DTP Programs

Desktop publishing is not for amateurs. The programs are expensive, call on considerable design experience, and take time to learn. Nonetheless, it may very well pay you to master these skills if you're self-publishing more than the one book.

A broad and somewhat subjective ranking of desktop publishing programs, based on our experience and Internet reading. Ranking is from 1 (missing) to 10 (superb).

The groupings are very general, but many graphic design studios are moving to Adobe's InDesign. Plug-ins exist for both InDesign and Xpress (indexing, tables, etc.), and for all shortcomings there are work-arounds. Backward convertibility remains an important issue (you can't read InDesign CS2 files with InDesign 2), but InDesign is a program engineered from scratch, and seems easier to learn. Corel Ventura and Framemaker address a loyal but specialist market (long, highly-structured technical manuals in XML).

Microsoft Word is not a page layout program but a word processing package with advanced features — one that, with basic image manipulation, macros and DBA programming, can be made to do most things in the commercial and scientific environments.

You will also need manuals to get the best from Desk Top Publishing programs, for which visit your local computer book store, second-hand booksellers like Alibris and Abebook, and/or booksellers like Amazon. Also consider sites and books on page layout. Some suggestions:

Resources

Perfect Pages: Book design, typography, and Microsoft Word. Aaron Shepard. 2006. 140 pp. $15.

The Complete Manual of Typography. James Felici. 2002. 384 pp. $29.

Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design Timothy Samara. 240pp. 2004. $38.

Typesetting. Extensive Wikipedia set of articles.

Typography 101. Covers basics, with brief listing.

Paul Baker Typography, Inc. Some matters illustrated.

Mark Boulton. Professional's site with much good sense.

Free e-texts on typography. Short listings but useful.

Typography. A very detailed site.

Editorial Freelancers Association. Resources for editors and publishers.

Design and Publishing. Online magazine with articles and critiques.

All Graphic Design. Article and examples.

dot-font: The Last Word on Book Design. CreativePro article.

The Elements of Typographic Style. A long-established favourite. $19.77

Desktop Publishing StyleGuide Basics of DTP design. $37.20

Check with the publisher if you're taking the POD route, as many will not preserve the DTP layout in your PDF and/or MS Word submissions.