File Preparation: Make the Best Software Choice

There are quite a few different applications on the market for Desktop Publishing and Design. Listed here are a few of these applications along with a little explanation of how each application should be used. Many times office personnel try to get these applications to do things they were not intended to do, so please look closely and use a program that will suit what you are trying to do.

Layout & Design

QuarkXpress - Good layout software for brochures, single page fliers, books, and complicated design work. Has more image manipulation and drawing capabilities than the average layout software.

Adobe PageMaker - Good layout software for brochures, single page fliers, books, and complicated design work. Not as involved as Quark and a little more user friendly. (No real drawing capabilities.)

Adobe InDesign - Good layout software for brochures, single page fliers, books, and complicated design work. Has more image manipulation and drawing capabilities than the average layout software.

Microsoft Publisher - Software for brochures, single page fliers. Not as involved as Quark. No real drawing capabilities. Supported only by the Copy Center when files are sent as PDF's. Any Publisher files presented for offset printing will have to be converted to PageMaker, InDesign or QuarkXpress at the customers cost.

Illustration & Graphic Art

Adobe Illustrator - Illustration software, excellent for line art, logo design, and graphic illustration. Great tool for line drawings and dynamic blending, type on a path, and has all the Photoshop filters available as well.

Macromedia Freehand - - Illustration software, excellent for line art, logo design, and graphic illustration. Great tool for line drawings and dynamic blending, type on a path. Also has more vector blending/gradient capabilities than Illustrator, but less user friendly.

Other

Adobe Photoshop - Digital manipulation and imaging software. Allows the complicated manipulation of photos and digital images via filters, and dynamic tools. Very good for image retouching and color correcting of photos.

Adobe Acrobat - Digital document creation and viewing software. Allows one to convert single paged, and multiple paged documents into a digital format for use on the web and/or trouble shooting problem documents

MS Word - Word processing software created by Microsoft. Great for word processing at your desk, when you can print to your printer but no good for offset printing . Limitations in software make it difficult to do proper, efficient layout. Any MS Word files presented for offset printing will have to be converted to PageMaker, InDesign or QuarkXpress at the customers cost.

MS PowerPoint - Presentation software created by Microsoft. This software is great for creating slides/transparencies for a presentation. Limitations in the software prevent this from being an efficient layout program. Supported only by the Copy Center when files are sent as PDF's.

MS Excel Database software created my Microsoft. Great for creating databases and graphs. Limitations in the software prevent this from being an efficient layout program.