Desktop publishing basic help needed

[jrong]

I want to learn more about desktop publishing in order to put a photo book on lulu.com or some other online publishing company. Can anyone recommend a good software and accompanying book to do this? The only criteria is that both are not too obscure, and that the software needs to run on an Apple Mac. :)

Jin

[MartinP]

Have a look at OpenOffice. It is open-source and does pdf's without additional software. There are also open-source enhanced pdf making tools. It is not specifically a dtp tool but it makes a good job of frames and columns, wrapping etc.

Check compatibility with your machine here Mac OS X (X11) (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/Mac%20OS%20X%20%28X11%29) .

Good luck.

[lilin menyala]

it is expensive, but undoubtedly quark xpress is a fantastic desktop publishing programme, especially for layouting books.

[markinlondon]

The OSX/Aqua port of OpenOffice is NeoOffice.

http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

[Paul T.]

Xpress used to be the ultimate DTP package. But it has now been abandoned by most users in favor of InDesign, which is much more versatile, particularly for getting a document print-ready. However, I doubt either are worth the investment for a one-off, so I'm sure OpenOffie is worth investigating.

[Finder]

InDesign and QuarkXpress are the desktop publishing software. They work about the same - I use both. You would also need Photoshop and perhaps Illustrator. Illustrator is the way to generate graphics - you don't want to make graphics in a raster-based software like Photoshop. Then all you need something like Acrobat Professional to generate the post script document. Adobe Creative Suite has a DTP package.

As far as books, I like the Bible series. They have a great amount of detail. However, they don't take you through the process. Abobe has a Classroom series that does teach you the process, but is short on the detail. That may not be a big problem as you only need a relatively small amount of the functionality of these programs to make a professional looking document.

[payasam]

OpenOffice is capable, all things considered. A freeware DTP package is Scribus. It runs on Linux and Windows, but I do not know if it has been ported to the Mac.

[jrong]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I just checked; Scribus does appear to have a Mac port!!! I'll definitely try that. Thanks.

Jin

[MartinP]

Oh yes - I forgot about Scribus. I think it's installed by default on my linux machine, but I have never tried to use it yet. It would be interesting to hear your opinion of it a bit later on. Have fun :)

[shadowfox]

I used Scribus last year to produce a marketing brochure and it's awesome. Although I use Linux.

The Mac OS X installation can be found here:
http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=3&page=1

[Hibbs]

I can recommend to you that you try to find the last copy of Macromedia Freehand. Now part of the Adobe stable, it will not be updated as they have Illustrator. You should be able to find a Mac version floating around somewhere online etc.

Freehand allows you to have multiple pages all different sizes if you like. For smaller projects, it is handy to have poster, flyers and postcards all within the same file.

Check it out if you haven't allready decided...it is so much more than just an illustration package.

~hibbs

[RayPA]

I worked on the last RFF book, and Brett (JoeFriday) picked up the layout duties. We sourced the previous/first RFF book from GeneW, and I believe the source was done with InDesign or Pagemaker. IIRC, Brett works professionally with QuarkXpress. He may have ported the doc to QuarkX, I forget (Brett?), but I think InDesign is becoming the applicatin of choice for this kind of layout. Anyway, InDesign, QuarkX, Pagemaker, and maybe even FrameMaker would work.

:)

[chrish]

If you're on a mac and free or cheap is the way you want to go, try apple's Pages software, part of iWork. Then when you're all done with it you can just go to file print and save it as a pdf.

If you feel like spending money, buy the adobe creative suite. InDesign is awesome and you get photoshop with it.

[ZeissFan]

The full boat for Adobe Creative Suite 2 is several thousand dollars and even more if you live in the EU zone (or so I've read).

[Farace]

I can recommend to you that you try to find the last copy of Macromedia Freehand. Now part of the Adobe stable, it will not be updated as they have Illustrator. You should be able to find a Mac version floating around somewhere online etc.

