- Specimen book for Buddy August 24, 2010
- New release! Buddy: the sans companion to Contenu August 24, 2010
- Classes mess up Opentype Glyph generation August 9, 2010
- A history of the alphabet August 9, 2010
- Going after the look of old fonts? Not likely August 7, 2010
One of the interesting things about the new paradigm of publishing is the lack of exclusivity. As I publish works for Radiqx and clients, I am continually struck by how many places I normally release things. My norm now is to start with Lulu, then do a Createspace version, then make an html version for Kindle, then a Word version for Smashwords, an ePUB version on Lulu for iPad, a PDF of one of the versions for Scribd, and others yet to be discovered.
Part of this is to see what sells and who checks it out, and what action develops. This is all in flux as far as I can see. So far, Amazon are doing the best [both CreateSpace, and Kindle], closely followed by Lulu—but these results are changing weekly. As far as traffic is concerned, Scribd seems to do the best. But, Smashwords has more people checking out samples. It is a real interesting mix. As far as I am concerned, it is much more interesting than my old relationships with a giant publisher back East somewhere.
It takes constant redesigning
This is where InDesign and the Creative Suite 5 in general, really shine. InDesign CS5 has really helped out the workflow. Some sites require separate insides and covers (Lulu & CreateSpace), some require HTML (Kindle), some require ePUB (iPad), some require Word (Smashwords), some work best with PDF (Scribd). They all take specialized designs. However, with layout adjustment turned on and a complete set of styles (paragraph and character) set up, all of this goes relatively quickly.
Of course, “they” all say you must get into the code. But you should know of my code challenge by now. If it requires code [beyond HTML and CSS], I’m not going to do it. My hope (and constant feature request) is that some app in CS6 will enable me to drop the need to be constantly playing with HTML and CSS also. Already, I am using Dreamweaver CS5′s CSS dialog boxes to edit my CSS—even for my WordPress templates.
It’s a brave new world
I’m really having fun learning to work in this new world. I’m gradually finding friends and sources of help. Liz Castro and Joel Friedlander regularly offer good advice on their blogs, for example. It’s really going to be interesting to see where it all goes from here.
The book is available through Lulu now—Amazon and the rest are coming soon.
This revision includes the new features for CS5 that apply to formatting with styles.
Again, most of the revisions are geared toward making InDesign work smoother and more efficiently in your workflow. I’ve been surprised, as always, by how quickly I’ve become addicted to the new version. It’s a really strong upgrade again.
New in CS5
- Simplified object selection and editing
Do almost everything with the selection tool
Direct access to the content of frames - Live Corner Effects.
Adjust corners individually in layout view - Easy grid placement
Generate grids with arrow keys: while adding objects - Track text changes
Only works in story editor - Paragraphs that span and split columns
Make your lists into automatic multiple sub column listings and so on - All-new Layers panel
Reconfiguring grouped objects: simply drag objects from one group to another in the Layers panel - Document-installed fonts
Automatically install packaged fonts (only works for OpenType and TrueType fonts), but it works great! - Live captions
Generate static or live captions automatically: from image metadata. - Gap tool
Give drag’n'drop layout control of grids and multicolumn layouts - Multiple page sizes
Page Selection tool - Interactive documents and presentations
- Animation panel; Object States panel; Timing panel; Media panel; Preview panel: New panels help you add rich media to Page layouts
- Integrates with CS Review
Online proofing,commented, and reviewing. Excellent resource: but it costs extra by subscription after the first year - InDesign CS5 pages to Flash CS5 with greater fidelity.
One of the things that happens as you mature is dealing with all that you have seen, heard, and done. As I have told many people, I have learned more since I was fifty than in the fifty years prior. My entire writing career started when I was fifty, for example.
Lately, we have been dealing a lot with Ecclesiastes—all is vanity. More and more, nothing seems to matter except our relationship with Jesus. Increasingly, the things I do every day seem to have no intrinsic value. In themselves, they are meaningless. What matters is how people react to them. That includes how I react.
Why do we do what we do?
As I was looking at Ecclesiastes this morning, I was struck by a couple of verses I do not recall: 2:24-25
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.
This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?
The truth of this just slapped me upside the head. I don’t know if this is a male thing, but enjoying your toil is an amazing blessing. Part of the curse of sin is that we men must sweat and toil. How we resist this truth. Here’s what God told us because we ate from the tree:
Gen 3:17-19—…cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread,…(ESV)
So, the pain of work is not the problem—that is a given.
The problem is dissatisfaction—and worse, our attempts to avoid the pain by doing what we think is satisfying, what we think is good, what we think is fun. WE cannot make outselves happy. We cannot plan for our satisfaction. It is a vain striving without issue. It does not work.
As always, the solution is: listen and follow
As you know, one of my favorite verses is John 5:39–40
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (ESV)
Life is found in Jesus. Following Him leads through life. Satisfaction is discovered by doing what He calls us to do—because that is what we are meant to do, designed to do, equipped to do.
How could it possibly be so simple?
it’s been a surprising year. I never would have expected to be forced into going into what the government calls retirement. That has been a huge adjustment.
For a man, retirement is close to what housewives experience if circumstances keep them from being able to clean their home. it attacks the core of our being. I have been amazed at how much of my self identity is tied up in what I do.
