#DTP gone bad!
Steve, and Bruce and Jon and everyone else who's been in on this thread–
Though we've been having a bit of fun with people who can't find quotes and
em dashes and such, I'm sitting here now feeling just a little bit sad and
confused, and even a little distressed.
One of our largest customers–in terms of both traditional typography *and*
PostScript services–has opted to keep even more of their work in house on
a Mac platform. Fair enough–given the state of the technology and the size
of the operation (they're one of the world's three largest pharmaceutical
firms), they'd be nuts not to. I don't–for a minute–share the feelings of
some typographers that desktop can never ever duplicate dedicated
typesetting.
What I do have a problem with it their approach to implementation. They've
come up with a new, monthly newletter, and have decided that with Issue #2,
they're going to job it out to freelance "desktop designers", and send it
to us for imaging. Tonight, they sent it in.
It was, in short and without question, one of the worst-looking pieces of
*anything* I've ever seen. Every period followed by a double word space.
Paragraphs that were imported and then edited in PageMaker started with
true open quotes and ended with double primes. Some em dashes preceded and
followed by a word space. Some preceded by one space and followed by *two*.
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