CONTENTS
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1. GENERATION PROBLEM IN NEWSPAPER DESIGN
2. QUARK UPDATE
3. OPEN SOURCE LAYOUT PROGRAM
4. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
5. UPDATES AND HINTS
6. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
7. LAST WORD
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1. GENERATION PROBLEM IN PUBLICATION DESIGN
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We received this plea about design: "I have been working at a small newspaper that comes out weekly for two years, mostly just ad design. I have just recently started doing page layout and paste up. I keep hearing you can't do that...Well why... just because it's not done. Is there a book of rules out there?"
We replied: Few rules, only established conventions. And a few surveys which show what works -- and even fewer with figures to back them up.
We'll soon be republishing a book by Colin Wheildon which was published by Strathmoor Press of New York under the title "Type & Layout: How Typography and Design Can Get Your Message Across --Or Get in the Way" but which is now out of print. It is currently being updated in association with the original author.
This did some comparison tests, specifically for newspapers but with application to other uses, which showed, for example, that comprehension is greater with serif fonts than sans serif and that while limited use of spot color could enhance readership, excessive use could destroy it.
Advertising guru David Ogilvy proved to his own satisfaction that few designs, either in ads or editorial, beat a strong headline at the top, a picture, a limited amount of clearly descriptive text and then the contact info of address, phone, etc at the bottom.
That doesn't mean design is restricted -- dramatically different ads follow that basic format.
Publications such as Wired and the underground press show dramatic departures from the "rules" of fonts, backgrounds, reversed type etc, but they appeal to a committed readership, not to the casual reader of the average newspaper. Their readership is also generally young, with better sight.
Similarly, a computer enthusiast will struggle with 4pt type in detailed specifications when they'll pass over 8pt body type in any other ad because it is "just too hard to read".
Too many departures from the norm produce a mess -- but a few used discretely can work wonders for the right product or service.
The answer is to produce what suits the advertiser -- funeral service ads don't want harsh colors, type at strange angles or tiny type because most who book their services are in the second half of their life and generally think such suppliers should be somewhat reserved.
In editorial layout ask whether the casual reader knows where to go next. Subheadings across multiple columns often leave the reader unsure whether to jump across under the head or to the top of the page. Any hesitation will lose readers.
On the other hand I see ads for nightclubs in our local newspapers which have been fun for the ad designer -- lots of color, text as a design feature, a skilled use of Photoshop, and, presumably, they work.
The real rule is to learn when to break the rules and when to stick to them.
One book which I would recommend without reservation has had several publishers since originally issued by The Oregonian: "Newspaper Designers Handbook" by Tim Harrower. The current publisher is McGraw Hill. You may find it in libraries or secondhand and the latest edition includes a CD with a quiz and an interactive test on cropping pictures.
Traditionally newspapers do not use many clip-art graphics but artwork is increasingly being used in feature pages. Particularly consider the possible clash of stories -- a lone picture, carefully ruled off to ensure it does not appear connected with adjacent stories may still seem out of place if it includes graphics when the adjacent story is coverage of a tragedy. And in many newspaper situations such a story may replace what was there at a very late stage in production.
Our writer replied to say the above did help, and added: "Now I just hope I don't pull my hair out while learning the art of page layout. My boss learned the art back in the military and ...we kinda clash because I just think he's old fashioned and he thinks I'm too fancy and out there. He's great at his job, but a little too reserved sometimes I believe."
2. QUARK UPDATE
===============
The QuarkXPress 6.1 update has arrived and is said to solve a number of problems with the original release of QXP6.
It includes support for Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" and much is being made of improved integration with Excel, allowing import of text, picture, and chart data directly into QuarkXPress 6.1 from an Excel workbook. It will also import an entire spreadsheet or a range of cells while respecting hyperlink data in the spreadsheet.
The Edit Original XTensions module (available for Mac OS only) gives the ability to select a picture, then open and edit it in the user's preferred image editing application.
Users can create and manage rules for automatic font substitution with a new font mapping utility and font substitution rules can be imported and exported and can be applied to projects and project templates as well as legacy documents and templates.
QuarkXPress Passport 6.1 also provides an XDK (XML Developers Kit) framework for adding spell checking and hyphenation support for supplemental languages.
QuarkXPress 6.1 requires Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar" or later or Windows 2000 or XP.
