Thanks: 0
Likes: 0
Needs Pictures: 0
Picture(s) thanks: 0
Results 1 to 15 of 21
Thread: Putting together a book
-
1st November 2007, 08:56 AM #1
Putting together a book
Hi All,
I am putting together a book on the 25 year of our rugby club in microsoft word.
The file is becoming very large hence it takes ages to load and scroll through because of all the text and pictures.
Word Help is telling me to reduce the resolution of the pictures but I dont know how far I can reduce them and maintain enough quality?
I expect to finish up with about 300 pages and 150 to 200 photographs, any tips on handling a document this size would be appreciated.Cheers,
Howdya
Proudly supporting research into the therapeutic benefits of the Friday Thread
-
1st November 2007 08:56 AM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
- Join Date
- Always
- Location
- Advertising world
- Age
- 2010
- Posts
- Many
-
1st November 2007, 08:59 AM #2
-
1st November 2007, 10:14 AM #3GOLD MEMBER
- Join Date
- Oct 2005
- Location
- Adelaide
- Posts
- 1,024
Bob is right.
The last thing you want to do is to start trashing the resolution of the photos.
Word bogs down on big docs, programs like Pagemaker and Quark Express would be the go, but they cost a lot.
woodbe.
-
1st November 2007, 11:19 AM #4SENIOR MEMBER
- Join Date
- Aug 2003
- Location
- Wodonga
- Age
- 59
- Posts
- 707
From a printing point of view it would be best if you went and spoke to the printers you will be using before too much longer. I manage a prepress department for a reasonable size printer, and one of the biggest problems we have is clients turning up with a document that has taken them mega hours to produce, only to find that it is next to useless.
I would expect that your book would be case bound, and printed on a good quality stock, a similar example which we are producing 1500 copies of with around 400 pages will end up costing around $30,000 ($20 each) to manufacture.
DO NOT reduce resolution of pics. They should be 300dpi at 100%. Enlarging pics in word has the same effect as reducing resolution, so a 300dpi pic placed at 200% has an effective resolution of 150dpi.
Your printer may also require the file to be supplied as a PDF, this can create some problems, but can also eliminate a lot of problems.
By having a chat to them as early as you can, you will find that you could possibly save yourself a lot of heart ache and time, and possibly a few $$$ as well.
IF you want to PM me I will try to answer as many of your questions as I can, but NOTHING beats talking to the printers who will be doing your job.
Good Luck with it, I know how much effort is involved in this type of project.
-
1st November 2007, 11:23 AM #5
From an editing point of view, echnidna has the right idea. Break it up into chapters, much easier to handle that way.
-
1st November 2007, 12:43 PM #6GOLD MEMBER
- Join Date
- Oct 2002
- Location
- NSW
- Posts
- 1,610
Use styles!
I did quite a few theses for students in my early IT days, and found that getting my head around Styles was the biggest time, effort and sanity saver!
Big documents can be handled by "master documents" and "subdocuments".
I'll butt out about the pictures, as you're already getting better and more specific help than I could give.
But, I'll jump up and down about Styles being A Good Thing.
And, two reference books that I highly recommend are:
"The PC is not a Typewriter"
and
the NSW Govt Style Guide.
Cheers,
Andrew
-
1st November 2007, 01:07 PM #7
If your printer wants your document in PDF,
download a copy of Open Office, its FREE,
and you can save in PDF as well as Word Doc Format.
It will open woprd docs too so you won't have to duplicate the work you have done.
-
1st November 2007, 06:55 PM #8
If you want to create PDF documents without Adobe go here. http://www.cutepdf.com/
-
1st November 2007, 08:48 PM #9
Indesign is worth a look. It is part of the Adobe Creative Suite but I've heard has for several years now been the software of choice over Quark for putting books together.
StudleyAussie Hardwood Number One
-
2nd November 2007, 07:31 AM #10
Thanks All,
I have spoken to a printer and got it sorted.
It will need to be in pdf format - I have acrobat writer
He said to make the pictures low res in the document and provide copies on disk.
Thanks againCheers,
Howdya
Proudly supporting research into the therapeutic benefits of the Friday Thread
-
2nd November 2007, 10:55 PM #11
With the pictures, it is imperative that you have sufficient resolution - otherwise your pics will get printed and look all "blocky".
In Windows, the way to tell the maximum printed size of a pic is to wait for the little information box to appear when you mouse-over it.
