CONTENTS
========
1. AN EDITORIAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
2. A NEWSLETTER WORKFLOW ANSWER
3. MORE ABOUT INDESIGN
4. OLD FILES AND MAKING CHANGES
5. SCRIPTING
6. UTILITIES/UPDATES
7. HINTS
8. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
9. LAST WORD
1. AN EDITORIAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
=================================
Kim Kohen recently told of a "low-end" editorial control system they developed because of the choice they didn't want to make between the large proprietary system (QPS, Atex, Baseview etc) or a low level shrink wrapped solution (Clarisworks, MS Word etc) for their 9-person editorial department.
He writes: "Neither was satisfactory. The biggies were too big and rich for us ($80-100k) and the word processor solutions couldn't efficiently cope with the 300-400 stories a week and didn't have all the features we wanted.
"So, we wrote our own in FileMaker. Being a database we have all the neat search and sort functions to make locating and working on stories easy plus because it's so scriptable we can do some real neat things with the stories.
"We had a clever OSAX written that allows styles to move seamlessly to Quark. We auto create all required boxes, and invisibly connect all the boxes to the appropriate stories. The journalists can do all corrections and the stories are updated into the right boxes with the right styles onto the Quark pages at the push of a key command.
"Originally we wrote it to have the writers do stories and correct them and the production staff lay out the pages in a separate office. We also have a version where it can be done on the same machine by one person. It's way too long to go into everything it does but we have been using it for over two years and it's been perfect.
"Even though we wrote it for ourselves we are now getting a lot of interest from newspapers all over the country who are looking for this type of tight Editorial/Quark integration. We have several firm orders already and a local company here has approached us for distribution rights."
Details were originally listed at www.webguide.com.au/ It was a Mac only system.
2. A NEWSLETTER WORKFLOW ANSWER
===============================
Michelle Gorrie writes from Eumundi, Queensland, Australia: "It's with great interest that I read what Costa Bugg wrote from Washington DC.
"I have had the same problem with our editorial dept and our production dept. The editorial pages were put together last on a separate layer on the ad file.
"The only way to stop all the text running short/running over is to set up a master template with assorted tags for the different departments and to set up the editorial department with a "virtual printer" to match ours ... AND ... that alone was not enough to fix the problem...
"I finally narrowed down the search ... the problem was the dictionaries!
"As the editorial dept was in another area, we could not keep updating our dictionaries as they continuously updated theirs, the next logical step was to:
"Put the hyphenation on 'Manual + Algorithm' and having the exact same hyphenation zone of 7mm on all template/files.
"And it works perfectly. We have not had any problems to date.
"(Don't bother with playing around with applying no styles - a sure-fire solution is to put the edit on the ad page on its own layer at the end stage of production - that's one edit copy & paste as opposed to 5 and more ads to copy and paste!)"
We add: We've mentioned the dictionaries problem before with suggestions such as a batch file to automatically copy a master user dictionary across the network every few hours, but the 'manual plus algorithm' may be a harsh necessity. Copying the edit to the ads layout instead of the other way round is the kind of lateral thinking that eluded us.
3. MORE ABOUT INDESIGN
======================
David Moore, managing editor for the Society of Glass Technology writes these comments as a result of the InDesign presentation in Manchester, England:
"I went to Manchester on 16 June, not to see the cricket, but instead a presentation by Adobe on their new Acrobat 4 and InDesign...InDesign is a serious contender and its core engine is being lined up to succeed older code such as PageMaker and FrameMaker. I asked the question: will this core technology replace Page and Frame, the short answer was yes, they will adopt this rather than keep on modifying their tired old code from the top. It follows a database rather than graphics core so the jump to handling SGML for instance cannot be that far removed. File sizes will be not so big. It looks good, controls text and graphics well, the 4000% zoom is great. Not sure about long documents, no real proof, but the handling of Illustrator and Photoshop files is very impressive, also the graphics controls within are a big jump on from Page, not sure about Quark.
"It goes out of its way to handle Quark files and also it can use many different versions of shortcuts.