QXP6 users can download the update from <http://www.quark.com> or can order it on CD-ROM. It is 80.5MB for Mac and 60.5MB for Windows.
3. OPEN SOURCE LAYOUT PROGRAM
=============================
An Open Source product called Scribus has an increasingly similar interface to other layout programs. It runs on Linux though an incomplete port to Windows is available.
Scribus has an active user and development community but I have been told that documentation is heavy going for those not familiar with QuarkXPress. There is a lot of documentation but the only beginner tutorial is a translation from French which is several versions out of date.
The new version, called Richard, has added CMYK and Transparency Preview to the Print Preview, with the ability to preview separations individually, and supports transparency and alpha channels in various formats. There is a drop caps facility and units of pica, point, mm and inches can be entered on the fly, with calculations in the entry fields. Text frames can have multiple columns and there are improved text styles and drawing tools. It also has updated PDF and Postscript export functions. With other improvements such as Search and Replace for Text Frames and text Import/Export into Story Editor it is catching up fast with the mainstream programs.
The improvements even lists the addition of "Irish Hyphenation Patterns".
See <http://www.scribus.org.uk> where the program is also available in its Linux version as a 2.5MB download.
For a brief article about Scribus in use, see the Newsforge article at <http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/12/10/2345242.shtml>
4. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
========================
Edward Lipsett asked from Japan: "I'be been getting your Formatting newsletter for years, and it has saved my, uh, posterior several times. Now we've run into a problem that perhaps you can help with. We are printing to PS>PDF from Quark 4 (Mac9.2.2), using Acrobat. The page is 100% black text, and the output is set to grayscale (printer's spec). When Distilled with v4, text appears black on screen and prints black on PS3 printer. When distilled with v5.0.5, however, it displays black onscreen and prints grey (screened). We haven't been able to find any settings anywhere that can make the problem go away.
"So that's the question: Do you know what the cause of this problem is? We would prefer to use distiller v5.0.5 if at all possible..."
We asked whether the text originated from MS Word and Edward added: "The text was originally done in Word, yes, but it should have been imported into QuarkXpress from a text file for the complete layout. It is unlikely that any of the Word header trash remained. Because we're using Japanese Quark, cut-and-paste usually causes problems, and so ASCII file import is most common. I didn't import this myself and don't know offhand how it was moved to Quark, but judging from the other information I'be got now, it doesn't seem that this is the problem".
We have since confirmed that the same file, same hardware, same software produces a black PDF when printed using Acrobat 4.x, and gray when using 5.x. When the same thing is repeated on a different Mac, it prints black in both Acrobat versions.
Obviously, then, there is something strange about the original installation of Acrobat 5.x, but a delete-and-reinstall did not solve the problem, and we are reluctant to delete Acrobat 4.x from that machine because it still works normally...
We either print to Acrobat 4.x on that machine, or 5.x (or 6.x) on other machines. So far we haven't run into anything that can't be PDFed normally under 4.x. We are using mostly OCF types, with a smattering of CID-ATM or TT characters for non-Roman languages.
We wrote: Usually this kind of problem results from the text originating in a program such as MS Word, and being specified there as RGB instead of the K of CMYK, or in coming across as that peculiar color "auto".
However in this case that doesn't seem to be the problem. Any other ideas?
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We had other problems put to us in the past month which involved text printing gray and the inclusion of an "auto" color and wondered whether it could be possible to do as with "Normal" style in imported text and that is to create a color called "auto" which is defined as a 100% tint of black. In theory an attempt to import should then ask whether to retain the existing definition. However, we'be been unable to recreate the problem to try this as a solution. Perhaps others can help.
One of the problems was an inability to delete the auto color once created by an imported graphic.
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Mickie wrote: "I design a 68 page magazine and break it up into sections. Pgs. 1-15, 16-30, etc. Every now and then, in the middle of cutting and pasting ads, placing PDFs, articles, etc into one of these sections I get an error that says HyperContent Manager error, and then Parameters incorrect, then Disk full (which it isn't) - save to another disk (which it won't let me do). I have to redo the entire job. Any suggestions?
I haven't seen such an error message but I have seen references to it which infer that it may have something to do with links being to graphics being to a removable drive such as a CD-rom or zip. This may or may not have something to do with having hyperlinks within the file.
Until you track down the solution it is probably a time for extra and frequent backups of the file.
