DSKEDTR makes things to print or share as a PDF: newsletters, flyers, posters, programs, booklets. Here is a newsletter from start to finish.
1. Start
Pick New document (a Letter page) or Start from a template when DSKEDTR opens, or explore the sample. The New button in the top bar offers the same: a blank page, a blank page of any size, or a template (a flyer, a newsletter, a tri-fold brochure, a certificate, a greeting card or a sign), each an original design with sample words to replace. Building blocks on the rail (K) add ready-made pieces to any page: a pull quote, a sidebar, a coupon, event details, a masthead, a contact strip, a page border. Size, orientation and margins can change any time: Page setup, in the Document section of the Inspector. Changing the size never squashes what is on the page. For a booklet or magazine, tick Facing pages there: pages 2 and 3, 4 and 5 and so on show side by side as spreads, with inside and outside margins. Click the other page of a spread to work on it, or drag something across to move it there. Bleed lets colour and pictures run past the edge for trimming; the Export dialog adds the bleed and crop marks to the PDF. Folds, also in Page setup, mark where a brochure or card will be folded (half, tri-fold, Z, gate, quarter or tent). The Export dialog can also arrange the pages as a booklet (two pages on each side of a sheet, in folding order: print on both sides, fold and staple) or as two or four copies on a sheet with cut marks. Rulers, the grid, guides and snapping are in the top bar; drag out of a ruler onto the page to make a guide.
2. Text boxes, and text that flows
Pick the Text box tool (T) and drag on the page. Type. Headings are paragraph roles: Heading 1, Heading 2, Body and Caption, in the Inspector's Paragraph section (or Ctrl+Alt+1, 2, 0, 9). Below the role is its style: size, line and letter spacing, kerning, space above and below, alignment and colour. Changing it changes every paragraph with that role, so all your headings stay alike. When a box is too full, a red + appears. Click or tap the round chain-link tab just below its bottom-right corner (or Link in the floating pill), then click an empty text box, even on another page: the text carries on there. Unlink in the pill stops the flow again. A text box can also split into columns (up to six, with the gap you choose): Text flow, in the Inspector. The text fills one column, then the next, then the next linked box.
3. Pictures and shapes
The Picture tool (F) adds a picture, or drop one on the page. DSKEDTR asks for its alt text straight away. Rectangles (R), ellipses (O) and lines (L) are decoration unless you give them alt text. Overlapping shapes can be merged (Arrange, in the Inspector).
Tables
The Table tool (B) draws a table: drag for one that size, or click for one that fits its words. Type in a cell; Tab goes to the next one, row by row. Each row grows to fit what is in it. The Inspector's Table section adds and deletes rows and columns (beside the cell you are typing in), turns the header row and banded rows on or off, and sets their colours; Look sets the lines. While you type in a cell, the floating pill above the table inserts a row above or below it, or a column left or right of it, or deletes its row or column. Drag the line between two columns, or the green tab above it, to change their widths. Screen readers read a table's cells row by row, and the header row tells them what each column holds.
4. Pages
The filmstrip along the bottom shows every page. + adds one after the page showing (with master pages, it asks which one the new page uses). Click or tap a page for its buttons: move it left or right, its master page, duplicate, delete. You can also drag pages into order, or use Alt with Left or Right.
5. Reading order
Screen readers read each page in its reading order: the Reading order section of the Inspector, or the Reading order tool (N), where you click things in the order they should be read.
Check it
The Accessibility tab beside the Inspector (or the person button in the top bar, which shows how many problems there are) lists what to fix: a missing title, missing alt text, text too faint against what is behind it, text that doesn't fit, and more. Each has a button that goes straight to it. It can also show the page as someone with colour blindness or blurred vision sees it.
6. Save and share
Save project (Ctrl+Shift+S) keeps everything editable in a .dskedtr file, with the pictures inside. Export (Ctrl+S) makes a PDF of every page for printing or sharing, or a PNG picture of one page. If the browser closes before you save, DSKEDTR offers your work back the next time it opens (that copy stays in this browser only).
DSKEDTR is desktop publishing in the browser, for the things people used Microsoft Publisher for. It is being built in steps; the Changelog says what each one added.
Private by design. Your documents and pictures never leave this device. There are no uploads, accounts or analytics, and the page's security policy blocks it from sending data anywhere. Pictures are redrawn as they come in, which leaves hidden data (like a phone photo's location) behind.
Outside code, each pinned to one version and checked against a fixed fingerprint (the one-file edition has them inside): opentype.js 1.3.4 by Frederik De Bleser (reads the font), Paper.js 0.12.18 by Jürg Lehni and Jonathan Puckey (Merge Shapes), pdf-lib 1.17.1 by Andrew Dillon and @pdf-lib/fontkit 1.1.1, after fontkit by Devon Govett (writing PDFs). All MIT licence.
Font: Atkinson Hyperlegible, by the Braille Institute (SIL Open Font License), designed to be easy to tell letters apart.