Desktop Publishing Layout

Layout involves arranging the text and graphics on the page. The text may flow from column to column on multicolumn documents like the newspaper. You may have to move text from one part of a document to another using the electronic pasting features. You can incorporate illustrations on a page with text. Borders may be drawn around text or illustrations. Illustrations may be sized (made smaller or larger), and additional letter spacing and leading may be added to create a full page. To lay out a pleasing document requires experience and practice as well as a good eye for balance. You will find the following features in most desktop publishing packages:

l Lay out pages and edit page layouts\ You can lay out pages electronically, rather than having to cut and paste using scissors and glue.

l Incorporate text and graphics\ Your text and graphics can be electronically merged together in the layout.

l Multiple columns, column widths, and heights\ The software automatically formats multiple columns on continued pages. You specify how many columns are to be on a page and the amount of gutter space desired. Gutter space is the amount of space between columns.

l Vertical/horizontal printing\ Material can be printed either vertically or horizontally on a sheet of paper.

l Fit copy to page\ You can fit the copy to a page either by reducing the type size, increasing or decreasing borders or margins, and any other number of creative ways you can come up with-changing the size of an illustration, cutting off (cropping) an illustration, or even rewording some of the text.

Automatic page numbering\ You can have the software automatically number the pages.

Headers and footers\ You can also have appropriate headers (titles) at the top of every page and footers at the bottom of every page. Headers or footers can usually include page numbers.

Desktop Publishing Graphics

Desktop publishing packages have the capability to scan or import illustrations/graphics either from hardcopy or from digital data. The following are

graphics features you can expect to find in DTP packages:

l Graphic images\ You can add images, borders, lines, arrows, and so on, of various sizes to the text.

l Shrink/expand and edit images\ You can reduce or enlarge images to fit in a desired space. If necessary, the images can be altered or edited.

l Accept images from scanners or other draw programs\ You can import images from a _{scanner or digitizer.} These images can be in either text or graphic form. Images can also be imported from either a paint or draw-type graphics package.

l Layered output for color printing\ You can create camera-ready copy for color separation work when an outside printing process is required. Color work is done by creating up to as many as four film negatives (one for each of the primary colors\red, yellow, and blue) plus black. Each negative is used to create a separate printing plate for each color. Then, as the colors are overprinted, the color of the original photograph is reproduced.