This box will show the dimensions (in pixels) of the image. Divide these numbers by 300, to get the maximum size in inches that the pic can be printed in.
In the example below, the dimensions are 3,456 x 2,304 pixels - this means the maximum size it can be printed in is 11.5 x 7.6 inches, or just a bit smaller than A4 size.
My quick rule of thumb is that any jpg that's smaller than about 500k in file size won't be any good for commercial print (unless its going to be passport pic sized).
-
4th November 2007, 12:25 AM #12
first thing I'd do is get it out of Word and into a Desk Top Publishing program like Microsoft Publisher (dead easy to use), Page Maker or any thing other than Word which isn't a DTP, it will make it a hell of a lit easier to manage as you can see exactly what a page will look like and manipulate it with ease.
Do yourself a favor and try it. You may have to save the pages a .rtf or .txt to get them out of Word and into Publisher or whatever you decide to use but I can guarantee you won't regret the change.
You can also have all your graphics loaded at full hi res rather than lo res and it won't slow down the running of the program in the slightest. you can manipulate the whole thing in seconds and do a lot more than you ever thought possible in Word.
Cheers - Neil
PS Publisher is the most user friendly DTP program and will make your pdf's without a problem. Just click on print and change the printer to Adobe PDF the rest is automatic.
-
4th November 2007, 10:12 AM #13SENIOR MEMBER
- Join Date
- Aug 2003
- Location
- Wodonga
- Age
- 59
- Posts
- 707
Hate to disagree, Neil, but as someone who has to deal with publisher files professionally, this program is THE VERY WORST PROGRAM from a printers point of view.
I have yet to come across 1 printer that has a good word for it. It does not handle graphics or text very well from a pre press point of view, and is probably the most basic DTP program going around.
Most printers have to spend almost as long making the file usable, as it took to create, and generally can't recover the cost.
Quite a few also put a premium charge on files that are created by publisher to cover the extra labor.
There are also a few who just let it run as it is, and you end up with a job that is sub standard.
Unfortunately those clients that are very cost sensitive, are usually the most demanding when it comes to quality, and believe they are being ripped off when told there will be an extra charge to "fix" their file.
There is an old saying that you can't make strawberry jam out of pig poo, no matter how much sugar you put in, and there is not enough sugar to make Publisher anything other than the pig poo that it is.
Pagemaker has not been upgraded for about 5 years now, and is not much better than Publisher. It has been replaced with Indesign, which along with Quark are the 2 programs of choice for the design/publishing/printing industries...but they come at a price...InDesign @ $1099 and Quark @ $1330, which I know is unfortunately out of a lot of peoples price range.
But they are like comparing a $5 no name square or a magnificent 8" Colen Clenton square for $190 (which I just happened to pick up at the Melb WWW Show.)
If you are going to use the software for more than just doing your own business cards that you print out on your home computer, then it is at least worth considering. For a 400 page case bound book, that will run to around $30,000 for 1500 copies, it is not much of an extra cost.:
-
4th November 2007, 10:20 AM #14
Slightly off topic, but are there any good open source DTP programs?
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
My Other Toys
-
4th November 2007, 10:36 AM #15
Open Office is fairly good. It has most of the functionality of Microsloth Office.
Howdya, for your predicament I would use a Master document and sub documents like Arose mentioned. Basically your create each of the chapters in a separate file and then create a master document to collate all of the chapters. With the master document you cxan choose whether or not to display the sub-documents, increasing viewing speeds.
I will have a dig through my teaching notes and see if I can find the bits relating to sub-documents tonight if you like.Have a nice day - Cheers
Similar Threads
-
Router book review
By Grunt in forum ROUTING FORUMReplies: 4Last Post: 27th July 2017, 07:25 PM -
Recommendation for In-depth Woodworking book for a Galoot
By thumbsucker in forum WOODWORK - GENERALReplies: 9Last Post: 13th May 2007, 01:15 AM -
The Ultimate Band Saw Box Book
By donpbk in forum ANNOUNCEMENTSReplies: 3Last Post: 28th July 2006, 06:01 PM -
Book review - Collins woodworker's manual
By Grue in forum ANNOUNCEMENTSReplies: 2Last Post: 14th August 2003, 10:36 PM -
Rare Trades - Book review
By Grue in forum ANNOUNCEMENTSReplies: 2Last Post: 12th August 2003, 12:40 PM