CompuServe Messages

Tapcis has done it again … somehow I missed the second part of your message and can't seem to find it now. I think we're in agreement, that it's really the *people* running the software that are to blame for most of DTP's shortcomings. (Rather, I should say the untrained people…) Unfortunately, I don't see the "good enough" trend reversing itself. As an example, one of our customers, a Fortune 100 company, has started to hire freelancers to handle some of its work. Now that their full-time personnel are just *beginning* to get the hang of DTP, they're bringing in a whole crew of fly-by-night DTPers who are producing horrendous work. The bottom line seems to be "the bottom line" so to speak. This company apparently doesn't care what it's printed matter looks like as long as it's cheap. I find this particularly annoying because they've been busting my stones for the last six years over the most amazingly trivial things (half a pt. this way, half a pt. that way, 15 passes on a job … you get the picture). Why was quality such a critical issue when *we* did the job traditionally but not if their freelancers do it with DTP? I think it's the hypocrisy of the situation that galls me the most. And given the capabilities of DTP (WYSIWYG, plain paper proofing etc.) it would seem that quality would be *easier* to achieve in a much shorter time. This is what *really* drives me nuts! The hardware platform is there, for the most part, but they keep turning the jobs over to idiots. <Whew! I feel better now…>