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this page Death of paper? | document specs | DTP poster/cover word processed
report | style sheet | pdf
report other Tools pages text | graphics | data (tables and charts)
web | style sheets | audio | presentation slides | video |
New technologies usually don't completely replace older technologies. Did movies replace live theater? Did the printing press replace handwriting?
Ink on paper
for communication within and between business organizations and their
customers is not going to disappear. However, it has already been
largely shoved aside. Why?
In the analog world,
there is a huge difference between the music on a vinyl record and the
words on its paper jacket. The constituent parts, the molecules, are
the same, mostly carbon. But the information is produced very
differently (pens/keyboards vs guitars and microphones). The
information is stored very differently (alphabet vs
wavy grooves). The information is retrieved very differently with very
different tools (eyes vs record players).
In the digital world,
there is no difference between the music and the words. Its constituent
parts are mostly silicon, the 2nd most common element ( by mass) after
oxygen in the Earth's crust, so we aren't ever going to run out. They
are all binary digits, commonly expressed as ones and zeros. The
information is stored the same and is retrieved with the same tool, a
computer, for visual or audio display. It's all bits.
Because
of this similarity and homogeneity, digital tools don't stay as
separate as analog tools do, for example, a light bulb (to let you read
the printed jacket) and a record player (to let you hear the music),
though they both run on electricity. In the digital world, printers,
scanners, and still and video cameras all have the same CCD's (charged
coupled devices) for image sensing. All programs on a computer are
running on the same operating system.
In the software world of this course, text editors, word processors, spreadsheets, desktop publishing programs, video and audio editors, image editors -- all these tools overlap and blend. They have developed separately for marketing purposes, but don't let that fool you.
The world we're in now is a world full of transitional
products. Most of them are designed to make the new world behave to
some extent like the old world. Thus, the interface for digital audio
editing looks very much like the control panels of the old world of
analog recording. As another example, word processors simulate
typewriters. We talk about search "engines" and web "pages".
In terms of marketing, it makes sense to introduce innovation incrementally. A product too far ahead of its time (even by ten years like Apple's Newton) is doomed commercially.
But you have a long career ahead of you. In college now, you need to take the long view, so you'll be better prepared for the changes ahead.
Here's
my premise:
Two big ideas:
Digital networks make irrelevant distinctions that were intrinsic to the analog world. In transition, the old tools will converge and be re-distributed, probably as functions rather than tools.
While the law catches up with technology, which it has been trying to do for hundreds of years, the proprietary corporate model has dominated. Bill Gates became the world's richest person by charging money for ones and zeros, that is, by making a world that is inherently full of only abundant resources act like the old world of inherently scarce resources. Learn more:
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
by Eric Raymond, 1996
The closed, proprietary economic model for software
tools won't continue to dominate because the new world's inherent
nature can't be changed: that's what's new about it. The future will
not be like the past, and in terms of software, the future is open
source and open standards. The Internet, for example, runs on open-source
and open-standands software. It wouldn't work, otherwise. Thus, history is on the side of open source and open standards.
In terms of this course
None of the software that you are learning will be the
software you will be using for these tasks in ten years. Not only will
the software change, but you'll be thinking differently about it.
You'll be thinking more about jobs and tasks and less about tools.
You'll pay for access to the function -- a service. You won't pay for
the tool, which will be as obsolete a metaphor as "page" and "engine".
In terms of this assignment
Word processing as we know it is going to get eroded in
the short term:
on the low end by content management systems'
need for plain ASCII text
on the high end by 2D visual design tools, aka
desktop publishing programs
The skill that you really need to learn is 2D design, in this case, applied to documents that are largely text.
To format your report for ink-on-paper printing, you will use a word processor like Word, that is, a low-end desktop publishing system, or a more explicitly DTP system like Publisher. The conventions here are well-established: 8 1/5" x 11" sheets, black (or near-black) ink on white paper, generous margins of 1" to 1 1/4". You should create the .doc file using color but you should also look at it in gray-scale (black and white) to make sure that your colors, especially on the charts, don't lose their contrast when they go to gray.
Two wayfinding features unique to print documents:
running headers /
footers on numbered pages
a table of contents with page numbers, usually on
a separate page
If the document is long enough (yours isn't), it may have an index correlating topics and page numbers.
The word process version of your report should have:
A cover page, which is in a different context
known as a poster. You will use Microsoft Publisher to make it.
A table of contents page
A list of tables and figures page
Text with running headers / footers
Attractive integration of informational and
decorative graphics
At least two tables and the chart that visualizes
the data on each table
Desktop publishing (DTP) programs help people make designs, combinations of words and images, that will be printed. Full-featured desktop publishing program include InDesign, PageMaker or Quark XPress, as well as programs like Microsoft's Publisher, which is sort of mid-range -- less powerful than PageMaker or Quark but more than enough for most projects.
If you're going to print graphics-heavy 2D documents, use a desktop publishing program. While a word processor can do most common 2D design tasks, even the low-end DTP programs have functions worth your while to explore.
For purposes of this course, you will use Microsoft's Publisher to make the cover for the printed version of your report. Depending on the model you chose, you may want to use Publisher for laying out your whole report.
Publisher works with an object model. Every structural
part (text, blocks of color, etc.) is a separate object. Each object
can be re-sized and re-positioned. The positioning is not only
horizontal (the surface of the document) but also vertical (layers and
transparencies).