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Chris in the UK asked: However, I run PageMaker 6.5 on PC with Windows 98, and although I have certain True Type fonts installed in the Windows font folder, some (namely the italicised versions of those fonts), don't appear on the PageMaker tool bar.
Do you think it might be because these fonts may have the same/similar names as other fonts they are therefore overlooked? If I changed the names of the fonts in the Windows font folder is it possible they might appear on the PageMaker tool bar - or perhaps there's an simpler and much more effective solution?
Sorry if I'be missed the obvious, but any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
We replied: Windows does not keep track of specific italic, bold or bold italic versions of fonts, unlike the Mac OS, but will use those if they are available when you use the bold and italic buttons or apply the shortcut keys. Sadly the operating system will create faux italic and bold if the real fonts are not available, so it becomes the user's responsibility to ensure they are present.
The best way to check is to print out something using fonts which are readily identifiable -- such as, if you have the font Palatino, that the italic ampersand is the unmistakable one from that font, and not an artificially leaned or obliqued version of the roman.
Incidentally I'm not a great fan of the "About.com" site but they do have a good explanation at: <http://graphicssoft.about.com/library/weekly/aa072099.htm> including some lists of fonts that should not be removed.
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Rosalee O'Neil asked: "Do you know why it would be that sometimes we can call up a PM6.5 file in InDesign and other times it won't let us? It must be some simple setting I am missing.
We replied: "I'be heard of this but so far I'be always been able to open a 6.5 or 7 file in InD. When you get one which doesn't open, could you send it to me?
Suggestions of causes are that it might relate to files which originated in earlier versions of PM, and/or files which have had many revisions and have not been saved as themselves (or not set to the "save smaller" setting in PM).
It might also be caused by a mass of bad links but I think that was a problem solved with 2.0.1
It may or may not have anything to do with this, but with the huge improvement in speed and processing power since PM was written, I'd suggest that all copies of PageMaker be set to "save smaller" rather than "save faster" in their preferences.
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Owen Watson in New Zealand wrote: "I'be contributed a few answers in my time on this list, so I think it's about time I asked a question. . . Is there a Windows version of PopChar? I'be looked at Character Map and a couple of alternatives like Foreigner and AllChars, but either they don't have the same effortless UI as Popchar or they work erratically. Any suggestions?"
We replied: We'be only ever seen comments that there is no equivalent of PopChar for Windows. There are many which seem to be variations on Character Map including some which include an expanded clipboard so you can keep regularly used non-keyboard characters in an accessible place. However none seem to have developed any extensive following. I can't even remember the names of several I'be tried -- now I just keep a shortcut to Character Map on the launch bar. Any suggestions?
5. UPDATES AND HINTS
====================
There are now fully functional 30-day trial versions of InDesign CS and InCopy CS available for download from <http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp>. The InDesign tryout is 93MB for Windows and 139MB for Mac.
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A good InDesign tip for those who miss the zoom in and out shortcuts of PageMaker: Make F2 your zoom tool shortcut. It works with any other tool on. Then drag over the area you want to zoom in on. This came on the InDesign Talk list from Rick Strong in Ottawa who added: "The best trick comes next: I have set F3 to zoom out to the previous view (it's actually "toggle between current and previous view"). If I haven't used the zoom tool in the meantime, it will take me back to the view I started with."
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See <http://www.markzware.com/markztools5/> for their XTension which can be used to cure some XPress file woes and in particular to open QXP 5 and 6 documents in version 4. Cost is US$199.
6. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
=========================
David Creamer of I.D.E.A.S. Training has a PDF detailing what fonts are needed to run OS X and where your fonts are located. It is at <http://www.IDEAStraining.com> under the Articles and Reports link. There's also a useful PDF on font management for Windows among a selection of the freely available reports in addition to those available to clients.
7. LAST WORD
============
The US State Department has issued an edict banning its longtime standard typeface from all official correspondence and replacing it with a "more modern" font. It was the French news agency AFP which broke the news that "Courier New 12" -- the font and size decreed for US diplomatic documents for years -- was obsolete and unacceptable after February 1. The new standard font is "Times New Roman 14".
Times described as "a more modern font"? I suppose we should be grateful they did not choose Arial. And documents drawn up for the President's signature are exempt from the change.
Gordon Woolf
The Worsley Press
Hastings, Australia.