Job Descriptions - Definitions - Career Fields: Desktop publisher (DTP)

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Desktop publisher (DTP)

ELECTRONIC ORIGINATOR/DTP OPERATOR
To be able to cope with the wide variety of skills required to do this job which is computer based, the person needs to undergo intensive training in Design, Layout and Typography as well as learn to use a computer and manipulate the various software packages used to produce the required result.

Attention to detail; an eye for the aesthetic look of a product and good concentration skills are required from this person. A desire to work on computers is one of the major necessities of this profession as you would be spending most of your working hours sitting in front of the screen.

You would also have to enjoy and be good at typing, designing adverts and layouts and using appliances such as scanners as well as being able to use applications such as PageMaker, CorelDraw and so on. A certain amount of artist ability is an added advantage when it comes to creating illustrations for the various texts which have to be printed. You have to be the kind of person who is accurate in their work and does not make any spelling mistakes or typing errors.

Many desktop publishers are true artists in their field and are responsible for turning a mundane printed subject into a thing of beauty by their talent of using different fonts and clip art. You would also have to have the patience of a saint if you worked for any company that had deadlines, such as newspapers and magazines.

Reporters, journalists and advertising salesmen have a nasty habit of rushing to a publisher at the very last minute with new articles or news items which they wish to place in the edition which has just been completed. It would then be your duty to re-arrange the entire edition in order to comply with their wishes.

Some desktop publishers specialise in typing manuscripts, legal documents, theses, and so on which do not require an artistic background but the majority prefer a more varied diet of work. This is a job which offers a very interesting range of daily chores for someone who enjoys computers. In the old days, they used typesetters who physically picked out each letter (from a printer's tray) and placed it into a special slot in a wooden frame where it spelled out the word that was wanted. Imagine the time it took to print a headline and a front page story! Nowadays, one simply types the words, see them on the monitor, checks them and saves them on stiffies for later printing.

Usually an office job with regular hours but some large organisations like major newspapers employ night staff to typeset any headline stories which took place in the wee small hours in order that they can be printed in time for the morning edition.


Career Fields


Art and Creative
Computers & Information Technology
Draughting and Design

 

Courtesy: CareerExpo

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