This rule is that 80 per cent of users of computer programs use only 20 per cent of the programs’ functions and that 20 per cent of users use 80 per cent of the programs’ functions.
(As an aside, if you saw my colleagues Grattan, Warden, Macklin and Abjorensen, you’d wonder why it wasn’t called the 90-10 rule or the 95-5 rule, but never mind.)
The challenge to the 80-20 rule has come with two new graphics programs. One has been on the market a short time, PagePlus from Serif, and the other, CorelDraw 5 is to be launched in Australia next week.
Corel is the Rolls Royce, Mercedes and Porsche of graphics programs. Hands up those who can afford to drive and Rolls Royce, Mercedes or Porsche.
Hands up those who would want to drive those cars a thousand Ks over the dirt.
So Corel is for producing the colour separations for elaborate artwork: outline type extruded (like the lettering on the front cover of Superman which took a freehand artist weeks to do) with a pattern on the letters all overlaid on a sepia landscape photo with five or six cut-outs of full-colour photos each with 2.3-point magenta border. I’m serious. It costs $1295.
Corel is not so good for the 35-page booklet on the consumers’ guide to ACT law with nine chapters, each with five or six sub-heads, each with four or five sub-sub-heads with cartoons dotted through out, an index and a table of contents. For this you need Quark Express (new version at $2199) or Aldus PageMaker 5.0 (Mac version is $1495). All of these programs require serious computing power. (The sort of things your departmental finance manager in an under-spending department would be happy to buy in the last week of June.)
But hang on a moment. I want to put out a few invitations a year, run the squash newsletter, a notice for the departmental fun run, a few joke sheets and a flyer to encourage people to rent my house down the coast. I will use only 20 per cent of Corel or PageMaker.
Well, there is Microsoft Publisher ($149) or PagePlus ($149) and a cut-down version of Aldus PageMaker 5.0 called Aldus PageMaker Classic also $149.
I haven’t tried PageMaker Classic (but you can have a demo at the Software Shop in Phillip where they stack up lots of software on demo computers), but I have compared Microsoft Publisher and PagePlus.
Publisher has been out for some time and is available at most software shops. PagePlus is available in Australia from Software by Mail (1-800-809-546, or fax 1-800-809-503, or mail PO Box 764 St Ives 2075 _ this suburb is not tobe confused with the on-leave permanent writer of these pages. Generally, you’ll get next-day delivery) or from Serif in the US (1 603 889-8650). As always with software, telephone, get quotes, compare, beat them round the head etc.
If you are professionally serious about the daily commercial production of artwork, booklets and other publications with full colour separations go for one of the big ones.
If you do weekly material or not at if full time consider one of the three $149 programs.
PagePlus is very good value for money. It is dead easy to use. It has an ingenious Change Box with a mouse-driven sliding scale that enables you to see the changes as they will appear on the page. With type it is extraordinary. As you slide the mouse the typefaces change to how they would appear on the page. It allows imports of other graphics, but will not allow easy import of Excel and Lotus files (you have to cut and paste bots of them). However, for a good balance between flexibility and easy of use, PagePlus is good value for putting out newsletters, single page type and graphics sheets and the like. It manages type quite very well, allowing circular type and exploding left or right and type along curvy lines. It has good type shadow and outline. It also does and excellent job of filling odd shapes with types. But as a Typographical Tory I object to the use of body type without a fixed left point and I object to body type overlaid on pretty pictures.
Publisher allows for some pre-determined type twisting and is very good for spilling body type into subsequent pages for things like the social-club newsletter. But I found it harder to use than PagePlus.
In all, if you have a lot of body type running over, say, seven or eight A4 pages, I’d go for Publisher. If you are doing one or sheets with more headlines and imported graphics and you want a more intuitive see-as-you go program I’d go for Page Plus.
In all, I see the demise of the 80-20 rule. Price will determine it. To take the car analogy, in PagePlus and Publisher you can have any shadow or type shape as long as it is in one of the boxes. (Henry Ford said you can have any colour as long as it is black.)
Eighty per cent of graphics and desktop publishing users will see the wisdom buying 20 per cent of the functions for less than 20 per cent of the price and have a damn sight easier time using them. But if you among the 20 per cent in a demanding daily publishing job, then go for the top.