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Have you checked whether you could use StarOffice? Given the level required for GCSE and the features available, it might be sufficient.

Well, there is a separate word processing module so I guess they are looking at quark lookalikes. Microsoft Publisher has been mentioned. I think they are getting at frames and page layout and design more. I personally feel that dtp and wp are these days more or less the same thing. It's just that the UK examination boards seem to live in the past. Steve.

I was thinking more of StarOffice Draw than StarOffice Writer. It lets you place and position textboxes with all the Writer features, but also handles a wider range of pictures better than Quark XPress and handles font effects, rotation, scaling, etc. The main limitation would be that a drawing only handles one page, though that could be overcome simply by inserting drawing features in Writer. Pesumably the (ICT?) syllabus describes objectives so that you could check whether these could be covered by the package. Given that you can teach Visual Basic in GCSE as if it were a programming language, it seems reasonable to use StarOffice as if it were a desktop publishing package. Also, the educational licence is, I believe, free. -- JDL