Re: DEBATE: Word-processing or DTP

Subject: Re: DEBATE: Word-processing or DTP
From: Damien Braniff <Damien_Braniff -at- PAC -dot- CO -dot- UK>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 08:32:41 +0100

An interesting question and one where I've seen the situation change over
my career as a writer. For the first 4/5 years of my career (not that long
ago!) work was done as Bernie suggested. Originally my work was done in
pencil and handed over to be typed, formatted etc with gaps left, where
indicated, for drawing to be added later (cut 'n' stick!). Then we got
WP packages (Samna I think, AmiPro pre-cursor) and again the text was
passed to the "typists" for formatting and layout. And then we got to where
we are now - Jack of all trades! I'm not quite sure just when this
happened - probably with the arrival of packages which were "easy" to use
and where graphics could be integrated. Why did it happen? Two main
reasons spring to mind:

Companies felt they could save money - why have two people doing two
jobs when one could do both.

Writers felt that they should have control of the "process", not just
the words. And so we became "designers" as well as writers. Plus, of
course, with reference to (1) this made us more employable - a very
powerful reason and one still going strong. How many ads do we see
where specific package expertise is required?

Damien Braniff
Technical Author
PAC International




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