MS Word vs Adobe InDesign

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Wednesday is called "hump day"... no, get your mind out of the gutter...! because it's the middle of the week and, if you make it through today, there are only two days until the weekend. Here's wishing you well on your Wednesday! I've heard a ton of talk lately about how MS Word is comparable to InDesign for laying out print books. Well, it's not. While it's great for laying out and formatting digital books, nothing compares to the power of Adobe InDesign for laying out a print book.

Grab your pencils and notebooks because you're gonna want to take notes today!

MS Word is a powerful machine for writing. It's great for term papers or formatting a book for upload to the various digital sellers on the web. It spell checks, indents according to your settings, and is easy to place images in. It also converts to html or rtf rather easily by simply choosing save as and making your selection. But there's one thing MS Word doesn't have that leaves it the squalling, hungry infant when compared to Adobe InDesign: Master Pages.

Master Pages are the end-all be-all of the print world. With a master page, you can tell InDesign what every page of your book should look like and where those individual pages should appear. You can pop in a page number and it will appear in the same place on every single page of your book. Adding artwork is easy; you simply place it on the master page and, voila!, it's on every page you have that master on.

I'm going to use The Bird as an example here because I used two sets of master pages to design it: A and B. Master page A was the common page where text, running headers, and page numbers would appear. B was the opening chapter pages. Time for some screen shots!

This is Adobe InDesign CS5. If you click on the image, you'll see I've identified the marks around the page. This is the opening of chapter two in The Bird.

This is Master Page A. It's the common page and you can see it has running headers, a text box, some nice flourishes at the bottom, and page numbers. It will automatically number each page according to where it falls in the book.

This is Master Page B. It's the chapter openings page. There's a left-hand and a right-hand, just like Master Page A. When I have a place where a chapter starts, I click the corresponding page, drag it, and drop it on the page it should appear on. Like magic, it's all there.

This tells me I'm looking at Master Page A. It's the tiny box in the top right-hand corner of the screen shots above.


When I'm done, I export it to a PDF and upload it to CreateSpace. Master Pages are the bomb. Period. MS Word can't touch this feature. Even with predefined formatting specs.

All the elements of a master page are locked so you don't accidentally move them around. But there's even a way around this! You ctrl+shift+click on any element and it will become editable. How damned cool is that?

In addition, if I wanted to use this exact layout on every book I produce, I can save it as a template that will re-load with all master pages intact. Comes in handy when formatting a series and you want each book to be identical on the inside!

I hope you learned a little bit today and, if you layout your own print books, are now considering an investment. No, I get no kickbacks from Adobe. I don't do that on this blog. I recommend tools I know you'll love if you give them half a chance.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Amazon Tags. Farewell?

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! One day closer to Friday, we are! Ooooooh that sounded rather Yoda-ish, no? Today, I'd like to bring something to your attention that you might have missed.

Amazon has, apparently, done away with the tagging system on their website. I hadn't been able to tag anything for a while and was beginning to wonder if it was some sort of Amazonian conspiracy against me. Yesterday, as I'm browsing through recent news on Facebook, I see a status update where someone says the tags are gone from Amazon. Lookie!

I am simultaneously filled with glee and remorse. Glee because I finally saw it wasn't just me with the problem; remorse because they've taken away one of the ways we can boost our book in searches. For Indie authors, the tags were a portal into getting our new stuff in front of people searching for what we write. It's like a huge slap on the wrist. Right? Maybe...

What did we do wrong?

Maybe it wasn't us. Perhaps it was just a system that wasn't working the way Amazon intended. Of course, it could have been us. We'll never know. Maybe the tagging system went away because we embed tags in our books' descriptions when we upload them/make them available for purchase.

