From pencils and paste-ups to VDTs and the integrated page: Some thoughts on the state-of-the-art
Authors: Karen E Andrésen
Venue: Proceedings of the 4th annual international conference on Systems documentation (1986)

A few spring seasons ago one of my professors in graduate school was deep in a depression. In response to a departmental decision to install word processors, his desire to put pencil to paper had died and his passion for instilling a healthy respect for the English language in his students had waned. The following fall, however, he was a changed man - the depression had vanished. When I asked what had brought about this change, he said he had spent the summer in the &ldquo;eighteenth century,&rdquo; alias the museum school at Cooperstown. There, he had spent long hours drafting with a quill pen, setting type blocks by hand, and cranking sheets of rag paper through a press - producing documents from start to finish by his own hand. He had recaptured his vitality and his perspective by returning to the basics, and now, he thought, he was ready to take on the spectre of the computer. Many professionals in our field are experiencing the same desperation that my professor faced. However, they do not have the option of returning to a school for antiquities &mdash; they are being pushed into the future. Today, writers are being told to put aside their pencils, and to work online. Writers are complaining that the new documentation processes are removing them too far from their words, and that the process is contributing to the defamation of the natural beauty of our language. They fear that the art of technical writing and the craft of producing a document are being undermined by the new technology. They wonder how to maintain the integrity of the language when the words of that language can't be touched anymore - when they are composed not by human hand but by a sequence of dots in a matrix, and when they are not laid to boards with wax but synthesized by a computer that integrates text and graphics and appear on a clean, odorless printout. They are both intimidated by the new systems and feel resentful of the machine that separates them from their words. This separation conflict can be addressed on three levels. First, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of computer-aided publishing can help ease the crisis of craft, that is, the idea that the documentation process is out of human control. Second, recognizing the advantages of the new medium - in our case, computer code - can help ease the crisis of change, that is, the perception that the new technology is overwhelming, and that resistance is the best line of defense against it. Third, accepting the idea that online development is not merely word processing, and realizing that your strength, skill, and art cannot be compromised by a keyboard can solve the crisis of art - that is, the idea that computer technology can deface the beauty of your words. To address the first concern - that of a revolutionary approach to production, let us examine a case in point. At Bell Communications Research, Inc. (Bellcore), a plan for electronic publishing has just been instituted. Within two years, we expect to write online, create graphics online, compose pages that integrate those words and graphics online, impose our publications' standards on those pages online, and publish documents composed of those pages online. Instead of sending mechanicals to a human printer, we will send computer code to a laser printer. In short, our publication portfolios will be in binary instead of binders. There are few technological obstacles to overcome to implement this system. One great advantage is that our form of computer-aided publishing (CAP) frees us from the traditional serial method of production - writing, editing, illustration, typeset, paste-up, and printing. That process is lengthy and labor-intensive, and each step is dependent on the one that preceded it. If, for instance, the decision is made after paste-up to drop an illustration, the document must be reformatted from the point of the illustration. The writer must return to the text to make sure that references and the folio list are changed. The proofreader must ensure that the writer has caught all the changes. The compositor must reformat the document. And, if the change occurred after the blueline was produced, the negatives must be re-shot. Each person's efforts are cumulative and pyramidal. If one block is imperfect, the end product may be structurally deficient. This takes not only time but money. Given an average cost per page of 20 to 50 dollars a page for new mechanicals, this can easily add hundreds of dollars to the cost of composition. Although CAP has its own costs, they are considerably less than the price of manual composition. For example, a 20-page document with four schematics costs approximately 450 dollars on our CAP system. This cost includes text entry, creation of the graphics, proofreading, formatting, composing, and typesetting. The &ldquo;boards&rdquo; (repro copy) are ready in less than three days. And, cost savings continue through the &ldquo;printing&rdquo; process. If the document is electronically transmitted, a negligible cost is incurred for XOPR, or whatever means of data transfer is used. Finally, whatever costs are normally associated with the laser printer are levied. If the document is printed at a print shop, the costs are about two-thirds of normal because negatives are not needed. Negatives are not necessary because the copy is not mounted on boards, and boards are not necessary because all paste-up is done electronically. CAP merges text and graphics. In either case, substantial savings can be realized. Given the cumulative effect these sorts of changes have on document price, CAP is particularly appealing to those who have to pay for the material - in our case, the regional telephone operating companies. The companies - our owners - also want to be in control of the number of documents they receive. This is an added feature of our CAP process. With &ldquo;on-demand&rdquo; printing, once a document is ready for &ldquo;distribution&rdquo; to the field, the code is transmitted to VAX systems in 14 major metropolitan areas. Each VAX system is connected to a Xerox 9700 printer. With computer code and their own laser printers (which can be used for purposes other than printing the documents) they do not have to pay for print overruns. They know exactly how many copies they need and only that number is printed. Consequently, they have more control over the cost of &ldquo;printing&rdquo; and distribution. They simply do it themselves. What could be better? From the writer's perspective, some things could be better. And these concerns revolve around the notion of a crisis of