INTRODUCTION TO DESKTOP PUBLISHING

In this chapter, ‘electronic publishing’ is used to mean ‘desktop publishing’ which refers to laying out text, graphics and pictures in order to produce a professional-looking print publication.

Download and install the following softwares that we shall be using while studying this course.

1. Microsoft Office 2010 https://drive.google.com/file/d/18p9ZHoxhRRFy01BfmLemjccMiFhRowbd/view?usp=sharing
2. Support Files https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iU5k9hy4E-mEp1hp-dOjOAOoVd03Dz6z?usp=sharing
3. For zipping and unzipping use this software (Winrar) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10QCneHc39W-xZJwyK6NvmwbcY62rajNS?usp=sharing

A desktop publishing software (popularly known as DTP) is a specialized program used to create publications of professional quality using a Computer.

COMPARING WORD-PROCESSING AND DESKTOP PUBLISHING FEATURES

• Desktop Publishing and Word Processing have many similar features, and it may not be obvious which of the two packages you should use to produce a document. The similarities are:
• Both deal with text, which can be formatted (font, size, colour, bold, italic, etc.)
• Both can contain pictures and tables
• Microsoft Word and Publisher have similar features, such as, WordArt, colour schemes, text boxes, etc.

EXAMPLES OF POPULAR DTP SOFTWARE

• Adobe PageMaker,
• Microsoft Office Publisher,
• QuarkXPress,
• Adobe In Design,
• Serif Page Plus
• Apple Page 2.
• Adobe illustrator

ADVANTAGES OF DESKTOP PUBLICATION

Low cost affair – The first and foremost benefit of electronic publishing is the low cost associated with it. The publisher need not spend extra bucks to get the books or papers printed. Also, the sum of expenses involved in setting up a few state-of-the-art computers and offering online access to readers is way less compared to printing volumes of material. Moreover, the distribution cost is absolutely zero in case of electronic publishing.

Environment-friendly – Digital printing is a more eco-friendly method as there is negligible use pf paper. Unlike traditional printing where reels of paper are wasted in printing the first copy, the proofread copy and finally, the printable version, electronic publishing manages this using various publishing tools and sharing them over mails or on the Web.

Improved quality – The final product offered to the reader through electronic publishing is of a premium quality not only in terms of the animations, live links, interactive content, videos, and graphics used, but also from the point of view of layout. A well-completed digital magazine engages a reader more than a physical magazine in hand, thanks to the appealing look of the published document.

Easy to update and edit documents – Articles and journals often need regular edits to have a better impact on the readers. A number of documents such as repair manuals also need to be kept up to date always so that they are of help to the person referring them. In case of print manuals, it is extremely expensive and tedious to keep the content updated. However, with electronic publishing, you just have to edit portions an existing manual and your document is ready to go live.

Wider reach – Printed material are limited and they reach only a specific number of readers. However, in the case of electronically published documents, the number of readers multiply extensively. In other words, digital publishing means an ever-growing reader base, provided the published document is worth a read.

In simple terms

• Every item on a page is contained in a frame and can be edited and formatted independently.
• Stories can be contained in a single frame or threaded between several frames.
• Frames need not to flow in logical sequence. For example a story on page 1 may be continued on page 8.
• Master pages are used to set a common layout which may be repeated on several pages. E.g Logo, page numbers.
• Publication can be printed in a form suitable for commercial printing e.g using colour separations.
• Wide range of templates is available e.g brochures, booklets, posters, business cards.
• Multiple stories from different authors can be handled with ease.

Disadvantages of electronic publishing

Marketing efforts are high – Although the distribution costs associated with digital publishing is almost zero, the effort required to market the publication is quite high. Although nowadays social media marketing plays a pivotal role in such scenarios, growing readership may take time.

Chances of plagiarism – Most of the electronically published articles are available easily on the Internet. As such, several authors remain apprehensive of losing their copyright on the content. There is no dearth of people who are ready to plagiarize quality material, and electronic publishing, in an indirect way, makes way for it.

COMMON FEATURES OF DTP SOFTWARE

• Similar features as a word processor but rich / enhanced like text boxes, text formatting features, drawing and graphics tools.
• Most DTP packages provide a large, ready made range of professional looking templates to enable one to quickly and easily create a publication.
• Easy to use wizards which guide you through creating a publication.
• Frames/ place holders that allow text and images to freely move around the page.

Most DTPs provide the user with a variety of tools for designing, manipulating and editing a publication such as;

1. Select Tool: Used to select, move and resize images and text.
2. Text Tool: Used to draw text frames, insert and manipulate text.
3. Shapes Tools: used for drawing basic shapes e.g. rectangles and importing objects.
4. Zoom Tool: used for magnifying publications view.
5. Rotate Tool: used for rotating text or graphics.
6. Printable Area. This resembles a typical piece of paper surrounded by margins. Objects to be printed must appear in the printable area.
7. This is a large blank space surrounding the printable area where objects are designed or edited before placing them on the printable area.
8. Measurements are important in publishing. A good DTP must have both horizontal and vertical rulers.
9. Master Page. These are the main pages used to design a common layout for a large publication.  You insert page numbers, headers and footers on the master pages.
10. Tool Box. This contains a set of tools used to design and manipulate text and graphical objects.
11. Crop marks are marks which facilitate trimming of business cards.
12. Tracking refers to the visual denseness between all text characters
13. Kerning is fixing the space between a pair of characters.
14. Filling refers to applying a solid color or patterns to a drawing
15. Stroke refers to the outline style.
16. Cropping is clipping or cutting off unwanted parts of a graphical object particularly a picture.

STARTING PUBLISHER

We are going to use Microsoft Publisher for all examples and practical aspects of this topic.

Before we learn how to create documents in publisher, lets first open and take a look around the Publisher window.

The Publisher window contains many parts that work together to make creating a document easy.

Opening Publisher on Windows

• On the Start Menu, point to all programs, Microsoft Office and then Click Microsoft Office Publisher.
• Choose a design template or Click New to design from scratch.
• On the File menu, Click Page Setup, select publication type and orientation.
• On the Arrange menu, click Layout Guides, Set margins and other properties.
• Click the Ok button.
• Alternatively from your working folder create a publisher document.

WORKING WITH EXAMPLES PRACTICALLY

PRACTICAL QUESTION ONE: Business Card

In each of the following spaces, you are going to the design identical business cards with the following details. You are advised to use appropriate formatting and positioning of the details below to make your card fit in the space created.

• Design eight identical borders’ business cards tiled on portrait A4 page size 3.5 widths and 2 heights.
• The card layout and spacing is as follows:

Left and Right margin should be 0.5

Top and bottom margins 0.7

The vertical and horizontal gap between cards 0.6

• Insert a picture to act as your logo
• Adjust the size of the image maintaining the aspect ratio
• Insert company name as EBIRUNGI BIRUGA OMUTUTU SACCO LTD–KASHAKA BRANCH and make it pink in color
• Use your Name and Registration Number as the owner of the card
• Telephone:+256712111000
• Address: P.O Box 33 Bushenyi, Bushenyi main street
• E-mail: ebosacco@kasaka.co.ug
• Insert your name and index number in a footer
• Save your publication as EBO- your names and personal number.

PRACTICAL QUESTION TWO: FOOD MENU OF A RESTAURANT

In this task you will develop and modify a food menu of a restaurant

• Using an appropriate program, load a file called pub from the support files folder images          
• Adjust the dimensions of the page as follows
• Left margin and Right margin to 0.6
• Top margin and Bottom margin to 0.7
• Using Word Art, put the name of the restaurant of your choice
• Change the Word Art shape to Triangle down

By use of page guides, divide your page to appear as follows

Develop a menu that should include the following information

1. Three types of foods
2. Three types of snacks
3. Three types of cold drinks
4. Three types of warm drinks

•       First column for the item names
•       Second column for their respective prices
•       Change the page back ground to an appropriate color
•       Insert party glass art page boarders
•       Import images from the folder named images and distribute evenly on the page.
• Insert a footer of your name and index number
•       Print and save the changes as your name

PRACTICAL QUESTION THREE: REPORT CARD

Using a publication program of your choice, design a Report card with the following details;

       Instructions;

• Use paper size A4 portrait.
• Name of the school-Boeteng Secondary School

Box No.12 Abim

Telephone No.0786141819/0756111213

email: boetengsecondaryschool@gmail.com

• Include ten(10) subjects taught in the school
• Make relevant use of word Art and text boxes, fonts
• Have a provision for Mid-Term exams, End of term Exams, Total marks, teacher’s comments and initials.
• Provide for the class teachers comment, head teachers comments and their signatures.
• Have a better balance of the publication.
• Include your name on the footer.
• Save your work as a Report card.

PRACTICAL QUESTION THREE: CERTIFICATE

You are the chairperson of the either Christian association or the Islamic association at your school, and you are preparing for the handover party in which your cabinet will hand over to the new leaders of 2020/2021 cabinet. However, you notice that you have not yet designed certificates for the members of your cabinet.

• Using a desktop publishing program of your choice, create a certificate of service with dimension 11.693 by 8.268 inches.
• Add suitable text phrases on the certificate describing the name of the association, nature of the certificate, name of recipient, year of service and cabinet post of recipient.

• Use your name and post (chairperson) for the recipient details and add two signatories (the patron and the head teacher) at the bottom of the certificate.
• Apply a suitable border art around your certificate.
• Use the logos provided in the folder to add an appropriate religious symbol of your choice to the center of the master background page of your publication.
• Save your work as 2020-2021 Certificates and print out a copy of your certificate.
• Make four duplicates of the certificate and put the following on each.

The images are in the folder provided and print.

PRACTICAL QUESTION SIX: RECIPE

You are going to design a recipe card with two pages similar to recipepage1.jpg and recipepage2.jpg (these images are included in the support file folder for reference only).

(a) Launch a desktop publishing program and create a new blank A4 portrait publication. Save it as Chicken Recipe.pub.

(c) Switch to the master page and draw a rectangular textbox, fitting along the entire boundary of the margin guides.

(d) Apply a candy corn art border to the textbox in (c) above.

(e) Insert the image banner.png, resize and place it just below the top border of the textbox on the master page.

(f) Insert a WordArt with the words RECIPE: Chicken Stuffed with Spices. Format and place it below the banner. Close the master view and save.

(g) Copy the text in the document Ingredients.doc into a new textbox in the publication. Format the textbox to two columns and apply a 15pt diamond bullet style.

(h). Format the Subheadings Ingredients and For the Chicken to stand out of the rest of the text using font style comic sans and a color of your choice.

(i) Insert the Images Cinnamon.tif, Coriander.tif and Nutmeg.tif. Format them to square text-wrapping and place them within the ingredients text.

(j) Open the document Nutritionist text.doc, copy and paste all the text at the bottom of the page. Apply the same format to the heading Note from the Nutritionist like the formats on the subheadings in (h) above.

(k) Draw an oval auto shape, format it with a double line boarder and set the picture Nutritionist.png as its fill effect, maintaining the picture aspect ratio.

(k) Apply a drop cap onto the first paragraph of the nutritionist text. Format it to drop three lines and to a color of your choice.

(l) Create a new page in the publication and insert the images PLATE.png and CUTLERY.png placing them appropriately at the bottom of the page.

(m) Copy the text in the document Directions.doc and paste it into a textbox on the new page two, above the images. Format the textbox to two columns and apply a bullet style onto each sentence as shown in recipepage2.jpg.

(n)Add your name and personal number in the footer and print your work.

PRACTICAL QUESTION SEVEN: BOOK COVER

In a bid to regain their target market taken away by Picfare Industries, Musana Industries limited has approached you to redesign for them the front book cover of their 96 page exercise book. The following details have been provided to you.

Company Name:         Musana Industries LTD

1^st Floor Uganda House

Kampala Road,

P.O.Box 9396, Kampala

Tel: +25604142304416,

Customercare@picfare.com

www.picfare.com

Using any publishing software of your choice. Design a book cover using the criteria below.

• Paper and Margins settings
  • A4 size
  • Portrait
• Include a logo (Musana logo)on top of the book cover with a text inclusive reading “where quality matters”.
• Include the following text in an appropriate position on your on the cover as it appears here.
• Include a text box showing the number of pages contained in the book as shown above at an appropriate position.
• Include a header and footer as your name and personal number respectively.
• Use appropriate font type, font color, background and include a page boarder around your book cover.
• Save your work as “Book cover” and Print.