Prehistoric DTP,
or publishing in the Stone Age...
by Ken Fermoyle, TUG-NET
While preparing to start a desktop publishing (DTP) SIG recently within my home user
group (Technical & User Group Network, or TUG-NET, San Fernando Valley, Calif.),
I ran across material that brought some chuckles, and memories. It took me back to
the Stone Age of producing print material with very early microcomputers, before
the term "desktop publishing" was coined. And even earlier.
__ That prompted this little article, which I share
in the hope that you also might find it amusing, and that it might trigger memories
of some of the more outrageous work-
arounds you used back in the days when computers were less sophisticated. I feel
also that it makes a good introduction for me and this new column, helping you "know"
the faceless writer to some small degree . . .
__ Back in the '70s and early '80s, I produced newsletters
and such using three typewriters: an old Olympic portable with Elite type, an IBM
electric with proportional type (pre-Selectric, but I forget the model) and another
machine with big Orator type. The latter normally was used for speeches, but I used
it for headlines. Doing a typical newsletter involved switching a page from one typewriter
to another frequently--and lots of WhiteOut!
__ Then came microcomputers. Wow, what progress. Or
was it? Changing fonts and type sizes wasn't a whole lot easier than with my old
3-typewriter setup. During user group meetings then, we had many discussions about
utilities that made it possible to do such fancy things as bolding and italics. Wonder
of wonders.
__ Doing two columns on a page was the Holy Grail we
pursued, and you may not believe how I finally accomplished it. But I'll tell you
anyway.
__ A full-page-width head ran at top, under the masthead.
(I had cheated on that; had a friendly typesetter do it for me and make numerous
repro copies, which I pasted on by hand.) Below the head I started entering the lead
story, also full width, or two columns. I did about the first five or six lines like
that, but then came the tricky part.
__ I had set the tabs so that I could type a line that
went halfway across the page, the width of the left column. Then I would hit the
tab key and go to where the second (right-hand) column started.
__ So, when I got to where I wanted to start the two
columns, I did the first line of the head for story #2 in bold caps, hit the tab
key, and wrote the next line for lead story. I continued that process all the way
down the page: first a line for story #2, tab, and another line for the lead story.
__ I even had column 2, the lead story, justified! Column
1 was ragged right, but not terribly so. Took a lot of backing and filling to accomplish
that.
__ The kicker is that I didn't write the stories in
advance and then copy them into place; I made 'em up as I went along. It was one
of my finest hours, folks! Of course, everybody else thought I was nuts. "Why
didn't you just type the stuff up in single columns and paste 'em in place?"
they asked.
__ Why, indeed? Like the man said about the mountain:
it was there, a challenge not to be ignored.
__ Then came things like the 0.7 Beta version of Ventura
Publisher, accompanied by a couple of dozen poorly-copied pages which eventually
would grow to a full-fledged User Manual. That was another challenge for a novice
software tester. Now we have $75 DTP programs that are astoundingly powerful. And
$500 software that can do what used to require teams of professionals and machines
costing many, many thousands of dollars.
But I'm glad I was around during the Stone Age. It wasn't always easy, but it was
fun.
Ken Fermoyle
Ken Fermoyle (kfermoyle@earthlink.net) has written some 2,500
articles for publications ranging from Playboy and Popular Science to MacWeek, Microtimes
& PC Laptop. He was cohost/producer of radio talk show on computers and a partner
in a DTP service bureau during the `80s. Fermoyle Publications currently offers editorial,
consulting & graphics design services. Copyright 1997, Ken Fermoyle, Fermoyle
Publications.
EDITORS NOTE: Only UGNN Affiliate User Groups are granted a
one-time reproduction rights of this article so long as the unaltered credit/ID paragraph
(above) is published with the article, and a copy of the printed article is mailed
to
Fermoyle Publication
22250 Capulin Court,
Woodland Hills, CA 91364-3005.
Contact: kfermoyle@earthlink.net for further information
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