly has helped! Today somebody asked a collegue of mine about the meaning of a word (rasterizing). He didn’t know, but I knew the answer and I have shown him the related DTP definitions (Bitmap and Vector). I have got my topics to talk about at parties, whenever they swing onto DTP subjects… Eh, eh!”

You get out of this course what you put into it. (Desktop Publishing as party chatter? Hmmmm….)

It’s a verb. It’s a noun. It’s what we do and what is created when doing desktop publishing. Today we’re exploring the multiple meanings of page layout — the heart of desktop publishing.

Some business people consider a business plan an essential component of doing business. It gives them direction and focus. In desktop publishing we need a plan as well. Our page layout is that plan. It shows us where things go and how it all fits together. As with business plans, our page layout may change over time. We’ll move things around, add new pieces, take parts away depending on what we need to accomplish.

Class Notes: This is not simply a word-a-day course. The lessons follow a specific order in roughly the following groupings: General concepts > Things you need > Font specifics > Image specifics > Prepress & Printing > Rules & Tutorials (bold indicates the stage in which this lesson falls)

Today’s Definition
Page Layout
It also goes by names like page composition and document design. It’s at the heart of desktop publishing but it was around long before desktop publishing existed.

Today’s Trivia
Pasting Without Sticky Fingers
Many page layout programs use a pasteboard analogy. Your page sits in the middle of the pasteboard. You can move blocks of text and images off the page and leave them sitting on the pasteboard. You can pan or zoom out to view what’s on the pasteboard. It’s a convenient holding area while playing with your design and it’s one way that desktop publishing software differs from word processing software.

Q&A
What is a Text Frame and How is it Used in DTP?
All objects placed on the page or the pasteboard in a desktop publishing software application have a sometimes invisible bounding box or frame around the object – the name used by the software application may vary… Learn more.

Welcome to your Daily Dose of DTP. As you may have already known or realized, DTP is an acronym for desktop publishing — not a vaccination for diptheria, pertussis, tetanus (that’s DPT). Defining desktop publishing is the first step in learning desktop publishing.

Today’s daily dose is a triple-treat because desktop publishing, graphic design, and Web publishing are all so closely related that some people think they are all the same thing. But, as you’re about to discover, that isn’t exactly true.

Class Notes: This is not simply a word-a-day course. The lessons follow a specific order in roughly the following groupings: General concepts > Things you need > Font specifics > Image specifics > Prepress & Printing > Rules & Tutorials (bold indicates the stage in which this lesson falls)

Today’s Definitions
Desktop Publishing
It’s a process… and it’s a type of software. It’s also what we’re going to be exploring for the next several weeks so make this your first stop today.

Graphic Design
It’s the granddaddy of DTP and Web design. Compare the definition of graphic design to that of desktop publishing. It’s easy to see why the two terms are so often confused.

Web Design
Some have called it graphic design for the Web. So, I guess that means that the related term ‘Web publishing’ is desktop publishing for the Web?

Today’s Trivia
When Was Desktop Publishing Invented?
Several events of the mid-1980s including the development of Aldus PageMaker (now Adobe PageMaker) ushered in the era of desktop publishing. It was primarily the 1985 introduction of both the Apple LaserWriter, a PostScript desktop printer, and PageMaker for the Mac that kicked off the desktop publishing revolution. Learn more…

Q&A
Who Does Desktop Publishing?
Where is Desktop Publishing Used?
Why is Desktop Publishing Important?
What is the Difference Between Graphic Design and DTP?