Desktop Publishing Books

This book really leads you through what you need to know, and does so in a well-thought-out manner.

I'm now about 2/3 of the way through the book, and it really has not been a difficult learning exercise. It gives a great overview of web servers, and the included videos really are a great learning tool - nothing like seeing someone actually telnet into Apache and fake out a browser request. There are some errors in cross reference to the CD-only book, and some audios are out of place, but that'e life. Well worth the money.

This multimedia volume is well worth the purchase price. Exceptionally written using real-world examples, this volume creates a virtual education factory for webserver training. As a partner at a major e-services firm I require this volume be used by all my web practicioners.

I've been a technical communicator for 17 years, and bought this book when it first came out. With the advent first of electronic publishing, where everyone had to know something about layout and design, and next with the Internet explosion where even your dog's vet has a website, poorly designed or not, and now, the advent of XML, which will further drive the art of communication into the hands of the unskilled, this book is a gem. It is still as applicable now as it was then, and easily applies to electronic style guidelines as well as to print.

If you are at all interested in how people learn, how they consume information, what works in layout (electronic or print) and what does not, read this book. It should be mandatory reading for everyone who works in the 'knowledge industry', from tech writers to webmasters to information architects.

Desktop publishing has raised the bar on professional documentation. Consultants and other professionals need to be able to turn out volumes of reports, requirements documents, plans, and a variety of other professional documentation. It is no longer good enough that these materials are neatly typed on the page. Reports need to have an attractive, professional look to them.

The Xerox Style Guide provides a full range of advice on layout, style, and correct usage. I found the layout portions helpful in achieving page layout that looks highly professional and improves the comprehension of the reader.

The advice on writing clear is also helpful, and more concise than many other style guides.

An impressive work which has aged well. The design notes and example it sets transcend the print medium. This is the Platonic ideal of standards manuals.

Short, sweet and to the point - this has the meat I need without any of the fluff. It helped me quickly get up to speed in no time. Easy to follow lessons with great tips.

If you need to quickly learn Dreamweaver, this is the book to get!

The books introduction says excatly how I feel about Dreamweaver, its complexity, its feature rich environment, and its power to captivate you, the user, when you click "Save As..." for the first time and realize how simple creating a web page could be.

What the introduction does not say is exactly how I feel about the book now that it is done and available for you to purchase. Although I am disappointed that I was not able to write more about a program that truly amazes me every time I use it, it does offer a beginner's level introduction to a variety of the features that are at your fingertips. I know that afyer reading this short book, the wheels will begin to spin and you will be just as captivated and amazed by Dreamweaver as I have become over the years.

Zak

If you like script fonts, you'll surely like the fonts included here. Dan Solo had a huge collection of great old and new type faces. You'll find 24 of them here. Some, you might already have, and some are so nice that I believe if you find one gem here, it makes the price worthwhile. The fonts are in both Windows True Type and Macintosh formats. The pages have the complete alphabets and a character chart. Be sure to notice the "extra characters" that are offered in some fonts.

I love to use the new scripts for scrapbooking. It's easy to install and you have the book just in case you want to see the different types of symbols for each fonts that are available. Scrapbookers will love this especially if you're doing a fancy scrapbook such as for a wedding. Enjoy it--I certainly do.

This new book, 2D/3D Graphics and Splines, presents the new graphics system known as the Graphics Draw program. This innovative program includes several of the most used graphics applications and projections. The full source code listing is included. For graphics students and engineers, this work is invaluable...

The Graphics Draw program provides the source code and documentation for a fully functional and tested graphics application. A broad range of graphics procedures are included that are available for study and reuse. Procedures include various 2D algorithms such as 2D line clipping using the Sutherland-Cohen algorithm, 2D circles using the Bresenham algorithm, 2D plot rotation, 2D polygon fill using the Seed Fill algorithm, and 2D line clipping using an arbitrary polygon window using the Cyrus-Beck algorithm, among others. Moreover, several 3D algorithms are integrated including 3D parametric lines, various 3D transformations including world to center-of-projection and canonical-to-perspective transformations, along with other useful options. In addition, seven types of splines are included, namely, Hermite, Bezier, Basis Spline, Tension Spline, Tension Bias Spline, Catmull-ROM Interpolating Spline, and the Cardinal Tension Interpolating Spline.

