Producing professional DTP destined for commercial print

This tutorial was produced with PageMaker 6 but the advice  contained is still useful for more recent versions.

Introduction

A few months ago I looked at the steps involved in the creation of a leaflet using the drawing program Corel Draw. I’m now going to look at what might initially seem like a similar project, the production of a one-page programme of events. In fact the project is entirely different and requires a completely different approach. The amount of information to get over in the leaflet was relatively small and, even then, Corel Draw’s text handling was pushed to the limit. The amount of information to get over in the programme is far higher and so we must turn to the dedicated text-handling skills of a DTP program.

I’ve chosen to use the market leader, PageMaker, but the lessons and challenges involved are equally relevant to any of the professional DTP packages (see Professional DTP box-out). The fundamental lesson, and the basis of all successful work, is an understanding of what good design does. The purpose of design is to assist in the communication of information. This can be broken down into three stages: attract the reader’s attention; help the reader to understand and assimilate the desired information; keep the reader’s attention throughout the process. The ultimate test of a good design is if all the information it contains has been read and understood.