change. Attuning oneself to the radical changes embedded in this process takes more than a little doing. Although it is not a difficult task to type on a computer keyboard (instead of a typewriter), or learn which buttons to press to format a document (instead of dictating specs to a compositor), it is stressful not to have the option to return to paper and pencil. It is challenging to face the consequence of technology: you must address the future to address your clients. And, although this message may seem far-fetched for the publication industry, it is not. The time has come when industry wants its money spent wisely and efficiently. Computer-aided publication must follow on the heels of computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering. The benefits of accepting and employing technological change have historical precedent. Think back to the middle of the fifteenth century. Johann Gutenberg's invention of printing with movable type was more a modification of existing technology than a totally new concept, but it had enormous impact. Writers and philosophers who took advantage of the ability to disseminate their ideas through print instead of manuscript were at a great advantage in terms of how great an audience could be addressed. In fact, the humanist movement might have been short-lived had it not been for the relatively widespread availability of classical writings. We might never have had the joy of Erasmus' In Praise of Folly or Sir Thomas More's Utopia had it not been for their realization that circulation of exact copies of their writings led to not only increased discourse but new attitudes. They contributed not only to the world of ideas, but the idea that the world could get information in a more timely, accurate, and consistent form. Advancing in time, the same statement can be linked to those who fought the ideological battles that laid the way for the American Revolution. Through their rhetoric they inflamed more hearts and brought them to the edge of revolution than was justified by the turn of events. The printing and pamphleteering business boomed. The &ldquo;audience&rdquo; responded. Suffice to say, they used the latest in technology to address critical issues. By controlling the presses, they had a clear advantage. The rest, as they say, is history. These historical examples should not be viewed in isolation, for today great opportunities exist to use the tools and technology to expand our audience base and to reach out to those that standard print technology might not affect. The possibilities of sending text over television (broadband), over FM radio (narrowband), through microwave frequencies, or through satellites or over cable television are endless. The dream of videotext is now a reality. One- and two-way transmissions can be sent over the telephone or through a cable. Technical capabilities are no longer a hindrance. Rather, they should be seen as a boon. Computer-aided publishing can also be a boon to the writer as concerns the third crisis I want to address - that of the artistry of writing. As technology has advanced, and as writers must deal with new vocabularies and constructions, many feel the result is a decline in the style and presentation of writing. One of my colleagues described it as &ldquo;our loss of autonomy in a world of presentation - with no latitude for creativity and individuality,&rdquo; and wondered how &ldquo;yesterday's writer is accepted into today's non-verbal, passive, and highly graphic world of communications.&rdquo; These are legitimate concerns. Good examples of bad English abound in all the communication media today. Using CAP to its fullest advantage is one way to combat the deterioration of the language. For example, the speed and ease of editing allows for more editing iterations. And although a document will not necessarily improve during each editing cycle, very often the quality does improve the more the document is worked on. And, quality is the heart of this concern. Computers can do nothing to intuitively aid or deter the writer in his or her work - they are merely tools, but tools with many attachments that can ease the process. Those basic attachments, such as programs that check spelling, that count how many times and in which contexts words have been used, that identify certain types of phrase structures, and that format documents automatically are aids that should not be neglected. Additionally, the ease with which drafts can be circulated, commented on, and returned to a writer with comments contribute to better writing. From my terminal, for example, I can transmit drafts to experts on telecommunications in Washington, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Seattle within minutes, and receive their comments within hours. Furthermore, CAP permits the use of more exotic technology. The links to graphics software, which afford the writer the luxury of a choice of formats and presentation, allow for experimentation in how to effectively present illustrative material. Along those same lines, the writer also can dally with fonts and type size (although this is sometimes limited by the constraints of the printer that will ultimately produce the physical document). In sum, electronic peripherals are a means through which the writer can attack the problem of producing good writing in a world in which bad writing abounds. They offer the opportunity to the writer to fine-tune a document in relatively short period of time (with the aid of software &ldquo;helpers&rdquo; if desired), and to support that writing through interactive design and execution of graphics and format. These three perspectives on CAP - how to deal with the concerns of how the process has changed our craft, how to use it most effectively, and how we may maintain our standards in light of the revolutionary change - are central to our work. We cannot dismiss them. Whereas computer-aided publishing is an awesome concept, and one that threatens certain types of crafts, the advantages in speed (reduction of composition time results in increase in creativity time), control (over all phases of the production as well as the quality of the writing), and audience (the opportunity to address a greater audience both more directly and through a medium that is more the norm than the exception) are overwhelming. CAP should not be viewed as an obstacle, but as a gateway that, once opened, reveals a wealth of opportunity. I believe that even my professor in graduate school, light-hearted as he was over preparing a document by his own hand, would agree with me. When I last saw him a few months ago, I had to wrench him away from his current passion - composing a book on eighteenth century printing. His medium? His new loves in life - a personal computer, word processing software, and a printer.