A complete graphic design, illustration, web design and typography course.

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The necessary applications

We need the right programs to prepare our documents, design our webpages and create or edit our graphics. It’s very common to get a basic assortment of programs which let you do almost any task. We can consider several categories of programs. Some are rather general interest programs, used by most users, while other are more specialised for design and desktop publishing.

In this article:

Necessary programs

Operating system programs

These programs are included with your OS, and will let you manage your system setup and preferences, manage files, search documents and tweak all aspects of the daily work of your computer.

System utilities

Antivirus, compressors and decompressors, general multimedia... according to our specific interests, here we could split a whole category for each of these kinds of programs (this is something we will do here with font management programs, a kind of program basic for a designer, but seldom used by general users.)

Communications utilities

A few years ago they were rather anecdotic, but now they are the centerpiece of most systems. These programs are usually included with the system, and others are freeware. Browsers, email clients, FTP (file transfer) programs, web page editors belong in this category.

Graphics and design programs

You need specific programs to manage, create and edit photographies and images in general. The programs included with Windows cover some very basic needs (with a very limited Paint program, for simple images), but many computers bundle some kind of graphics program or suite, such as CorelDraw; some peripherals also come with some image editing software. For example, your scanner or your printer, your digital camera or your tablet might as well include some kind of graphics program like Adobe Photoshop LE, Ulead PhotoImpact or similar.)

"Offimatic" Programs

A word processor, a spreadsheet and a database program are the three essential components of a Office package, and most users use one or several of these in their daily work. Sometimes you get this suite with your computer; the most popular perhaps is MS-Office, with their Word, Excel, Access y Powerpoint applications. Their competition has been all but wiped out: can you remember Lotus Smartsuite or the Corel Wordperfect Suite? But there is a growing community of users that choose an open source alternative: OpenOffice.org, based on a suite previously known as Star Office. You can freely download it from the net, but it is a huge installation file and you might try to get it on some CD-ROM, such as the ones given away with computer magazines.

Your programs working as a team.

In the pages of this Manual, we deal with graphic design, desktop publishing, Web design and typography programs.

Take a look at this list and think, Which of those programs do you have already in your system? Did you get a good deal and did your computer include some of them? Have you bought some or have you borrowed or got them in some unconfessable way? If you still miss some of the programs you need, there is an easy cure: visit the next section, Cheapware, where you will find some programs which are both good, nice and cheap.

In a computer work environment it is more important to work cooperatively than in single, isolated tasks. You often use what you do with a program in another application, in a more or less complex workflow. For example, in a single report made with a word processor, we may find spreadsheet results, automatically updated as soon as we introduce any change in its data, which in turn may flow in from a linked database. This automatism is a feature of embedded copies of a file; the copy you paste is live —each time something changes in the original, the copies you embeded are changed accordingly.

If we wish to work in multi-task, that is, with different programs running at the same time, it is very important to learn some useful keyboard shortcuts: they will really speed up your changes from one application to another, from one open window to another. Here is a diagram which displays the may kinds of files and programs you might use in a typical graphic design workflow, and the existing relationships. We recommend that you print it, as it will be handy as a task planner and as a kind of route map to better organize your work with several programs and kinds of files.

What’s more interesting in the workflow suggested here is:

  • You can reuse files between projects and programs.
  • You may follow common steps, either for printed media or screen-based work. Some file formats for graphics or texts can be opened in almost any program: simple text files, .txt, some graphic formats such as PNG, GIF, TIFF, JPG; some page definition formats, such as EPS... these universal file formats are especially useful because they let you separate content from presentation, and you can reuse them as “ spare parts”. We can combine stuff from the Web, from multimedia files or created by ourselves. Generally speaking, there is no single way of doing things: each one finds his own way and the best working solutions, adapted to his own time and effort. In our workflow diagram, you may follow different routes and stop in different places (programs) to reach the same destination or result. The most important ingredients are your talent and creativity.