"There is an Adobe (web) 'channel' for you to set for monitoring for updates and downloading upgrades, for all their latest products.
"Introductory price in the UK of less than £200 for the first three months after launch, no actual delivery date was said. A lot less than Q but then you may have to pay for some plug-in packages for optional specifics, though the package works well enough without them, they aren't essential. Plug-ins are loaded into memory only when in use then flushed out.
"They do not shy away from the fact that you need a fast processing machine to make the best use of InDesign. A common line was that you are saving so much on the price of Q that you can afford an upgrade or two. This may slow down the initial uptake.
"Adobe were at a newspaper publishing trade show in Brighton recently and had support from plug-in makers and lots of interest from attendees. Versatility of the core technology very attractive.
"Language support stressed, the current Japanese DTP market is dominated by proprietary systems dealing with the different character sets(?), if Adobe crack this they will open a market bigger than the potential new uptake from the rest of the world. Phew!
"Went to the pub afterwards to see the end of the cricket, Pakistan were far too good for New Zealand."
4. OLD FILES AND MAKING CHANGES
===============================
How can you recover text from old files, especially old word processing files created in programs which you no longer have? This is a problem currently facing one of our subscribers.
The hardest part is to get it onto a current computer, which is why we keep an old DOS machine around with a 5.25" drive, and an even older CPM (one of the pre-dos operating systems) computer usually kept in the back of a cupboard but which dates from the times when disk formats were not standard and therefore had a program which will read many dozens of disk formats. Both are only cleaned when we have a job of this kind so we know they will eventually just stop working.
However, once the file is in a dos format file on a 3.5" disk, which can be read by via Windows or on a Mac, that isn't the end of the problem. One of the more useful means of getting further is the "recover text from any file" option in the Open dialog of Word. Another option is to name it as a text file and bring it into PageMaker, deleting all the formatting which, one hopes leaves large chunks of text.
Search and replace functions can then come into their own -- remembering that it is often necessary to replace something which makes sense with an unlikely character in order to search for something else and then replace the original.
Let's say you have some text in brackets which you want to change to bold italic in a different typeface. A wildcard change won't work because there are different lengths of text between the brackets. Our sequence would be:
Change all the normal paragraph returns to something unusual like a @@ then find opening and closing brackets and change them to returns which puts the text to change in a separate paragraph. Specify a temporary style to what you need for that text and apply it to each of those paragraphs.
Now find each paragraph return and change it to nothing. Finally, change the @@ back to a carriage return, and the job is done. You can now delete the temporary style.
5. SCRIPTING
============
Carl Matteson asked us about the scripts we included with our Newspaper Production using PageMaker 6.5 book and asked whether they would be usable with InDesign.
We replied: Scripts will have to be rewritten for InDesign, because they will be based on Applescript or Visual Basic rather than an internal scripting language. However, we had rather been coming to the conclusion that limitations of the internal scripting language meant that the future lay in that direction anyway.
In that sense InDesign is pushing us in the direction we were heading anyway -- but forcing it faster than we intended to go.
Within a few weeks of the official release of InDesign there should be some general conversion guidelines available. Last month I was told by someone at Adobe that the scripting engine for InDesign was still 'fluid'. However Olav Kvern's reappearance on the PageMakr List would seem to mean that it is now finalised or very close to it (he's writing the official scripting guide).
Scripting took off rather slowly with PageMaker, but we believe it will be very different with InDesign.
As soon as we can get our hands on a more-or-less final version of ID we will be starting to convert scripts, including some of the free ones. It will be a good learning process.
-----
We replied to a query: "Your best guide is the Script Language Guide under the Help menu (last item in Contents on a PC -- a bit more difficult to find on the Mac, but it is there)."
The reply, from John Lenz, came back quickly: "Wow! I have used PageMaker Win since 4, and I never knew that there was an online guide to scripting! I guess I thought scripting was something 'separate'...
"P.S. I wrote the above to thank you, and now 15 minutes later I have a working script! You have just saved my arse! Thanks!"
