Readers Respond: What Kind of Desktop Publishing Do You Do?

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Beginner

I am new at this and have to make flyers for conventions, seminars and other events. I am not computer literate as others but know how to do Word, Excel, etc. What program would be best for me and what books would be helpful. Please advise.

—Guest JaEG

Brochures, Fliers, Promotional Materials

I am currently doing a limited number of fliers, prochures and promotional pieces for a non-profit organization. My supervisor is wanting me to expand into other areas and we are looking at Creative Suite. Love the satisfaction (and comments) when I do something that looks good. Comments here have been a great help and love the website. I'm learning so much!

—Guest Carol

NEWS LETTER title IN-TOUCH

LOCAL ELDER RESIDENTS SHELTED HOUSING ONCE A MONTH PRINT AND DELIVER MOST ALSO POSTS FOR OUR EVENTS ON NOTICE BOARD I USE XARA PRO6 GREAT DESIGNER PROGRAM MOSTED OF OUR RESIDESTS HAVANT GOT COMPUTERS USED TO BE 2 A4 NOW 1 A4 BOTH SIDES RISING COSTS ON INK AL SO A3 FOR THE POORLY SIGHTED KEEP GOING UP NEVER MIND HOPE THIS GIVE YOU SOME IDEA WHAT WE DO THANK JAMES

—Guest james.j.birch@btinternet.com

High School Newspaper

I will have to use Word Publisher, I am a little worried. It looks like Word Proccesor though so I guess I will be ok.

—Guest Sarah Brightman

Full service

I try to give the client a complete package, from logo design to webpages,mobile pages,to printed materials

—pixl007

Desktop publishing

I use Corel Draw to write and design a quarterly newsletter for a non-profit organization. Great graphics program, you can get creative, but definitely wasn't written for text, which is at least half the newletter. Desktop publishing bundles -- even the programs by themselves -- are too expensive.

—Guest Vivienne Maisner

Adobe CS5

I specialize in marketing and do a lot of print and web work both so I've purchased the master suite. I have to say the stability of CS5 has been the biggest improvement especially in premier. For desktop publishing, I hate to admit but I do most of my small layout work in Illustrator because of its ease of use and speed. I also use photoshop for cleaning up photos before putting them in to my layouts. Of course, multi-page documents in indesign. The real beauty of this collection is their ability to work together, a huge time saver. I can take a photo from photoshop into indesign and premier at the same time.

—BrianThivierge

publishing for business

magfazines, business cards and am now venturing into magazines

—Guest Jared

Corporate Identy

Much of my work relates to Website and Logo Design. For logo's I use Corel Painter (having studied painting in college). This software has allowed me much of the freedoms I've had when working freehand, only it's a much more efficient and progressive method. For much of the layout part, I work with Adobe InDesign. It's very technical and easy to use when planning what a website should look like.

—Guest Dwolv

Professional Graphic Artist

I use Adobe Creative Suite...for everything. If you can think of it I have designed it...it's the best job ever... There will never be enough RAM for me...people say my files are huge...that's everyday for me... Latest awesome design...the new Pizza Box...with flames and a cool font... Do what you love and you'll love what you do.

—Guest cindyloutoo

What about Freehand?

I published a small newspaper for several years using Freehand MX, and Photoshop for editing pictures. I don't understand how Photoshop can be used for layouts and text. I would like to learn Illustrator but its just too expensive. As Freehand seems to be extinct, and employers and clients demand newer programs, I've stopped taking DP jobs for now. I'd like to hear of a good program which is cheaper to buy than Illustrator or Dreamweaver.

—Guest Chaya

Desktop Publishing

I am a high school teacher who had a typesetting business. I still use PM65 but am tempted by Serif PagePlus. I now use my skills (and Word) for my one remaining client and design forms and tests for other educators that look better than cut and paste. Students always ask "What do they want in number 10?" rather than what do YOU want. They assume the tests and worksheets come from a book company. Hate to brag, but ... my stuff is better looking, easier to read and the line lengths make sense! Don't get me started on dot leadering. I miss working in the design field, but I get to do a bit of it anyway. I don't offer to do every dance poster or ticket. Part of me does not want to do for free what I used to be paid for.

—MaryODonnell

Desktop Publishing

I've been in the print industry for 30 years and doing page design since the early '90's. Photoshop isn't the best way to do page layout. Because the files are made up of pixels, they don't scale well and can look quite bad if enlarged. If you can afford it, use InDesign. It's a fantastic program and give you incredible design flexibility.

—Guest George

Pages All The Way

I too use Pages, the desktop publishing software for Macs. When I first saw Pages it literally blew my mind with all the templates available. I really liked the idea of starting with a template (resume/newsletter/invoice etc) and dropping in my own images and content, instead of creating something from scratch. Pages has made things much easier, and much more prettier for my design! I use it frequently. The only thing I'd like to do is be able to save as a .PDF file. But there is ways around that. :)

—CoolPostcards

Village magazine

Hi, I publish a monthly magazine for my Cambridgeshire village of Fulbourn on behalf of the church of St Vigor's (Church of England), using InDesign and Photoshop from Adobe CS3 Master Edition, which is a Godsend. To give you a bit of an idea what it is like, this is the blog that I'm starting as an etension of it: http://fulbournmill.blogspot.com

—Guest Gerry Dorrian