Talk:Desktop publishing/Archives/2013

first desktop publishing on IBM

While the Mac programs were certainly influential, desktop publishing was done on IBM PCs even before the Macintosh was introduced. Here is The Seybold Report on Publishing Systems--the most authoritative source--on personal computer publishing programs from 1985 (vol 15, no. 2): "Bestinfo. This little company from near Philadelphia got the jump on the competition with the first WYSIWYG composition program running on a personal computer..."

And Seybold Report for February 13, 1984 (vol. 13, no. 10) says Bestinfo used this program in production in 1983, although it was not yet offered for sale then. There were also other early desktop publishing programs on the IBM PC, including Studio Software. There is no doubt that desktop publishing on the Macintosh soon surpassed that on the IBM PC, but desktop publishing actually began on the IBM platform. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.23.193.199 (talk) 18:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The category of desktop publishing software was in existence before 1984 and it was not invented on the PC or the Mac.

I used a desktop publishing program created for the Apple II, back in 1979, 1980 or 1981. Its name was Gutenberg. This was a WYSIWYG editor that allowed creation of complex equations and other complex graphic elements and integration of them with text. Document length was limited only by available storage.

When I worked at WordStar (then called MicroPro) in 1983, we were well aware of desktop publishing software. We saw it as a different entity from our word processing software. The exemplar, for us, ran on the Xerox STAR (which we had sometimes used to lay out manuals for our products). The STAR came out, I believe, in 1981. CemKaner (talk) 01:21, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

"Normal" desktop publishing vs. professional desktop publishing?

The article sometimes just uses "desktop publishing", and sometimes "professional desktop publishing", which gives me the impression that it separates between the two. Does it do that intentionally?

It also seems to suggest that normal desktop publishing would normally be less powerful that traditional typography and printing, as it says that "when used skillfully, desktop publishing software can produce printed literature with attractive layouts and typographic quality comparable to traditional typography and printing". Is it the case that normal desktop publishing is normally less powerful? —Kri (talk) 11:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Reference needed?

'There are two types of pages in desktop publishing, electronic pages and virtual paper pages to be printed on physical paper pages. All computerized documents are technically electronic, which are limited in size only by computer memory or computer data storage space' I'm doing my dissertation on technology and the printed page, but can't seem to find any other references anywhere online to a 'virtual paper page'. Is this a genuine term? It's not referenced and for all I know could be completely made up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.82.45.12 (talk) 09:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)