If you haven't chosen a cover model, use this generic model: one dominant graphic and attractive, accessible placement of your report's basic identifying information:
title and subtitle
author's name, job title, organization, date
name of the authorizing agent (boss or client) (optional)
That should be at least four objects -- the graphic,
the report title, the author info, and the authorizing agent info. More
complex graphics would involve more objects.
A word processor is a computer program that can produce any arbitrary combination of images, graphics and text with type-setting capability. It is more powerful than a text editor like NoteTab but less powerful than a full-featured desktop publishing program such as InDesign, PageMaker or Quark XPress, or a program like Microsoft's Publisher, which is sort of mid-range -- less powerful than PageMaker or Quark but more than enough for most projects.
If you're going to print formatted text that integrates graphics, use a word processor. At its fullest, a word processor has enough desktop publishing capabilities to do most of what you would ask PageMaker or Quark to do at their low end. For all purposes other than preparing printed documents, other software does it better. I don't expect word processors as we know them to last much longer.
A word processor also has text
manipulation functions such as automatic generation of:
mail merge - batch mailings
using a form letter template and an address database
index - lists of keywords and
their page numbers
tables of contents - section
titles and their page numbers
tables of figures - caption
titles and their page numbers
cross-referencing section or
page numbers
footnote numbering
new versions of a document using
variables (e.g. model numbers, product names, etc.)
Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, has made it easy to "save as HTML". You should not under any circumstances use that feature.
formatting text for printing
low-end desktop publishing - laying out text and graphics
formatting multi-page documents for printing and binding
Increasingly, managers create the report as a Word .doc file and then attach it to an email. Some misguided folks use it to make Web pages (.htm files instead of .doc files). If the whole world ran on only Microsoft products, that might make some sense. But it doesn't, so you shouldn't ever use that feature of Word.
an over-abundance of formatting options
incompatibility with other proprietary programs and even earlier versions of itself
word processor
Microsoft's
Word
Open Office, the free alternative to Word
Open Office's Writer
In older versions of Word, pull down the Format menu and select Styles and Formatting. That should open a new pane. Click "New Style", which should open the New Style dialogue box in the screenshot on the right.
You can use this to make your own style sheet. This will save you a lot of time, not on this report for this course, but on the next report/research paper for your next course.
To start, type in the name/label for your style. This name is up to you, so you can remember it.
For "Style type", select paragraph for regular text as well as heading, subheading, and headers/footers. For tables, lists, and special characters, select that Style type from the pull-down menu.
For "Style based on", you can select one of the default styles to adapt. Otherwise, stick with Normal here.
The next choice is "Style for the following paragraphs". This long list should have the kind of text you're looking for.
In the Formatting section, you can get very specific. If you click Format in the lower left, you'll see even more options for tweaking this style.
In newer version of Word, use the Home menu and the Styles section to do the same things.
color? rule?
font, size, color
|
serifs |
font-family - a group of related
fonts which vary only in weight, orientation, width, etc, but not design |
Text properties - the visual presentation of characters, spaces, words, and paragraphs word-spacing |
font, size, color
position, size, content, purpose
If printed, headers and footers are required in case the piece of paper gets out of order or is separated from its document.
font, size, color if different from text
whether to have any?
if so, size and position / placement
whether to have any?
if so, how many?
size
position / placement
font, size, color
other components (see below)
whether to have any?
if so, how many?
size
position / placement
W3C's Box model
|
width |
margin margin-top |
padding padding-top |
border border-top-width |
In Word,
select Insert | Text Box. Click on the box that comes up. From there,
right-clicking on the various components will let you Format the text
boxes. Note that Fill Effects is available on the Color drop-down menu,
as shown in the screenshot on right.
whether to have any?
if so, how many?
size
position / placement
whether to have any?
if so, how many?
size
position / placement
the 4 B's: bullets, buttons, banners, and bars
A simulation of paper. (like going barefoot with your socks on)
A way to present information with a fixed layout.
A formatted text file that can't be (as easily) edited as a .doc file.
In other words, it is a redundant, practically useless, often frustrating file format that is nevertheless very common because it makes old people (and old-thinking people), especially publishers, graphic designers, and their lawyers, feel as though the world isn't changing as fast as it really is. A .pdf report is comforting.
To control versioning. To control printed appearance. What Adobe calls information integrity and security.
Here's Adobe's marketing pitch: Why PDF?
Open
format
Multiplatform
Extensible
Trusted and reliable
Maintain information integrity
Keep information secure
Searchable
Accessible
The document integrity feature is the one that I think is the most compelling to people.
Adobe Acrobat family of products
open source / free alternatives
The latest versions of Word have options for creating PDF's.
Ziff Davis' PDF Zone
PDF and
Accessibility
by Roger Hudson
Web Usability, August 2004
How to convert other files (.doc, .ppt, and .xls) into .pdf files
Word 2007 has an "export to pdf" or "save as pdf" choice on the File menu if you have the 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF
The latest versions of Word have an Acrobat menu on the main toolbar, probably on the far right.
PDFCreator is a free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application.
.doc files only (no .docx files) to .pdf
Browse to your file. Select the language. Click "Convert document". Within a minute, a .pdf version of the document will appear in your browser. Save it to your computer.
.docx files to .pdf
PDF converter - works similarly to the one above but will send you a download link in an email after a couple of minutes.
.pdf files to HTML
Adobe's Online conversion tools
How will these reports be evaluated?
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