Thank you for an obviously well thought out answer. In summary (as I understand it), the answer seems to be DTP is for combining lots of images and text in the way you want. A word processor is for creating just text documents, with an (at most) occassional graphic.
On Thursday 16 December 2004 10:56, BandiPat wrote: > robert wrote: > > I've only recently started learning scribus, and I got asked today what > > the difference is between a DTP program (such as scribus) and a word > > processor (say Word or OpenOffice's Writer). > > > > The best answer I could give is scribus can output something ready for a > > commercial 4 (or 5) color printing press. It can also do PDF forms (a > > nice feature in and of itself). However it lacks a spell checker and it's > > not that good for creating the text. Scribus is great for page layout > > however. (The response to this last point was, "So what. I can add > > pictures, and graphs in Writer/Word too.") > > > > Frankly, I found my answer sorely lacking, which shows I still have much > > to learn. Can anyone enlighten me? > > [...] > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Robert, > This is destined to become one of those comparisons like religion and > politics and no matter how much the combatants debate it, no clear > winner will emerge! :o) > > The differences between the two programs have lessened in the last few > years and certainly the word processing programs have taken on a lot of > the DTP programs features. But, yes there is a but, a word processor is > not a DTP program yet! There are many feature differences in the two, > but trying to convince someone that has never used both, of those > differences, is near impossible. The best thing you can offer probably, > is to have them use one, when they want to actually do some page layout. > A word processor is just that, a word processor with a few additions > to add graphics, etc. If though you need to "layout" a page, a book, a > magazine, something a DTP program excels at, then you are quite likely > to fall short trying to do that in a word processor. Many have tried > though, some may have even succeeded, but they will be the first to tell > you a DTP program would have cut their work time way down! > > Again, if the user has never used a DTP program, they are likely never > to understand the differences, even to do a simple flyer. For those > people that have used both though, it's never really a question of which > program they choose when getting ready to layout a project! > > There are probably some sites on the internet that may go into greater > detail or explanation, do a search with Google. I'm sure you'll come up > with several hits. For those of us that have encountered this > debate/argument before though, we realize it's a futile endeavor and > leave the unconvinced user to wallow in their word processor mire. ;o) > > Patrick -- Fail to learn history-repeat it. Fail to learn rights-lose them. Learn both-get screwed by previous two groups. Public key is at http://home.swbell.net/berzerke/robert.key Fingerprint: 0D70 9ADF B5A7 45E7 A853 4B1C 8E0F 4324 C39D 44A2
