laying out books in cs3
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- svenreed
this is my first time taking on the task of laying out a 130 page book. im familiar with indesign cs3 and the entire suite (print) yet ive never tried to layout a book. anybody have any links or workflow help? id appreciate any of it.
thanks so much.
- 5timuli0
I stupidly laid out a 200pg brochure in one document. Frequent crashes, changes being made but not saved, loads of other problems. I won't do that again.
- acescence0
the indesign manual, it's all there. master pages, creating sections, headers and footers, auto pagination.
- Spookyhome0
I know its all great and everythig, and I know that I'm not qualified as I never ever do any layout work, but really, as crap as it is, just stick to Quark Xpress and accept that the big Adobe takeover is not the key to happiness.
On the two occasions I have tried to layout in CS I have found exactly what 5timuli says... of particular frustration is the one about things being changed and just not being saved for some random, bizarre reason. Also, if it gets too much (which it will on a 130 page book) things will just disappear, quietly and without warning. They just drop out of existence. Graphics, images, rules... Adobe software seems to suffer from random and frequent forgetfulness.
Quark, for all its faults, will never let you down like that. Its dull, out of date, but solid as a rock.
- acescence0
save as, save as, save as
- if you keep saving the same doc, it gets huge and bloated and errors pop up, use save as instead and the doc will magically shrink and be more stableacescence
- ... stay small and lean and be more stableacescence
- why is that?
epigraph - not sure why, doesn't exactly inspire confidence though, ha.acescence
- You can do versioning in Bridgeninjasavant
- really? i've never used bridge, maybe i should get with the timesacescence
- TREBIO0
Trust me on this one. Do the book in individual files - 16 page signatures...01-16, 17-32, etc. So if you do lose a file due to a crash you only have 16 pages lost and not the whole book.
And I agree with Acescence, the 'save' option is a must do also.
- svenreed0
thanks everyone!
i figured out how to create a book file.
going the route of signatures seems to be the best, and 16 to a page will work perfectly with the press..so im told :/ive been saving every change. its mostly text – a literary journal, so not one crash, running CS3 on an intel mac. yet now that i said that...
- doesnotexist0
set it up the right way. make a book file and add chapters/other indd files to it to make up the whole book so you're not always opening and working with a 130 pg file.
good luck!
(TREBIO beat me to it!)
- meffid0
Consult the printer on how they want it also, if say it's A3 folded in half then the page numbers can get fucked up.
I've done a large book for Emirates, I put each spread in a seperate indd file. When you start a new one change the page number from 1 to what it is.
Keep your links and external artwork well organised and only package completed pages/sets/spreads.
- you can do this when you're preparing files for print, don't set it up that way.doesnotexist
- File/Print Booklet...doesnotexist
- 4040
I also learned the hard way. Layout the book in sections don't do everything in one master document, or you will want to punch yourself in the balls.
- MrOneHundred0
What do I do if I already want to punch myself in the balls?
- univers0
Explore the functionality of the Book function in inDesign CS3. It allows you to divide the book up into documents for each chapter, and it includes a lot of automation thats pretty cool. Kind of hitting myself for never knowing this.
- svenreed0
thanks again..the book feature really has been awesome so far and im finding my way through it. i love how easily it assigns page numbers and all of that annoying crap.
one other question...when printing a book, do printers typically want viewer spreads or printer spreads? more clearly, do you have to rearrange all of the pages to make correctly on the signatures? or do printers have some amazing automated program? pretty noob question, my apologies, ive never laid out such a large piece. id imagine i should talk to the print rep...once this fucking thing finally passes a bid.
thanks again.
- Just set it it up as a facing pages document, those guys can do all the rest. Glad it’s working out.MrOneHundred
- univers0
From my experience when publishing magazines was that the printer wanted each page in it's own PDF file with the right name format. They then set up the proper signature format based on the size of your signature. This was printed at Brown Printing out of Waseca MN.
You should contact your Customer Service Rep, and they should direct you to the technical person to walk you through all those details. ( He was our best friend when we started the magazine, made life super easy.) What is your run size? Are you using a professional Offset? or is this just a small job.
- svenreed0
Professional offset printer in CT. I hope at Wolf Colorprint, a local printer with great reps that have really helped me before. 2500 copies, 6x9", on Finch Opaque. This is all a learning process for me as I am still in school, I've been fortunate enough to work with offset printers in my programs student design firm, and learned more useful information then ever before. This is by far the biggest project I have had to tackle yet. If I could talk to the print rep I would, but the project is still out to bid. So I thank you all so much for the useful information. Really...thanks!
- univers0
Ah I get it now. Good luck! Make sure your color profiles are correct =P
- univers0
One more bit advice for the production, make sure if the printer is doing the binding as well, that they can confirm that the paper will work with their press and bindery.
We had a horror story where we bought our own paper and printed, they said the paper will be fine, but when we got our first few issues there was ink that transfered onto other pages because of the pressure from the bindery, and that it turned out the paper wasn't handling the ink levels they had applied to the paper.
Long story short when we yelled at the printer they spent 2 months arguing that it was the paper mill's fault, and they tried to do everything so that they didn't have to pay for some of the cost of our damages. About 80% of our magazines were damaged, and we were doing about a 50,000 run. I am not sure if books work the same way when being bound, but I never wish anyone having to go through what we had to! Again good luck!
- univers0
And one more, I am talking about the SWOP profile needed to be set when you convert to PDF. It's the color profile information that increases accuracy when going through the Rip when they make your plates. It will help a lot when you go to the press and have to dial in your 4 color density levels when the job starts printing.
- Not CMYK and RGB like in Photoshop. But yes make sure images are in CMYK before you proof the thing.univers
- neue75_bold0
http://www.typophile.com/node/43…
One thing that's really important too is to figure out the creep or to get that info from the printer, or just make sure he is dealing with it... More info on 'the creep' here –
http://www.graphic-design.com/DT…- Yeah, this is something that nobody deals with in the post-reprohouse pdf era. Fucked. *Bring back Repro*Spookytim
- * nods head, puffs pipeneue75_bold
- trooper0
theres a tutorial on computerarts.co.uk on creating a booklet