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1993-06-13
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Hello Folks:
The following is an odd assortment of various postings concerning Pagemaker
and DTPing in general. Enjoy!
Geof
[71532.742@Compuserve.com]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
-------------------------
I) AppleLink Information
II) Fun with Postscript by Jeff Bone
III) Developer's Information on Pagemaker
IV) Desktop Publishing Associates
V) Freelancing Rates
I) APPLELINK INFORMATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st posting
--------------
After "Speedy" asked about the AppleLink Addresses of Aldus, I logged on a
downloaded the complete Third Party Directory from AppleLink. This list is
quite long, and I did a quick edit of the addresses that might be of interest
to the PageMaker LIST. If you'd like a complete directory, let me know and
I'll give you an FTP address.
FYI - To send an Internet message to an AppleLink address, use the following
syntax: {address}@applelink.apple.com where {address} is one of the
following:
Copyright 1992, Apple Computer, Inc.
Technical Support via AppleLink - (Edited Companies A-Z)
TurnAround
ALink Time Comments
Company Name Address (Hrs)
______________________________________________________________________________
Aladdin Systems ALADDIN 24 You can also get help from the Aladdin
Altsys Corportion D0590 24 Earl Allen
Caere Corporation D1735 12 Dusty Perryman -
CE Software, Inc. D0048 72 Bill Davis, Dir of TechSprt
Claris Corporation CLARIS.TECH 48 Lydia Nicholson
Corel Systems Corp. CDA0383 24 John Geleynse
DeltaPoint, Inc. D0067 24 Tim D. Sweezey / Mija Hawkins
Deneba Software D0412 48 Erik
E-Machines D2438 48 Greg Warnke, John Maffin,
Farallon TECHSPORTS 48 Phone support gets priority
FontBank, Inc. FONTBANK 48 Jerry Saperstein
GCC Technologies, D0126 48 If a dealer needs an RMA # for
Insight Development INSIGHT 24 Marcus V. Colombano or Debbie DeVine:
Image Club CDA0573 24 Grant Hutchinson - Technical
Iomega D2206 24
JAM Software USA JANSOFTUSA 48 Technical Support Line is JAMSOFTUSA.
Kennect Technology D2997 48 Tech Support
Kensington Microware D0122 24 You may also call Kensington's
Letraset D2757 48 Robert Mielarczyk Support for
Letraset D6257 48 Robert Viscomi Support for ColorStudio,
Macmillan/McGrawHill MMH.Jordan 24 Johanna Winfield
Paragon Concepts D0405 24 Jim Bates
Radius, Inc. RADIUS.TECH 24 For tech issues, questions,
Seiko Instruments SEIKO.PRINTR 24 Mark Bate
Shiva Corporation SHIVA.TECH 24 Steve Sooby
Sigma Designs SIGMA.TECHS 24 Marshall Goldberg
Sitka D0098 48 Telephone: (415) 769-8711; CompuServe
Solutions, Inc. D0053 24 Dougal Stuart - Tech support for
SuperMac Technology SMT.TECH 24 One business day - SuperMac also
Symantec D0152 48 Mark Y. Geschelin - represents Symantec
Tektronix D2392 24 Gene Marriott
Time Arts Inc. TIMEARTS 24 Al Merkrebs
Truevision, Inc. TRUE1 24 Joe Cunningham - NuVista series, HR
Xerox Imaging XIS.KURZWEIL 48 John MacLeod
Zedcor, Inc. D1083 24 Mike Gariepy
** Jeff Bone Internet: jbone@dopig.uab.edu
2nd posting
--------------
> Could you provide the FTP address. Does Aldus maintain any kind of FTP site on
> internet?
The FTP site is: cisa.cis.uab.edu
The location is: \pub\dopig
The Filename is: alink3rd.lst
Aldus does not provide any public access FTP that I know of, I know they have
a certified Aldus developer program that does give Email addresses of
internal developers and techies to registered developers.
II) FUN WITH POSTSCRIPT BY JEFF BONE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st posting
--------------
Ever wonder why your PostScript print to disk file of your "simple"
illustration is so large? I have too!
It seems that the majority of the print to disk file is either custom
dictionaries (series of pre-defined subroutines that the application uses to
perform its more creative effects), or fonts. Since fonts are generally a
fixed size that leaves us to dispair over the size of these custom
dictionaries.
Ever have your Quark or complex PageMaker document crash in your printer
without letting you know anything more than "[B0] VM Error"? It's usually
something you did that invoked a portion of this extended dictionary and
created some error that wasn't handled properly.
To that end I poked around to see just how much these dictionaries were
adding to the load placed on the printer, so try this...
Take your favorite illustration package and generate the typical spyrograph
pattern (you know the 45 circles rotated around a central spoke) and print
this image to disk. Most likely, your app will generate a file between 30-
60K in size. Now extract the following six lines into a text file,
download it to your laserprinter and see how much cleaner this could be:
/in {72 mul} def .2 setlinewidth
newpath 0 setlinewidth 1 in .675 in translate
45 {.15 in 0 .125 in 0 360 arc
stroke 8 rotate
} repeat
showpage
Many quick designs and type can be generated faster by simply maintaining a
library of these little routines that you can modify and download. If the
group would like, I'll share a few of my favorites.
2nd posting
--------------
For all those who have been waiting and stuffing my mailbox with requests,
here is the first in a four part installment. Hope you find some of them
useful.
(1)
Ever want to know what fonts are installed or downloaded into your
Laser printer? Try this:
/in { 72 mul } def .2 setlinewidth
/Helvetica findfont 10 scalefont setfont
1 in 10 in translate /fontname 30 string def
FontDirectory { 0 0 moveto pop fontname cvs show
0 -10 translate } forall
(2)
Need a quick shadow box? (Note: you can modify the size simply by
changing the dimensions in the last line, modify shadow depth where noted)
/in { 72 mul } def .2 setlinewidth
/box { newpath /height exch def /width exch def
moveto width 0 rlineto 0 height rlineto width
neg 0 rlineto closepath } def
/shadebox { /height exch def /width exch def
/y exch def /x exch def
x .05 in add y .05 in sub % shadow depth
width height box fill
x y width height box
gsave 1 setgray fill grestore stroke } def
.5 in .5 in 1 in .5 in box stroke % box dimensions
(3)
It's possible to place in-line PostScript code in some word processors
(i.e. - Word Perfect). My favorite is to create my own letterhead for
quick personal correspondance. Illustrator or FreeHand would create an
EPS file about 25K for this one, totally unacceptable for a simple
letter. Imagine a subdirectory of a couple hundred memos with a 25K EPS
file embedded. So I found this code does it nicely for only 40 bytes.
/in { 72 mul } def .2 setlinewidth
/monogram {
/str exch def
gsave str show grestore
gsave 1.7 0 moveto 1 setgray
str true charpath gsave fill grestore
1 setlinewidth stroke grestore
3.4 0 moveto
str show } def
.5 in .65 in moveto
/Times-Roman findfont 56 scalefont setfont (JFB) monogram
(4)
Ever want to make sure your printer is reset without having to bring up
one of those DAs or turning the power off and on? This code should do it.
(Warning - This will erase all fonts downloaded to the printer's RAM and
will reset the Apple or Aldus prep file, requiring all to be re-
downloaded. It won't bother fonts downloaded on your printers hard
drive. You should use this piece of code only if you're sure you want to
do this.)
/cleardictstack {
countdictstack 2 sub {
end } repeat
} def
clear
cleardictstack
initgraphics
erasepage
3rd posting
--------------
It's been a while, but I haven't forgotten that I promised to pass along a
few things I've learned in PostScript so here goes:
(1)
The showpage command tells your printer, or other PostScript device to
actually render the page. The showpage point in the output file is
therefore the best place to define certain things to happen automatically,
like fill the background with grey or a color. Some of you that use
Persuasion or PageMaker for making 35mm slides can obviously see the
benefit here. You can edit your output file with a good text editor and
append a full-bleed color at this point without having to rely on your
software to do it. This is important because most software doesn't really
add a full-bleed color and when making slides you will get a thin white
border if they are not mounted properly.
To accomplish this, edit your output file and change every occurance of
<CR> showpage <CR>
to be
<CR> clippath fill showpage <CR>
This will add a full-bleed black background behind your elements. Use
the operator "setrgbcolor" prefixed by numeric R G B values to create
a colored background, example:
0 0 255 setrgbcolor clippath fill showpage
This will create a blue background. For some strange reason Microsoft
decided to redefine this command in the Windows PostScript driver to be
"SS" rather than just "showpage" so be aware of this when you start
substituting.
If this sounds too hairy, you might hang on to this anyway, you can use it
to give to your slide imaging service bureau.
(2)
It's always amazed me at how much wasted PostScript is generated by
illustration programs often causing an enormous amount of printing time or
worse job that simply won't print. Many programs are getting better at
optimizing their output before sending it to print, but to check your
application send the following three pieces of PostScript code to your
printer, they'll produce three pages. Take those three pages to your
illustration/layout software and create a similar illustration. Then
generate a PostScript print-to-disk file and see how large the file is.
My guess is that most packages will generate a file over 30K for each of
these images, CorelDraw 3.0 will generate a whopping 4 Meg file for the
Mandella.
Segment 1 - Flower
306 396 translate
2 {
32 {
0 0 moveto
72 72 72 -72 144 0 curevto
360 32 div rotate
} repeat
-1 1 scale
} repeat
eofill
0 0 150 0 360 arc stroke
0 0 160 0 360 arc stroke
3 setlinewidth
0 0 155 0 360 arc stroke
1 setgray
0 0 10 0 360 arc fill
showpage
Segment 2 - Tangent Rose Text
/Helvetica-BoldOblique findfont 42 scalefont setfont
165 400 translate
.5 setlinewidth
20 20 340 {
gsave
rotate 0 0 moveto (PageMaker) true charpath stroke
grestore
} for
0 0 moveto (PageMaker 5.0) true charpath
gsave
1 setgray
fill
grestore
stroke
showpage
Segment 3 - Mandala
306 396 translate
/c 8 def
/p 6 def
/r 200 def
-90 rotate
p {
r neg 0 translate
0 0 moveto
2 1 c {
r c div mul
dup 0 exch
-180 180 arc
} for
r 0 translate
360 p div rotate
} repeat
gsave
20 setflat
eofill
grestore
showpage
Have fun, and remember key these segments into a plain ASCII text file and
download them to your laserprinter either by the copy command in DOS or using
your Apple Font Downloader on the Mac.
P.S. on Postscript: There is some postscript code on how to get rid of the
startup page from many postscript printers in DTPTIPS.FAQ
III) DEVELOPER'S INFORMATION ON PAGEMAKER
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1st posting
--------------
Yet another bit of info "snatched" from AppleLink this morning that I thought
might be of interest to the group. Hope the length of my messages doesn't
clog someone's gateway this morning.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 2, 1992
Dear Developer,
We are pleased to present the latest in Aldus Additions technology
Additions on the Windows platform. You are invited to join us at PC
Expo for a presentation of this exciting technology now available to
Windows Developers.
Aldus PageMaker Additions have been well received on the Macintosh
platform, and we are thrilled to offer you the same development
opportunities in the Windows environment. If you are interested in
developing an Addition, and would like a first hand look at the tools
before the show, give us a call and we will send you the developer's
toolkit.
As you know, Aldus Additions extend PageMaker's capabilities in three
ways:
- You can write C code modules that, when added to the Aldus folder,
add new functions to PageMaker
- You can access PageMaker through DDE (Windows) and IAC (Mac),
enabling applications such as Hypercard, Visual Basic, Excel or a
custom application to act as a front end to drive PageMaker
- You can write scripts, allowing you to command PageMaker to do
virtually anything you can do with the mouse and keyboard
At our PC Expo Additions rollout, I will present an introduction of
Additions technology and demonstrate its capabilities on both the Mac
and the PC. Mike Austin, Developer Support Engineer, will then lead
a more in-depth session on how to write a Windows Addition.
The event will be held Wednesday, June 24th, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00
a.m. at the Hotel Macklowe, Room 311. The hotel is located at 145 W.
44th, between Broadway and Sixth, not far from the Jacob Javits
Convention Center. Space for this event is limited. If you can join
us, contact Rachel Anderson at (206) 343-3382, no later than June
19th.
Again, the first draft of our Addition Toolkit including Windows
information is now available and is being sent to Windows developers
who've requested it. If you have been working with us on Macintosh
Additions and are also interested in developing Windows Additions,
please contact Lisa Wise, Developer Technology Manager, at (206)
343-7692.
To answer your specific technical questions, we are scheduling
appointments for one-on-one meetings throughout the show. Meetings
will take place at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, Room 15, Level
4-D, across from the Press Office. If you would like to set up a
meeting, please contact Lisa Wise.
We look forward to seeing you in New York!
Sincerely,
David Cloutier
Manager, Aldus Developer Relations
IV) DESKTOP PUBLISHING ASSOCIATIONS
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1st posting
--------------
Apologies if these associations have been listed here before - I ran
across these two in "The Writer's Essential Desk Reference".
*1*
Association of Desktop Publishers
P.O. Box 881667
San Diego, CA 92168-1667
(619)428-4285
*2*
National Association of Desktop Publishers
1260 Boyston Street
Boston, MA 02215
(617)426-2885
And for those who wish to further market their skills as DTPers, writers,
editors, etc., some of the following groups may be of interest:
To be listed as or locate freelance editors, indexers, translators, co-authors,
etc.:
American Society of Journalists and Authors' Dial-a-Writer Referrel Service
(212)398-1934. ASJA's service matches writers in the US and overseas with
publishers, corporations, universities, and individuals who need the assistance
of a professional writer or editor.
The Editorial Freelancers Association, Box 2050, Madison Square Station, New
York, NY 10159, provides referrel for freelance editorial services. The
group provides contacts to members through a bimonthly newsletter, an annual
directory, program meetings, educational programs and medical insurance
programs.
***************************************************************************
Laura
V) FREELANCING RATES
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There had been a recent discussion on DTP freelancing, - what to charge
for layout & design, proofing, and a host of other services.
A recent issue of Journal, a publication of NADP (Nat'l Assoc. of
Desktop Publishers), ran a survey of pricing on the various services
which DTPers provide, and thought it may be of interest to some (NADP
members who've read the article, just ignore this post).
*Most DTP shops are one or two persons operations.
*Page layout program of choice is PageMaker (81.25%) followed by Ventura
and many indicating using Quark or making a transition.
*Word Processing application of choice is WordPerfect (75%) followed by
Word (62.5%), with just over 25% using WordStar.
*Most popular graphics and drawing software include Corel Draw, FreeHand
& Arts & Letters.
*Charge for services are highest in metropolitan areas, with highest design
fees in California, Florida, and New York - average $50/hour. Article
quotes that most DTPers underprice themselves for services because they're
not sure what to charge.
*Text creation $10 - $95/hour; text scanning $1 - $25/page; typography $10 -
$75/hour; graphic design $10 - $95/hour; consulting charges $18 - $100/hour;
consulting for prepress and color work $170/hour average; output (300 dpi)
25$ - $10/page; high resolution output $1 - $30/page.
*Document design. High-end shops $75 - $95; Low-end shops $20 - $35. Clip
Art (high end) $8 - $20; (low end) $2 - $10.
*Advertising - Low-end shops target telephone directories, followed by
newspaper ads, and then cold calls. High-end shops target word of mouth
focusing on customer service. Low-end focus on gathering new business;
High-end focus on retaining clientele which leads to word of mouth advertising.
The article suggests "Pricing Guide for Desktop Publishing Services" by
Robert C. Brenner (619)693-0355.
Laura