Howdy folks.
I need to know about desktop publishing. I'm the poor pencil monkey who is going to be trying to turn the collected ramblings and insane scribbles of others into a readable comic. My problem is that I've only assembled comics using Word, yes word, before.
So, what programmes should I be looking at and more importantly, what can I get hold of without paying more than I can justify.
Bolt-01
Photoshop, Quark XPress an Illustratoe are the 3 main ones
InDesign is said (by some ) to be gradually replacing Quark
These are all pretty pricey though.
You might find Photoshop Elemeents more affordable than the full version I think theres a demo of Quark on their site.
Alternatively- and of course I wouldnt dream of suggesting you do such a thing, but there are certain dodgy people around who might have dodgy copies..
There a re a few designers on here , MBanners might have good advice for you
I've got Illustrator and Photoshop elements, but it is the ability to turn the collection of pages into something I can give to a printer that I really need.
The pdf thread the other week was a brilliant idea, as I've now been able to compress all the odds and Ends in my Whistler stuff into a single PDF, which is a nice result.
Bolt-01
Quark XPress and InDesign are the pagemaking/layout tools for the job
Download the demo and give it a try
Yeah, you need a DTP package. Quark and InDesign (yay!) are the top-end, but Microsoft Publisher should do what you want. Serif Pageplus is quite cheap I believe, but I don't know much about that
Whatever you use, if you're preparing for a professional printer, take account of things such as 'printer spreads' (ie. where the page order is rearranged for printing across pages), bleed and embedding fonts etc..
If it's not a big job, I'm happy to help out if I can...?
M@
Quark are really shooting themselves in the foot at the moment and InDesign is rapidly taking over. Basically Quark are being very slow at integrating decent features into new version (or correcting bugs) whilst Adobe are doing great things with P'Shop/Illustrator/InDesign/Golive workflow.
Give InDesign a punt, but bear in mind you are making a fair step from working in Word...
Dan
Bolt, do you have a PC or a Mac? Can probably get you mac versions of quark/photoshop.
I'm a PC boy Skurve, but thanks for the offer anyway.
MBanners: If you are still up-for-it come March then I'll definately take you up on that. We've only got one strip completed so far, (And a lovely thing it is too) so it's way too early to ask peeps to commit.
I'll dowload the Quark demo tonight, cheers.
Bolt-01
Bolt, I would try InDesign first, it's compatible with quark files but more importantly works in tandem with pshop, and Illustrator. You can down load a demo at Adobe.com. I've been using quark for years but it really is a pain in the arse, and will shortly be moving over to InDesign.
You should be able to put your pages together in Illustrator though if you're short of cash, then save the eps as a PDF to send to the printer.
Any probs I'm sure there are plenty of us here that could give you a hand.
;-)
Just letting y'all know I downloaded the InDesign demo last night.
Cheers folks, I've now got 30 days to learn stuff.
Bolt-01
I have what you need.... email me...
You ain't seen me, RIGHT!!
That, of course should have said "I can ADVISE you on what you need", right!
;>