What Is Desk Top Publishing?

Desktop publishing refers to the production of high quality printed documents with the assistance of a personal computer or a work station. It synthesizes the capabilities of typesetting, graphic design; book production and platemaking in one integrated, cost effective hardware and software station. The display screen enables the user to view how a document would exactly look after printing while using a desktop publishing system. It was developed to enable the creation of professional looking newsletters, magazines and brochures with the inclusion of picture, diagrams and colour. But with the advent of word processing software DTP is now just a tool in the hands of professionals though smaller companies still use DTP to produce letterheads, reports and newsletters. Thus the term is still used to denote page layout skills. It started in 1985 with the introduction of the Pagemaker software.