[1] Desktop publishing software can generate page layouts and produce text and image content comparable to the simpler forms of traditional typography and printing.
This technology allows individuals, businesses, and other organizations to self-publish a wide variety of content, from menus to magazines to books, without the expense of commercial printing.
[3] The same DTP skills and software used for common paper and book publishing are sometimes used to create graphics for point of sale displays, presentations, infographics, brochures, business cards, promotional items, trade show exhibits, retail package designs and outdoor signs.
[4][5] A contradictory claim states that desktop publishing began in 1983 with a program developed by James Davise at a community newspaper in Philadelphia.
[6] The program Type Processor One ran on a PC using a graphics card for a WYSIWYG display and was offered commercially by Best Info in 1984.
[12] The term "desktop publishing" is attributed to Aldus founder Paul Brainerd, who sought a marketing catchphrase to describe the small size and relative affordability of this suite of products, in contrast to the expensive commercial phototypesetting equipment of the day.
Later, the Macintosh II was released, which was considerably more suitable for desktop publishing due to its greater expandability, support for large color multi-monitor displays, and its SCSI storage interface (which allowed hard drives to be attached to the system).
During its early years, desktop publishing acquired a bad reputation as a result of untrained users who created poorly organized, unprofessional-looking "ransom note effect" layouts.
As of 2014[update], Apple computers remain dominant in publishing, even as the most popular software has changed from QuarkXPress – an estimated 95% market share in the 1990s – to Adobe InDesign.
Some desktop publishing programs allow custom sizes designated for large format printing used in posters, billboards and trade show displays.
Graphic styles for images may include border shapes, colors, transparency, filters, and a parameter designating the way text flows around the object (also known as "wraparound" or "runaround").
In the early 1980s, the graphical user interface was still in its embryonic stage and DTP software was in a class of its own when compared to the leading word processing applications of the time.
As computers and operating systems became more powerful, versatile, and user-friendly in the 2010s, vendors have sought to provide users with a single application that can meet almost all their publication needs.
This kind of workflow is less user-friendly than WYSIWYG, but more suitable for conference proceedings and scholarly articles as well as corporate newsletters or other applications where consistent, automated layout is important.
In the 2010s, interactive front-end components of TeX, such as TeXworks and LyX, have produced "what you see is what you mean" (WYSIWYM) hybrids of DTP and batch processing.
Many graphical HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver use a layout engine similar to that of a DTP program.
However, many web designers still prefer to write HTML without the assistance of a WYSIWYG editor, for greater control and ability to fine-tune the appearance and functionality.