HOW TO LOOK YOUR BEST IN PRINT THE RIGHT MIX OF SOFTWARE, HARDWARE, AND SPECIALTY PAPERS CAN TURN YOUR HOME OFFICE INTO A PRINT SHOP. THE KIDS WILL BE HAPPY TOO.
By MICHAEL J. HIMOWITZ REPORTER ASSOCIATE PATTY DE LLOSA

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Not long ago my 16-year-old polished off a chemistry lab report complete with diagrams, graphs, charts, and tables, then walked into the office and declared, "Dad, we need a new printer."

Having navigated high school myself with nothing more exotic than an electric typewriter, I thought our LaserJet was pretty hot stuff. I told Ike that most young scholars would be grateful to have such a wondrous machine at their disposal.

"It was all right yesterday," Ike said, eyeing the LaserJet's crisp black and white output with disdain. "But it's too dull now. Today you've got to have color if you want to compete."

"Compete with what?" I asked.

Compete with the other kids, he said. "They all have color printers now. You don't want me to grow up typographically challenged, do you?"

I suppressed the urge to strangle the lad. But then I realized that Ike and his friends--along with millions of home and small-business computer users--now have more graphic horsepower on their desktops than professional print shops had at their disposal a decade ago.

The "paperless office"? Forget about it. We're consuming more paper than ever, because computers make it so easy to produce good-looking reports, fliers, brochures, proposals, mailers, labels, newsletters, advertisements, greeting cards, invitations, name tags, badges, signs, posters, and banners.

A computer, a printer, the right software, and a few dollars' worth of fancy paper can make a one-man operation come across in print like a conglomerate. You can look better, save money, and generate profits if you invest a little time in your paper image.

My friend Bob discovered this a few years ago when he got tired of the cutting and pasting it took to keep his company's literature up-to-date. He bought an Apple Macintosh, a laser printer, and a scanner for artwork. Then he recruited his wife, Wendy--who had no desktop publishing experience. Today they can't imagine running their wholesale electronics business without the fliers, price lists, and illustrated catalogues that Wendy churns out every day.

"It's not only the money you save when you don't have to go to a graphics shop--it's the flexibility you gain," Bob said. "We're always getting new products and price changes. We can scan in the artwork and update our literature right away. And we can produce a lot more. Today I don't let an invoice go out without a piece of new advertising in it. You're already paying 32 cents for the letter--why not make some money out of it?"

Making your business look good in print doesn't take a degree in design. If you have a Mac, or a PC that can run Microsoft Windows, you'll find shelves full of software tools ranging from desktop publishing programs to clip-art collections to typefaces that will passably imitate your handwriting. You can also choose from an astonishing variety of specialty papers. They can turn once difficult and expensive jobs such as color brochures into an afternoon's work.

The first place to look for help is your word processor. Few users realize what powerhouses these programs are. The big names --Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, and Ami Pro--all come with software "templates": sample documents in the form of newsletters, brochures, fax cover sheets, and other hard-to-produce items. They also have drawing tools, chart and table modules, and the power to import graphics in a variety of formats. Even the low-end integrated programs that come bundled with today's computers, such as Microsoft Works or ClarisWorks, can do some nifty mixing of text, graphs, and artwork.

If you have more sophisticated jobs in mind, consider desktop publishing software. The line between these programs and word processors has blurred over the years, but a desktop publisher still gives you greater control over typography and placement of text and graphics. More important for those who produce newsletters, these programs allow you to "flow" text from one frame to another anywhere in your document. That means you can start an article on page 1 and continue it on page 4--something that's hard to do with a standard word processor.

For sheer ease of use, Microsoft Publisher is the hands-down winner in this category. It makes use of "wizards," miniprograms that ask what you want your document to look like and then do the heavy lifting.

I recently needed a trifold brochure in a hurry. Instead of spending hours calculating margins and placing frames on the pages, I consulted a Publisher wizard that presented me with a handful of simple choices about the overall look and feel of the document. When I was through, the wizard created the brochure in about 30 seconds. All I had to do was fill in my text and replace Publisher's dummy graphics with my own.

This kind of canned design won't satisfy purists who love to build things from scratch, but most of us don't have the time to be purists. If you eventually do need industrial-strength control over type and images, it's easy to move up to expensive and capable desktop programs such as PageMaker or QuarkXPress.

For simpler jobs, borrow a page from the kids and buy Broderbund's Print Shop Deluxe CD or Mindscape's PrintMaster Gold Publishing Suite. Both started in the 1980s as simple programs designed to let children create party invitations and other goodies. But they've grown up, and today they're great for quick fliers, greeting cards, signs, posters, banners, business cards, certificates, coupons, calendars, and other one-page wonders. They offer hundreds of well-drawn clip-art samples (which can be enlarged or reduced without degrading the quality of the image), scores of fonts and type-bending effects, and dozens of predefined projects that you can tailor to your needs.

Although PrintMaster has long played second fiddle to Print Shop, the latest release is impressive. Its features match or surpass Print Shop's; PrintMaster's ability to wring quality from a cheap color printer is nothing short of phenomenal.

While these general-purpose programs can handle most chores, you may want to consult a specialist if you have to do one thing well. If you want custom-designed labels for your mailings, for example, or specialty labels for audiotapes, videocassettes, floppy disks, and report dividers, consider Avery LabelPro or My Advanced Label Maker from My Software Co. Both are easy to use and designed to work with Avery label stock, which is available in most office-supply and computer stores.

One warning: Most graphics programs will try to dump a truckload of new fonts on your system. Some fonts are useful, but a lot are pure kitsch. The worst sin among desktop designers is typeface overkill--documents that look as if they were printed by adults but conceived by 8-year-olds. Whatever project you're doing, pick one or two fonts and stick to them.

Just as important, fonts consume disk space and valuable system resources. If a program gives you a choice of installing some fonts but not others, choose only those you'll really use. If you sense your system's slowing down after you've been attacked by one of these typeface monsters, look through the list of installed fonts and get rid of the junk. (I'm a recovering typeface addict. Every now and then I slip back. It happened last week when I got a package from T/Maker called Handwritten Fonts. Yup, they're computer typefaces created from real people's handwriting. Inside the box is an offer to have your own handwriting turned into a computer typeface for $44.95. Think about it. You bought your computer so nobody would have to read your scrawling. Now you can get your computer to scrawl for you.)

Finally, take advantage of specialty papers designed for laser printers. A few years ago some smart mail-order marketers figured out that four-color printing--far too expensive for small businesses or short production runs--was really a matter of psychology. So they started selling stock paper preprinted with color washes, borders, and designs. You add the content with your printer. Your customer sees the color and thinks, "This is a classy operation."

You can find beautiful color paper stock for almost any kind of job, including letterhead, business cards, newsletters, Christmas cards, proposals, and brochures complete with Rolodex card punch-outs. New products appear every month. The latest gimmicks: door-hanger fliers, campaign buttons, and promotional sun visors (yes, you can do this on your printer). Two of the largest suppliers are Paper Direct (800-A-PAPERS) and Queblo (800-523-9080). Call for a catalogue. You'll be amazed.

You can reach Mike Himowitz via E-mail at mikeh@clark.net