Desktop Publishing as we know it today is a different discipline than it was twenty-five years ago. In the late 1980's a virtual revolution occurred in typesetting with the advert of desktop publishing (DTP) technology. Driven by the revolution in personal computers, plummeting costs and miniaturization of computer memory, modestly priced personal computers originally developed for word processing are now capable of preparing documents of amazing sophistication.

When such documents are prepared with a Word Processor, an application program for manipulating text-based documents; a typographer can create sophisticated layouts and choose from hundreds of typefaces, and can arrange the documents according to predefined formats or change them in a variety of ways. The electronic equivalent of paper, pen, typewriter, eraser, dictionary, and thesaurus with editing documents (deleting, inserting, rewording, and so on) and also offering facilities for document formatting, such as font changes, page layout, paragraph indention, and the like. Many word processors can also check spelling, find synonyms, incorporate graphics created with another program, correctly align mathematical formulas, create and print standard letters, perform calculations, display documents in multiple on-screen windows, and enable users to record macros that simplify difficult or repetitive operations.

Depending on the program and the equipment in use, word processors can display documents either in text mode, using highlighting, underlining, or colour to represent italics, boldfacing, and other such formatting, or in WYSIWYG mode, wherein formatting and a variety of fonts appear on the screen as they will on the printed page. Leaders in DTP technology include IBM and its Ventura systems and Xerox Corporation with its Star systems, both of which are aimed at corporate markets, while Aldus PageMaker and Quark XPRESS are typesetting/design packages popular with small businesses and individual users. Apple Computer's Macintosh line possesses exceptional graphics capabilities and has long been popular with designers and in small offices.

The best Desktop Publishing equipment, is highly sophisticated, delivers high-quality photo or digital output. The gap is narrowing, however, especially as the link becomes firmly established between personal computers acting as input devices and digital output. Not since the very earliest days of printing has it been possible for one individual to have complete control over design, typesetting, and printing, and customary boundaries between specialized segments in the graphic arts industry are increasingly blurred.