I am really impressed by the lucid style of this book. All commands have been explained in detail and with exercises.
Remember to complete all practice questions at the end of each chapter.
Great stuff overall !!!

The author of this text should be congratulated. He tackles a difficult (and scary) subject and makes it seem easy. And he does it with a sense of humor.
Five stars and my thanks for helping me master what I'd always been afraid to try!

Of all the books read - starting with Elements - it was Greg Georges who convinced me that RAW ("digital negative") photography is the quality way to go. Finding 8-bit Elements inadequate to the task, I switched to Photoshop and bought the companion "50 Fast Techniques". Sure wasn't a bit disappointed. In fact, this is a considerable step up in quality as the production is much superior to earlier books (recycled paper, with centerpiece color plates). This book is on a par with other topnotch Photoshop tutorials in being printed on quality paper, with color images on each page, and an attractively conservative layout to bring home the message.

Several unique features put this title on the front burner, not the least are the excellent 'full-strength' unedited images on the CD [Scott Kelby, take note], and the crisp explanations for more arcane (but very productive) features such as the histogram. Moreover, Chapter 1 (first 6 Techniques) is one of the best introductions around to the workspace and how to set its default selections. Chapter 2 (next 6 Techniques) introduces the basics of color correction, and Chapter 4 (5 Techniques) provides excellent guidance to enhancing portraits.

In between are some gems and pearls, while other techniques are more gee-whiz than broadly useful, seemingly in an attempt to fill the "50" numbers quota. In fact, the book no longer is well served by its irrelevant title; the author is fully qualified to go head-to-head with his peers in writing a comprehensive, understandable, and yet eminently readable tutorial to take Photoshop users from newby to medium-skill level, with some advanced bonus teasers thrown in.

I found this book to be loaded with useful, accessible techniques -- all supported by beautiful photographs. So many Photoshop tips books are packed with teasing, stunning images, but with techniques that tend to be difficult and focused on the esoteric. Fortunately, Gregory Georges keeps this one grounded in the real world, beginning with a step-by-step technique for properly setting up Photoshop, and moving on to scores of great effects - some subtle, some "wow" -that have allowed me to take my own photography and "kick it up a notch"! I especially have enjoyed the techniques for revealing detail in shadows and highlights, creating a duotone and adding "punch" to a black and white photo. An added bonus is a set of techniques using third-party plug-ins that are free and easily accessible online, though a few of those were for use with cameras other than the one I own. Mr. Georges is apparently an actual, working photographer, and in this book he always keeps his "focus" on meaningful results.

The book "88 Secrets to Photoshop for Photographers" is packed with helpful tips, from customizing program windows, to shortcuts, to image editing techniques, and more! Not only did I find the information presented valuable, but the explanations helped me understand why I should use a certain approach - key to integrating the new techniques into my current workflow. These tips are easy-to-read and sure to help beginner to intermediate Photoshop users make even better use of this powerful program.

Scott Bourne's 88 Secrets to Photoshop has been a valuable tool for me to quickly advance my Photoshop techniques. The sharpening secerts are worth the price alone.
88 Secrets is a super quick reference guide packed with info. I also like the compact size of the book so it easily fits into my camera bag.
Looking forward to the next edition. Joseph Walsh

I have been using MS Word to create and edit the publications that we use in our new teacher orientation programs, but every service bureau that I approached was reluctant to accept documents in MS Word format because of the myriad problems MS Word's "quirks" presents them at prodution time.

Every printing house that I have contacted responded that Quark 5 is the industry standard, that they preferred files in Quark, and that if I sent my files in MS Word format I would have to pay a hefty pre-production fee to get them ready for the press. I decided that it was time to bite the bullet and switch to Quark.

I normally just "dig in" and use a brute force attack when I purchase new software. Quark has a learning curve that was too steep for this very busy administrator. So, I checked out the reviews at Amazon.com and "Accelerated QuarkXPress 5" looked like a winner. I ordered it. I started using it. It is a winner! (Thank you to the other customer reviewers.)