On the other hand, it has been a joy to get back into personal creative endeavors. I’ve designed dozens of items for the Radiqx Zazzle site (buper stickers are doing well so far). I’m getting ready to release my first novel. I find it is a much better escape to write the novels I read. It’s not as much fun as the new Baldacci, Clancy (if we ever see one of those again), Cussler, de Brul, Dale Brown, Brad Thor, Daniel silva, W.E.B. Griffin, or any of the other authors I love to read. But the involvement is incredible and the ability to create new realities is really fun. I think you’ll find it a good read.
On-demand Publishing
I’m still focused on this for several reasons.
- My lack of capital makes it the only real choice
- it keeps works available to limited audiences like those of you who follow what I am doing
- It allows me to easily generate multiple versions of a work with no additional expense
- It allows me to generate eBooks which seem to growing incredibly fast in use
However, it’s hard to be competitive on-demand. The book prices are higher (at least for mass-driven competition). The printing options are much more limited.
It is greatly ramping up my skills at book design, though. That I really like. There is still nothing ( to me) like the feel of a new book and a potentially good read. i realize that this is becoming a lost art to many of the young. But I’m not sure how well Kindle, Nook, and the others will hold out in the long run. How comfortable are they to use? If you have one, I’d love to hear your opinions. Amazon just announced agin that Kindle is their best-selling product of any type in their entire company. Nook is already sold out and demand is outstripping production. Clearly, people want something like this.
I guess when my ship comes in, I’ll get one.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.
Adding anchored objects can be a little tedious. One of the most painful aspects of making anchored frames to hold illustrations, sidebar notes, or headlines is the tediousness of the repetitive filling out of the anchored object dialog box.
The simple solution is to make those settings in an object style.
Then all you do is place the object as an inline graphic and hit the shortcut to convert it to an anchored object and to offset it where you need it. Or place it, hit the shortcut and then insert it into the text where you need it. It will automatically be anchored and offset as you designed it.
Let’s make a style to automatically offset a frame into the sidebar area next to the column on a single column page
Make a new Object style with all the options turned off . Turn on Anchored Object and set it up like you see below. We’re assuming a four-inch column on a 7.5″ wide page. You can adjust to fit your page size.
Basic settings for an anchored object
TIP: Once you have your anchored style set up the way you like, save the document you are working on.
Then close all documents and go to the Object Styles palette (with no document open). Choose Load Object Styles… from the Option Menu and add the new object style from the document you just saved and closed. Close InDesign and reopen it to save your new application default.
From then on, all new documents will have this style available. In most cases, all you will have to do it modify the offsets to make it work for any new project.
Believe me, you’ll use this (or your version of it) a lot!
The other day I went through a common scenario> I had a 408 page book set up at 6×9. I found out that I needed it formatted to 4.25″ x 6.88″ for a different printer. How long do you think it took me? It became a 540 page book.
It took less than an hour.
How did it go so quickly?
Everything was formatted with styles including all the graphics. The graphics were all formatted as anchored graphics and object styles.
That hour included checking every page for orphans and widows and fixing all of them. That meant eliminating all paragraph fragments of two lines or less and all paragraph ending sentence fragments of two and a partial word or less.
The procedure
- Turn on Layout Adjustment… under the Layout menu in InDesign
- Change the page size in Document setup… under the file menu
- Change the margins in Margins and Columns… under the Layout menu
- Adjust the paragraph styles, character styles, and object styles
- Proof new layout from page 1 to the end eliminating orphans and widows
Like I said, it took less than a hour to convert a 540 page book. It was really fun. Yes, it was a novel we’re publishing for a new author in Peralta, New Mexico. But it doesn’t take much longer for a graphically intensive book like Practical Font Design.
I ran across this in my Christian professionals group at Linked In this morning. It is a visually exciting presentation to be sure. My only question is:
Can it really be used?
I saw no place to add notes, new crossreferences or any of the other things necessary for a real study bible. I’ve included a scan of one of the pages in one of my bibles to show you what I mean.
It may be that Glo can handle this, but I couldn’t find it in the promo pieces on their fancy Website.
It is gorgeous though—unlike this bible that has actually been used. I’ve got to admit I’m suspicious when they don’t give you the version and the typography looks so bad on the screen. I’m afraid it’s NIT or worse.
My guess is (judging by past history) that Zondervan has it locked down tighter than a drum so it can’t really be used as a teaching tool.
A used study bible
This is the new Lulu version of the 2nd edition of the original Publishing with InDesign released in 2000 for version 1.5.
There will be a createspace version with an ISBN# that should be out in a couple weeks.
The Lulu version has a $7 download. Both of the perfect bound 108-page printed versions are $13.95.
These are training materials for the apprenticeship program here at Radiqx Press. This particular book covers setting up IndEsign for production speed, covering: defaults, styles (all five types), anchored objects, form design, and so on.
As those of you who know me have probably figured out, I’m going through a major period of adjustment in my life. Last night my remote stopped on a broadcast by Joyce Meyers. Man, that woman can preach! She really helped me see some things about myself that need serious work. The Holy Spirit comes through again. Thank you, Lord.
It’s good to be reminded that even though I may have an accurate vision of where the Lord is leading (and that is in doubt or at least unclear at the moment), He has to prepare me before he unleashes my sorry butt into new ministry. The recent trials have certainly be coughing up some ugly stuff out of me. Maybe I’m finally at a point where I can let Him clean me up a little better. I hope so.
A List Apart: Articles: Reading Design.
I read this last night. It’s an excellent article on the importance of the content and its presentation. Of course, I like it because I agree with it. But you should find it an entertaining and thought provoking read also.
Among other things, Dean discusses the pressures to focus on the design without ever reading the copy. Don’t do that. Read the article.