In the big bad world of Indie publishing, maybe this isn't such a terrible thing. Let's look at it from another angle, shall we? Say they do away with the like system as well:

If Stephen King's books have 5,000 likes and 40,000 tags with every word known to the English language on them, they're going to be more visible to people performing searches (more words mean more hits) and rank higher in the returns (more likes and you show up first). If all those likes and tags are gone, Mr. King's publishing company gets to choose up to seven descriptive tag words; just like the rest of us. He no longer hits first on a search because of his number of likes. Oh man, he's been forced into the ditches with the rest of us; struggling for air, grasping at mud, and sliding back down now and then because he loses his grip.

So is the loss of the tagging system really that big of a deal? I know if I've purchased the work of an author and they release a new book, I get an e-mail without ever having clicked the like button. So if they take that away as well, I'm in the running... maybe! Is Amazon trying to find a way to even the playing field?

We may never know.

What are your thoughts?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Inches Picas and Points

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! How are you all today? I hope the start of this week brings you many smiles! Today, I'm gonna try and explain how inches, picas, and points are used in design. So, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

An inch is a common measurement used in the U.S. Picas and points are international, universal, measurements used in design work. These two units are used to measure type and layout sizes. That way, a designer in the U.S. can do work for someone in the U.K. or Japan and the measurements are the same without having to do a ton of conversions.

If you've ever looked at the size on your type, you'll notice it's referred to as: 12pt, 14pt, etc... A 12pt type size is also a one pica type size. Click on the image below for reference as we move along.

Allow me to break it down:
1inch = 6 picas
1 pica = 12 points

So when you see a measurement like 1.5" it equals 9p0. That's 9 picas and 0 points. We got there by taking 6 picas (one inch) and adding it to 3 picas (half an inch).

But wait! Adobe products do the conversions FOR you! If you have 12cm, you type in 12cm and hit tab and pow! you have your conversion (28p4.157). If you have 1.285 inches, you type in 1.285" and hit tab and pow! you have your conversion (7p8.52). How awesome is that?

So the next time you're designing that all important book cover, pay attention to the type size. Remember, your leading (the space between your lines of type) should be at least 1.5 of your type size. In other words, an 11 point typeface would get leading of around 16 or 17 points but a 9 point typeface would get 13 or 14. Your decision (I like 11 on 17 and 9 on 14). See image above for examples.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Book Review - Underneath by Michael Cargill

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm giving you an Indie Fever post. My second indie review of the year. Sit back and enjoy!

Indie Fever is dedicated to readers of indie books and to indie authors. I signed up to review at least eight indie books this year. It's a great idea and a wonderful cause! Here's the link: Indie Fever

Underneath won a review on my December 12 Days of Christmas indie author contest. The author hooked me right in with his pitch and I promptly bought the book which I read in just a few days. I give you my review.

From a reader's perspective:
To be frank, Underneath's main character, Hugh, scared the bejesus out of me. But he was so compelling I just had to keep reading. His odd thought process oftentimes gave me chills and made me wonder how many people like Hugh I'd passed by in my lifetime and never noticed. One of the supporting characters, Clare, was also well done, and I found myself identifying with her quickly. She has gumption and drive; both are qualities I admire a lot. The pacing was great and I flew through the book without realizing how much I'd read. I got a few surprises when the same exact words showed up at different times, and it thrilled and delighted me. Something else I liked was the author being from the UK. I learned some new words!!

From an editor's perspective:
I'd like to see a little more refinement of sentence construction and punctuation usage. I can overlook it if there are just a few but this book had a number of them. Short, choppy sentences left me stumbling over the words on more than one occasion. Plotline was bang on. I got the feeling this book was intended to be third person omniscient but it came off as third person limited with head hopping because one chapter would be about Hugh and another about Clare with snippets of other peoples' thoughts or feelings. I really only needed to see the story from two perspectives: Hugh's and Clare's. Quips now and then about random peoples' thoughts or feelings left me dangling (not in a good way). I think more character development of Hugh and Clare could've come from making this one small change.