Are you sure they're not updating it? I know for a while they were updating both in parallel, and my preference is for Freehand. I find Illustrator counterintuitive. I suppose it's vice-versa for people that used Illustrator first.

I know there are 30-day full-featured demo versions of Freehand on the Adobe website (I've been known to download a demo for a project, knowing it will be finished before the demo expires! I can be a cheap SOB.)

[RayPA]

If you're on a mac and free or cheap is the way you want to go, try apple's Pages software, part of iWork. Then when you're all done with it you can just go to file print and save it as a pdf.

If you feel like spending money, buy the adobe creative suite. InDesign is awesome and you get photoshop with it.

I agree. There are a lot of much cheaper programs out there that cost a small fraction of the price of the professional level apps. They should all do the job.

:)

[fraley]

Aren't there some online publishers that offer templates for self-publishing? In other words, you wouldn't need to master desktop publishing unless you wanted a custom design.

[dpetrzelka]

InDesign is one of the most flexible publishing programs I've used- Quark has been all but abandoned in the professional publishing/design field.

InDesign is not cheap- but it is an increadibly powerful tool.

[RayPA]

InDesign is one of the most flexible publishing programs I've used- Quark has been all but abandoned in the professional publishing/design field.

InDesign is not cheap- but it is an increadibly powerful tool.

I agree. Adobe NAILED it. I think if you stick a peanut butter sandwich in a suite of products that include Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat the competition would still get crushed. It's' a killer package. The odd product in Adobe's catalog is Frame, which is another excellent program.

:)

[jrong]

InDesign is waaay too expensive for my purposes right now. :( Shame though, because it looks wonderful.

I installed Scribus on my Mac early this morning, it runs a little slowly as it is non-native, that's my only qualm with it right now. I also have iCalamus which I have no clue how to use - I've never used any desktop publishing software before so the learning curve is steep! Are there any decent online tutorials to help me get started? (first step is embedding an image on a page...).

Thanks for all the thoughts shared so far!

Jin

[MartinP]

Had a quick Google . . .

link to tutorials (http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=tutorials/freedomyug/scribustutorial)

EDIT: It appears that there is a native version available for Mac since Scribus 1.3.3.7, so it might be worth checking your version number and/or going direct to the Scribus site for the download.

[JoeFriday]

Ray is correct... I did the Book 2 layout in QuarkXPress.. I have extensive experience in both Quark and InDesign and can say that both are excellent programs.. Quark being the better of the two, slightly

comments of Quark being all but abandoned by the design industry are similar to reports of Mark Twain's death being exaggerated.. there is still a huge contingency of Quark users who understand how easier/quicker it is to work in that program, and value the color accuracy it provides.. something that InDesign hasn't completely mastered yet, particularly when porting to PDF documents (which is ironic, since Adobe owns both InDesign and Acrobat)

I think it's pretty clear that I strongly prefer Quark.. however, I'm forced to use InDesign at work, and it is a very good program.. but most users of InDesign are not people who have 'abandoned' Quark, but are actually new to the design industry and have never used anything but InDesign.. basically, they don't know what they're missing

that being said.. yes, Quark's user base is eroding, mostly because of the value that Creative Suite offers.. they practically throw in a layout program for free when you buy Photoshop and Illustrator (two 'must have' programs for any graphic artist)

but the bottom line is, both are very capable programs with all the features you could use.. and generally both are pretty expensive.. if you can get a hold of either one, they are worth the time and effort to learn

I worked on the last RFF book, and Brett (JoeFriday) picked up the layout duties. We sourced the previous/first RFF book from GeneW, and I believe the source was done with InDesign or Pagemaker. IIRC, Brett works professionally with QuarkXpress. He may have ported the doc to QuarkX, I forget (Brett?), but I think InDesign is becoming the applicatin of choice for this kind of layout. Anyway, InDesign, QuarkX, Pagemaker, and maybe even FrameMaker would work.

:)