If you need to learn more about any program, there is a lot of printed help, and digital manuals as well. The net is also an unending source of reference materials which will let you take advantage of your system, detailed tutorials, help of any kind and FAQs list (frequently asked questions with their answers.) Some newsgroups in the usenet, and forum systems are excellent ways to learn more and easily find answers to your questions, in a searchable, powerful way. There are both newsgroups and forums dedicated to almost any program, and if you are friendly and you try to be helpful yourself, you’ll probably have a quick and concrete answer to your own questions.

Despite the apocalyptic visions of some, luckily (because this leaves the most funny and interesting part to us), no program will NOT decide the most important things. It will be more or less intelligent and save us more or less time in the task. By the way, there is a kind of help that really doesn’t help at all: in those programs that want to outsmart you and offer ridiculous assistants or guess wrongly what you’re trying to do (Microsoft style). Most people looks for the way to disable the speaking paper clips and similar lame help systems.

Information about StarOffice / OpenOffice

StarOffice (now OpenOffice.org) integrates all the applications in a common interface.

StarOffice is something like all-in-one, one-for-all. Given its special features, we have included some detailed notes here about this suite. If you want a good office package, covering many different needs, and if you want it legally and free of charge, there is no doubt: take advantage of OpenOffice.

This mega-suite is absolutely free (and you know similar products —even with less features— are costly ones), ready to download from the web (http://www.openoffice.org and selected file archives on the net; you can also obtain it with some of those companion CD-ROMs which come with computer magazines.

With OpenOffice / StarOffice you can set up a whole office, a whole company if you want, legally and with zero cost. It offers lots of features to the user: with the package almost any office work is covered, so you can create and edit documents to print or for the internet. With its compatibility with other commercial applications, such as Word and Excel and its standard menus and interface it’s really easy to be productive right from the start.

Its compatibility with Office files is remarkable, even with the latest versions. Some versions of OpenOffice are based on the Java platform, a multiplatform enviroment that lets you open a file made in OpenOffice, no matter in which computer it has been created or edited, be it Solaris, Windows, Mac, Linux). This means an ideal solution for workgroup, with teams which use different systems and computers.

The applications are well integrated in a common menu. Each program’s capabilities are as good —if not better— than those in a commercial office package. Even better, some extras are included to round up the package, and it offers an excellent workgroup and network support, to implement meeting and groupwork. You can prepare meetings, assign tasks and automatically send email reminders to the team members.

What’s included in OpenOffice / StarOffice.

  • The desktop in StarOffice used to be an integrated workspace where all applications could be launched from. It lead to some confusion and it has been rethought in the OpenOffice suite, which works much like other office packages.
  • StarOffice Writer is a complete word processor, with features matching those in Word and compatible with any version of it. It even lets you perform some advanced DTP tasks, such as auto-flowing text boxes.
  • StarOffice Calc, the spreadsheet, again matching every capability in Excel. There is a simulation engine that lets you see what would happen if we enter certain changes in the chosen parameters.
  • StarOffice Base, a database program.
  • StarOffice Impress, a presentation program, very similar to the popular Powerpoint (it keeps compatibility with it, like the rest of applications in the suite.)
  • StarOffice Draw, a good basic vectorial drawing program. Its features can be compared with those in CorelDraw. It includes an automatic tracing function, dynamic creation of flow charts, drawing measures and scales, textures and transparencies... and there is a good collection of ready to use image library.
  • StarOffice Schedule: a basic calendar to organize and plan your individual or group tasks.
  • StarOffice Mail, email program with multiple account support. You can import data from Outlook and Netscape.
  • StarOffice Discussion: A newsgroup / usenet client, also with multiple server support.
  • Integrated browser, based on HotJava, lets you navigate the Internet from any StarOffice utility, making the net a truly integrated part of the workspace. You can change the browser if you want to Explorer, however.
  • Visual html editor; any application in the suite may export the contents to a html page.

StarOffice still has some more utilities in the box:

  • StarOffice Image, Bitmap and photography editor with many special effects and filters.
  • StarOffice Chart, graphic editor based on numerical data, very easy to use.
  • StarOffice Math: a formula editor.
  • StarOffice Gallery: Multimedia viewer. And there is still more...

Are you still doubting? Solve your doubts installing this magnificent collection of software, unless all those necessities have already been covered by some other first class product!