Topic 72

Economic effects of DTP on business by Vaibhav Bhandari

DTP stands for desktop publishing; a software which simply enables the process of creating and publishing professional-looking documents using microcomputers. This software is also widely known as “page layout program”. The objective of this program is to provide page designs or page layouts for visiting cards, flyers, brochures, posters, annual reports, coupons, and magazines. More specifically desktop publishing provides: rules, borders, page, chapter and caption numbering as well as precise typographic alignment. A key feature in desktop publishing which makes it special from normal word processing programs is that it is able to build flow text around graphic objects in a variety of ways. Although some word processing programs might be able to do the same however they aren’t as flexible as desktop publishing lets a user to be.

The first desktop publishing software was launched by Mac in the year 1984. The first desktop publishing software’s required very high configuration computer components for it to work its maximum. It required a high quality printer, computer, and scanner. In the mid 1980’s the prices of all these components were extremely high compared to the present. For example a 5 mega pixel camera can now easily be purchased for 200$, however back in the mid 1980’s a 1 mega pixel camera was worth 25,000$. Therefore due to the launch of desktop publishing it caused a huge decline in the prices of these components (compliments) as the demand for them increased which caused the suppliers to decrease the price to keep the market of these components in equilibrium.

Apart from the decline in the price level of computer technological components the main economic changes desktop publishing created are beyond this and are much larger. Other changes were brought in the markets involving designing. For example due to desktop publishing it now became very easy to design a rough brochure or a template instead of rough sketches (blue prints) in the initial stage. Due to convenient printing methods it became very efficient to print a page layout very easily with minimal costs. Hence this reduced the costs of printing a final layout and made it much more efficient compared to prior previous methods. Furthermore a person who had talent in designing page layouts found themselves a very good career in the mid 1980’s as very few people knew how to operate desktop publishing software’s as the first desktop publishing software’s weren’t as user-friendly.

The final output of desktop publishing was that it increased the amount of advisement for firms and companies as it became very easy to simply just print a page layout with minimal costs. Therefore this all concluded up to a higher productivity of goods and services.

In conclusion, all this resulted into a better and efficient economy as businesses now could endorse their products very effectively. In addition the employment level was raised as there was a need for designers who knew how to operate the very first desktop publishing software’s as they were not user-friendly. Businesses in overall increased their production and as a result of this their total revenue.

Sources
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/24934.html


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Economic effects of DTP on business by Isaku

The word, word processor, was originally meant any typing tool, usually those such as type writers etc. However, now the word has come to target computer applications which can easily produce printing material. As these applications became more familiar in our lives, mainly owing it to Microsoft Word which has an estimate of 500 million users, word processor came to have a new meaning. How is it that these applications became so popular that it changed the meaning of a word? The answer might lie in the bountiful benefits it provides in our jobs.

Before the introduction of computers, office work was often hindered by menial and mechanical tasks such as writing on paper, and was unable to complete the actual creative tasks where human capital comes to use the most. The word processor was the ultimate answer to this. Not only did it dramatically shorten the time it took for these menial tasks, but it also allowed the workers to easily change the format of their texts, post images and add other touches to these.

The word processor also include many functions, which were considered only to be a dream by previous typewriter users. Spell check, which allowed the user to create more sophisticated writing, font editors, which allowed users to bring many faces to their texts, and Thesaurus which enabled users to use more sophisticated synonyms of words they already knew. Another notable function of the word processor would be its ability to save the text.

Normally when a text was made, it was the only copy available to the author. However, with word processing applications the number of copies that could be made were now unlimited. This came as an advantage to office workers as they could distribute their writing in presentations, and they would not have to suffer the pain of losing their paper, as even they lost their work, they would be fine as long as the original copy was safe.

We can therefore conclude that the word processor has had a tremendous effect on office working. However it has its downsides too. The increased efficiency by the word processor was expected to decrease the number of hours that employees had to work. However, the actual introduction of the word processor turned out to expose the greedy corporations.

Instead of relaxing their employees, they chose to maximize their profits by actually increasing the hours of work. It is therefore estimated that the word processor will continue to increase the quality and efficiency of office work, but also maximize the corporate greed and the hardships of office workers.