In this article, we're going to cover Desk Top Publishing (DTP), some programs and third party accessories such as fonts, clip art, and books. Why the above title? Please read on.

First, let's define Desk Top Publishing. While many professionals cringe at the name, many neophytes think all DTP programs are the truly professional programs. The term originated from the ability of creating all aspects of a publication on a computer on your desk. However, people who had years of experience and knowledge in layout, graphics, design, writing, and art initially did this process. They received their education in the profession of publishing.

Publishing used to be the sole domain of professional graphic designers and printers. If you needed logos, letterheads, brochures and even Newsletters, you didn't have many choices. Computers have become part of many industries including the most obvious, the printing industry.

Newspapers, usually created by hand, moved into computers with word processing for writing and eventually the computer started taking on more manual tasks such as layout design, proofing, and graphics. Today, manual layout is almost nonexistent. There are many programs designed to enhance and fix photos used in major publications. Most likely, every commercial photo you see is not an original photo but a computerized version. This is a whole field in itself.

Most DTP programs were originally designed for professional use. Some of the best known is Adobe Page Maker, Quark, and Ventura. These programs are primary work tools that still require professional knowledge and talents for design and layout.

Since the technology was available, the general market was prime for these DTP programs on scaled down, or "lighter" versions. At first, the simpler programs could do banners, graphics and crude layouts. It was great! When these simpler DTP programs caught on, a true market was realized. The level of sophistication of the programs was improved. This created a market with even more competitors.

As usually happens with competition, each program offered more in capabilities and bells and whistles. Consequently, there are several DTP programs (and those who weakly claim they're DTP programs) available for the general market. They range from very simple to complex. Some are genuine DTP work programs and many are simple programs that do allow limited levels of publishing.

While there are many people who want to do their own brochures, newsletters, and such, many of the DTP programs do not include the professional experience and knowledge necessary for a true "professional" publication. Some programs come with templates that give you guides to work with while the more powerful programs expect you to know what you're doing.

A very important area of Desk Top Publishing knows what you want to do and how to do it. Knowing what to say, writing it, and using graphics, layouts, photos, and color separations, to professionally present your information is extremely important. Remember, DTP programs are tools to help you accomplish this.

While there are many products that allow you to do DTP, the question still arises about your knowledge and ability about publishing and all the elements you need to know. I'm sure you've seen amateur brochures that someone did himself or herself. You have also seen professional brochures that were done the right way. Just because someone has a hammer and saw doesn't mean they should build their own house.

However, if you really want to learn DTP and don't want to go to college for four years, we'll be covering a variety of available books. In addition, we'll also look at fonts and clip art, other elements very important to DTP.

Let's look at some of the other elements involved in DTP that are as equally important as the programs. Fonts, clip art, books and miscellaneous programs.

Let's begin with fonts. While the layout of publications is important, fonts are crucial as they will be the main conveyance of your ideas, facts and information. There are long standing general rules that apply to DTP font usage.

• Don't use more than three fonts in any publication, as they will distract.
• Use a font that will help create the impression you want in the publication. San serif fonts and serif fonts will have different looks that can help with the impression and ease of reading.
• Remembering that fonts can help create a look and feel of a publication, don't use obscure and difficult to read fonts just because they look different.

There are literally thousands of fonts for both IBM and Mac users. Many of these are the exactly same fonts with very slight variations and different names. This is important to remember before your start collecting a huge font library. However, if you are into lots of fonts, there are font management programs available to help manage your font collection. There are also font packages that are very unique and have they're own managing system. My personal preference is to stick to True Type fonts that work easily with Windows and do not require an extra management program. Keep only what you need! If you don't use certain fonts for a period of time, remove them for the extra memory. You can always add them back later.

While fonts help create a style, clip art is another way to enhance your publication. Years ago the only way you could add art to publications was to literally clip it out of a professional clip art worksheet and paste it in the publication. While there are still some publishers that use the physical cut and paste method, computers have made clip art very accessible for all. Cut and paste is easier than ever.

As in all computer programs, there are many low and high-end clip art suppliers. The quality will be range from simple art lines to high quality illustrations and photos. Clip art is similar to fonts. Clip art should be only used to enhance and support the written words. As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words!" Just because you have clip art doesn't mean you should use it, either.

A great way to research clip art use is to read different magazines and see how they do it. Both the good and the bad will stand out and you'll see many excellent examples of how pictures and/or clip art helped present and reinforce the article and publications ideas.

Clip Art is big business and many of the suppliers offer packages with partial or complete libraries. Many are thematic and some offer general images. Clip art packages range from general to very specific topics. "Funny Business" clip art presents cartoons usually seen in the New Yorker and other top line magazines. While these cartoons have a place, they are not for everyday use. Clip art quality will range from simple; almost stick figures, to top quality art illustrations. Of course, the higher the quality of the clip art the higher the price.

CD clip art libraries are now standard Some of the top end clip art suppliers are "Master Clips", "Presentation Task Force", "ClickArt" and "DigitArt". Some programs offer simple install programs and viewers to choose your clip art. "Presentation Task Force" offers a unique viewing system, exclusive to PTF images, which allow you to convert the clip art from color, to gray scale or black and white, or format, before transfer. "Master Clips" also has a program to do this. There are too many other clip art programs to mention here, but you should get the general idea.

Now let's look at two other areas in DTP that can help, writing services and DTP books.

Let's say you're doing an in house newsletter and you don't have enough articles to fill. There is a service from Dartnell called "ClipEdit" which provides various professionally written articles that you can use. These articles come in specific categories addressing HR/Personnel issues, Business and even humor. Licensing is based on publication numbers. The topics are timely and well written. There are similar services that can help ease the burden of writing all the articles.

Regarding books, there are many books that target specific layout programs such as "Look your Best with Ami Pro" and "Using PageMaker 5" from Que Publications. There are also general books that help understand DTP and range from simple ideas for layouts like "Graphic Design Cookbook" to complete detailed instruction books like "One Minute Designer", "Design for Desktop Publishing", and even "The Design of Books", all from Chronicle books. There's something to be learned from these books specializing in DTP. I recommend the local library as a great source for further research on other books.

While computers do allow us to delve into many areas previously limited just to professionals, the final DTP product will be determined by the all the talents, abilities, research and professional tools you bring into play. Just because you can use a hammer and saw doesn't mean you can, or should, build a house. If you want to get into DTP, do it right and learn all the elements necessary for a successful professional publication.

Design, layout and creative writing happen because of you! Then the DTP programs allow you to put it all together in a professional format. Just because you have a DTP program doesn't mean you are a Desk Top Publisher.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.