Now, for my rating:
1 star for a terrifying main character.
1 star for rounding out the two characters I loved as much as was done.
1 star for bringing me to the UK and teaching me; as well as the surprises.
- 1 star for writing style (this is person by person so you may like it. I didn't).
- 1 star for including too many characters' thoughts and for punctuation blips.
3 out of 5 stars. Recommended reading if you like to be just a hair horrified at what could be going on in someone's mind.

You can find the book on Amazon here: Underneath for $3.30.

As far as the cover goes, I really like this one and feel it gives a good idea of what's going on in the story. One small tweak that could make it better is centering all the type. A general rule of design is to either left flush, right flush, or center everything if you do it once. Consistency is key! It could use some kerning as well but that's just aesthetics from a typography nerd.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

What's a Display?

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Today we'll talk about display fonts and answer some questions like: When to use a display font? How to identify a display font? Examples of display fonts. So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Display is defined as: Making a prominent exhibition of a thing where it can be noticed. Example of a display font:

This letterform is from the font family known as Capitular Floral. Pretty, huh?

When should you use a display font?
Much like a script font, a display font is for just that - display. They're not meant to be used in blocks of text but they make nice drop caps and decorative elements used at the start of a chapter. So stick to using them as decoration rather than text.

How to identify a display font?
If your letters do weird things when you're trying to type them out, it's probably a display font. They're usually very decorative and hard to read when combined in sets of more than one or two. Not all of them have a box around them or have really gritty details like the one above.

Some examples:

As you can see, they don't read very well when combined. Never ever use them for book design unless you're adding a single decorative letter to the beginning of something.

This concludes my font week. I hope you all learned a little bit and had some fun along the way!

What's your favorite display font?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

What is a Script?

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today we'll talk about script fonts. Some questions I'll answer are: When to use them? How long have they been around? How do I identify a script typeface? So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

A script typeface is defined as: Handwriting as distinct from print. An example:

This letter is from the font family known as Edwardian Script. It's been around since 1994. A relatively new font in comparison, eh?

When should you use a script font?
When you want something to look like it was hand written. I've seen them used in titles but rarely more than one or two words. They're commonly used as a drop-cap at the opening of a chapter to give it some flair.

How long have they been around?
For as long as we've been writing things by hand with quill and ink! Everyone has a script font in them waiting to escape.

How do I identify a script font?
If it looks like a normal person's handwriting or calligraphy, it's a script. Easy peasy.

Some popular script fonts are:

Some of these I had to make bigger so you could read them at a glance. They're hard to read when used in a large block of text. Don't use script fonts when formatting your book for print unless they're used as a decorative element.

What's your favorite script font?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

What about Sans Serif?

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, we're talking more fonts! I know, I know, crazy stuff. But the topic for today is sans serif fonts. Why do we use them? Where did they come from? What are some common ones? So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

A sans serif font is defined as: A style of type without serifs.

The type you're reading now is sans serif. It's called Arial. Designers worldwide just drew in a collective gasp. Yes, I know Arial is the knockoff Helvetica. Sorry, I like it. So, for a larger example:

This letter is from a typeface called HelveNuThin. It's the one I use for my name on the cover of my novels. Notice there are no protrusions of any kind on the letterform. This is an excellent example of a sans serif font.

Why do we use them?
They're easier to write and have become more widely used with the invention of the computer. Now, here's a tidbit of trivia for you! Arial was designed by Microsoft when the designer of Helvetica wanted a payment for every copy of windows that was distributed. They hired someone to come up with a font similar so they wouldn't have to pay. Hell hath no fury like the design world when one uses Arial. By the way, that stop sign near your house? Helvetica is the font used. Anyway, I digress!

Where did they come from?
The first sans serif typeface was Caslon in 1745 but they didn't become as popular as they are today until the invention of the computer.

What are some common ones?

And I hope this answers questions you may have had about serif typefaces. Tomorrow, we'll talk script typefaces and I'll give some examples of those, too!! For printed book design, Caslon is a popular choice.

What's your favorite sans serif font?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo