Hi, my name's Denis McDonald, a year 11 student, and I am gathering opinions on the effects of desktop publishing on society. eg/ reducing work for professionals, copyright issues. If you could help me out at all or point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it. Oh, and if you do reply and help me out, could you please attach your name and position at the end? Thanks alot.

Yours Faithfully

Denis McDonald

-- Denis McDonald (deemac@prontomail.com), April 26, 1999

Answers

I don't think desktop publishing has reduced the work for professional graphic designers, etc any more than snapshot photography has reduced professional photography.

What has changed is that a lot of personal output is somewhat better. I say 'somewhat' because there is a terrible temptation to overuse and misuse features (try sitting through a corporate slide presentation by a make-your-own, Powerpoint wielding, executive). Over all, though, the bar has been raised on the output quality of casual materials by ordinary people. The only 'professional' people negatively impacted by that are the ones who really did nothing more than simple cut and paste, who really shouldn't have been professional in the first place.

Jay

-- jay (holovacs@idt.net), May 05, 1999.