From the spiral binding, the appropriate size type, and the clear print conventions, to the clear layout and the to-the-point text, Accelerated QuarkXPress 5 has been the BEST tutorial I have even purchased.

I recently purchased QuarkXPress 5 but was baffled by the user interface. I looked around for an affordable training company to teach me the program. I found plenty of companies, but it was the affordable part I found lacking. Then I stumbled upon this book. What a find!

Let me preface what I am about to say by telling you that I am a writer. As a writer, I can tell you that this book is, quite possibly, the most lucid learning book I have ever read. Short, easy-to-read, to the point and relevant exercises highlight this modularized tutorial.

The author obviously knows how to write in a concise manner--and he knows how to teach.

The lessons presented in the book start you where any good tutorial should--from scratch. You will learn how to create new, custom documents. Then you move smartly to formatting text, working with pictures, adding pages, working with styles, master pages and more. This book even made quick work out of creating Web pages and PDF files.

I see that this review has gone on a bit too long. So let me end with five simple words: "This book is a buy!"

This is one of those books that I use all the time. Because this is the first book I've given 5 stars, I'd better explain.

First, I like the way the book organized itself along the lines that the ActionScript editor or toolbox lists the different ActionScript terms. The parallel makes things easy to find. Second, I like the way the examples are used. For instance, the author explains the geometry behind the cosine of an angle explaining the Math.cos() method and then provides an example that draws a perfect circle. That's a lot better than I get in just about any other book. (Maybe that's more than some need, but I appreciated it.) Third, I like the level range. The beginning of the book is only 2 chapters, but it's a good 2 chapters that provide a quick explanation of ActionScript and scripting. However, further on in the book, it also covers more complex things like registerClass() with a detailed examples. The same is true for all of the new objects like LoadVars().

Finally, I have found myself using the last several chapters covering UI components. Before I got this book, I really didn't use UI Components very much, and now I use them constantly. In fact, those chapters (Pt IV, Chs 14-21)are what I find myself using the most. If this book had nothing but Part IV, the book would have been more than worth it to me.

I think the book is worth 6 stars -- 5 for the first 3 parts and an additional one for the last part covering UI Components.

After Flash 5 ActionScript, I didn't think that it would get much bigger. Flash MX ActionScript is huge, and this book makes it available. The author spends only the first two chapters with the basics of writing ActionScript in the context of Flash MX and makes a nice transition from Flash 5 to Flash MX.

Then, from Chapter 3 to the end of the book's 21 chapters, the author decided to follow the order of actions in the Actions toolbox in the Actions Panel. That makes it very easy to find stuff because it's organized along the same logical patterns as the toolbox. Even so I found myself going to both the detailed TOC and appendix to look up terms, and I never had problems finding what I needed.

Anyone can explain the easy stuff like the old gotoAndPlay() actions, and so I went to the new OOP materials and XML socket section. The OOP stuff was mixed with non-OOP throughout the book, and OOP-related methods like registerClass() were explained in detail and supported with a good example using something that made sense in the context of Flash MX. In fact, the whole book was filled with good examples. Some examples extended over several pages and others were little ones that gave you a quick insight. Sanders is an ace with examples. As for the XML socket material, not only did the explanation explain to me for the first time ever what the blazes a socket server was, it provided a URL where I could download a free socket server, which I did. Then I worked the example, and now I have my own mini-chat in XMLSocket. I'm happy.

The last several chapters were in-depth explanations of the different ActionScript terms used with the new UI Components. Each component got its own chapter, and I found it invaluable for designing with the components. It does not cover re-skinning, but I was able to get the look I wanted by changing every element in the components and I am a big user of UI components. (You can change all the little parts of components like highlight, higlight3D, face, darkshadow, etc. without re-skinning.)

There were a lot of little details I liked in the book. The examples were mixed, interesting, and clarifying. Undocumented terms, like onData with LoadVars(), were included, and I found what I needed. One suggestion for people getting this book: buy some of those little colored tab stickem things to bookmark all of the part of this book you'll need to reference again and again.