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DTP Principles book in online reprint

By Chris Williams. Published: 4th Apr 2005, 02:29:08.

Easy when you know how [Updated]

DTP Principles front pageAlligata Media have republished online Richard Hallas' popular DTP Principles guide. You can download a copy of the 20 page booklet in PDF format for free from the link below.

The guide was produced on Richard's Iyonix with Ovation Pro and it should appeal to everyone interested in DTP, from casual users to budding sub-editors. It's also written from a general, software and platform independent view point, so it doesn't really matter what OS and DTP software you prefer to use. It even explains how to use apostrophes properly, which gets our vote.

The guide first appeared as a surprise present for RiscWorld subscribers, and later, as a separate publication. There's also something vaguely ironic about a guide to producing print publications being reprinted in electronic form on the web.

Update at 13:02 22/4/2005
Richard Hallas has now created and uploaded two releases of the book, both in PDF format: a high quality version and a low quality version. The low quality version is suitable for low end PDF readers, such as !PDF, and the high quality version is for everything else.

We had originally mirrored an earlier version on Drobe, but you should probably now fetch the book direct from Richard.

Links
DTP Principles website - downloads ahoy

Discussion

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Interesting.

At a glance, it looks more useful and informative than the Kiwi/Aussie $300 one I bought a year ago.

is a RISC OS UserSawadee on 4/4/05 9:39AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I read this when I received it some time ago as a RiscWorld subscriber. It's a really very useful resource and I learnt a lot from it.

Now that it's freely available, there shouldn't be any excuse for any RISC OS user anywhere producing bad design! ;)

is a RISC OS Userflypig on 4/4/05 12:46PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

What a shame its in PDF format rather than OvPro. It is almost unreadable with our file viewer - and very slow.

It does look good enough to buy - perhaps APL could bundle the OvPro file with the book so we can tinker with the DTP and practice getting it wrong!

is a RISC OS Usercynic on 4/4/05 1:34PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

In reply to Cynic: Copy the PDF to a RAM disc, it speed's it up greatly.

is a RISC OS UserIvanDobski on 4/4/05 5:36PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

That doesn't improve the font rendering though!

is a RISC OS Usercynic on 5/4/05 12:06PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

cynic: Select 'No type3 font' in the display menu.

is a RISC OS UserGrek1 on 5/4/05 6:25PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Thanks Grek1

That's much more legible!

Still very slow - even from a RAM disc.

Please can we have the OvPro original to download?

is a RISC OS Usercynic on 5/4/05 7:57PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I can't supply the original Ovation Pro document because, aside from issues of copyright, it makes use of a number of commercial fonts which I wouldn't be able to distribute with it.

Anyone who downloaded the previous PDF and suffered from problems of display quality and performance, though, should visit my new page for DTP Principles, linked in the article above, and grab one of the new versions instead. The HQ version is the best for general-purpose use, whilst the LQ version is optimised for !PDF and will both look a lot better and work a lot faster than the previous release.

Rule of thumb: if you use Windows, Mac OS or RiScript 5 on RISC OS, use the HQ version of the PDF. If you use RiScript 4 or !PDF on RISC OS, use the LQ version instead.

is a RISC OS UserRichardHallas on 22/4/05 2:37PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

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