Desktop publishing (also known as DTP) combines a personal computer and page layout software to create publication documents on a computer for either large scale publishing or small scale local economical multifunction peripheral output or distribution.
This is a one semester survey class. Students will be exposed to DTP terms and practices. Using as many tools as possible, students will produce various products such as magazine covers, brochures, letterhead, newsletters, and media labels. Students should already be familiar with Word, having succesfully passed the freshman FOCUS class, or the equivalent. Sutdents should also understand basic networking as it relates to storing and retireving files.
Depending on the nature of a particular project, desktop publishers may write and edit text, create graphics to accompany text, convert photographs and drawings into digital images and then manipulate those images, design page layouts, create proposals, develop presentations and advertising campaigns, typeset and do color separation, and translate electronic information onto film or other traditional forms.
Materials produced by desktop publishers include books, business cards, calendars, magazines, newsletters and newspapers, packaging, slides, and tickets. As companies have brought the production of marketing, promotional, and other kinds of materials in-house, they increasingly have employed people who can produce such materials.
Some of the material above, sourced from:U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos276.htm