6. UTILITIES/UPDATES
====================
Special offers on upgrades/crossgrades to InDesign apply to users of PageMaker, Illustrator, Photoshop, and QuarkXpress. "Nothing else; just those four" said an Adobe staffer. Rumours that even MS Word would qualify have been quashed.
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We've put a new PageMaker script on our web site <http://www.worsleypress.com/pubprod/scripts.html> which allows the copying of text formatting. Highlight a character or group of characters and run the "Format copy" script. This will store all the details of font, size, leading, colour, and much more, so that when you highlight another piece of text and run the "Format paste" script, all those attributes will be applied to the new text. It is available in formats for Windows and Mac.
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The PDF import/export filter for Quark XPress is now available in a beta of version 1.2 as well as the final of 1.1. The new beta for Mac and Windows is said to contain "interface enhancements, as well as a fix for the conflict between PDF Filter and Quark CMS QuarkXTensions software". <http://www.quark.com/files/xtquarkxts_40.html>
7. HINTS
========
What do you do if a drop cap should have a quotation mark in front? My preference is for a smaller quote mark, kerned into the margin. In PageMaker you can do this by temporarily deleting the quote mark, then using PM's infamous Drop Cap plugin on the first actual character. Now type in the quote mark again, which puts it in the drop cap size. Reduce that size considerably, and use baseline shift (from Control Palette) to take it back up to the top of the drop cap.
Now put a space in front of the quote mark and place the cursor between the space and the quote. Again using Control Palette, kern the quote into the margin.
This avoids the use of separate text blocks or frames for the quote, which can be forgotten if text reruns or you change the copy.
-----------
We were asked, "How do you do the equivalent of Power Paste in a PageMaker script?" Power pasting is the ability to paste an item exactly where the original was, instead of being offset slightly. The answer is that you use the MultiplePaste command but for one copy, and with an offset of zero: MultiplePaste 1,0,0
Incidentally, the keyboard commands for power pasting are Command-Option-V on a Mac, and Control-Alt-V on a PC.
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A suggestion from the Quark email list may give an answer to how you get a colour preview or proof from a pre-separated PDF. We can't vouch for this one but you may like to try it if needed:
Use Photoshop's "Convert multi-page PDF to PS" Action (under File>Automate>Multi-page PDF to PSD) with 1 column, 1 row layout option, and then merge the four greyscale documents into one Multichannel document (see "Merging channels" in the Help index). As long as the channels are in the correct order (C then M then Y then K) you can convert to CMYK and Presto!
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If you are used to switching between tools in Quark using command-tab and command-shift-tab, you'll have noticed this doesn't work with System 8.5. These keyboard commands are used by the system for application switching. There's two ways to go:
1) Add the option key and use command-option-tab and command-shift-option-tab, or
2) Turn off the key commands for application switching and keep the old key combinations. To do this, launch Help Center from the Help menu and search on "application switching." Click on the second item found, "Switching between open programs." Scroll down and select "Help me modify the keyboard shortcuts." There you can turn them off or remap them.
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In PageMaker for Windows, you can select the text tool then use F9 to toggle between that and the pointer tool as much as you like. (You have to pick the text tool first because it's actually a toggle between the pointer and the last tool you used).
On the Mac, you can accomplish the same toggle with the Command-Spacebar combination.
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In the printing dialog box in PageMaker you can indicate a range to the end by entering a hyphen after the number: 15- will print from page 15 to the end. In Quark XPress, you have to type the word "end", thus: 15-end
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If you use the Windows version of QXP and eps files with clipping paths, there could be a problem with system resources especially if you frequently zoom in and out or scroll/jump between pages. It may pay to install the Windows System Resources Meter.
8. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
=========================
Want to see what can really be achieved with really detailed tagging of text, of the kind achievable in QXP (with the Xtafs Xtension) and promised in InDesign? Then take a look at one of the downloadable PDF manuals for the extended Xtags tags at <http://www.emsoftware.com/>
9. LAST WORD
============
We couldn't resist repeating this signature from an email:
"If a doc hits your eye with a strange dpi, that a moiré..."
Gordon Woolf
The Worsley Press
Hastings, Australia.
====================