WRT333
Page Layout Technology
Page layout technology means desktop computer applications. For years, this meant Adobe's PageMaker, but this has given way to Adobe's InDesign (here's Adobe's InDesign website). Although the list prices are high ($699 on the Adobe site), InDesign may be acquired by itself with educational discounts (URI purchases through ASAP software); the best buy is to get it as part of the Adobe Creative Suite, a collection of programs that includes Photoshop, DreamWeaver (for web design), Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, and a couple of others, for under $400. Although new versions of the Suite are released about every year (the current is CS4), the technology will be perfectly adequate for several years, without upgrade.
Adobe has made their product line so that common elements are presented in similar fashion across applications. That is, if you are familiar with tools and the basic layout of photoshop, you will feel at home in InDesign. The learning curve, nevertheless, is steep, and it may take 2 or 3 days before things become familiar, easy to recall, and natural to use. Once mastered, the environment is easy to use. When I worked on the benchmark study, I composed the entire document within InDesign (i.e., I did not first write anything in MSWord and then copy and paste, although all charts and graphs were first composed in MSExcel and then copied and pasted into InDesign). Training materials are available as books or videos through Adobe (here). Excellent training materials are also available online through Lynda.com (here for InDesign). Books aplenty are available through Amazon, etc., but be sure to match version as there are many older version books available and the packages do evolve over time.
InDesign is intended for document development, but it is also easy to use for a page or two. To compare InDesign to MSWord is like comparing typing with leather mittens to typing with bare fingers; InDesign allows you far greater control and precision in producting pages. For example, while I may be able to select a font size of 12 or 14 points for a few dozen fonts in MSWord, I have far more fonts to choose from, and should I decide that I need to use a font size of 12.1 points, I have that option. I also have control over the amount of space between letters (kerning) or words, and exact control over line or paragraph spacing. InDesign uses text threading; this means that I can set up boxes that are going to contain a running text (and separate boxes for images, sidebars, etc.) and connect a box from, for instance, the left column on page 2 to the right column on page 4. As I fill a text box with writing, any overflow goes to the next box in the chain. Adding a paragraph to page 2 automatically spills text onto page 4.
InDesign also uses layers, a device that is essential to photoshop users. Layers....