Book Design

An overview of the typical components of a printed technical book and the typical content, format, style, and sequence of those components.

McMurrey, David A. Illuminati Online (2001). Articles>Document Design>Publishing

Cross-Platform Publishing  

Desktop publishing has evolved tremendously over the last 10 years, coming from manual paste-up and manual design to complete digital photo-editing and digital graphic design. The challenges and issues we face in the translation industry are directly related to the authoring methods and build-environments of today’s writers. One of the biggest issues to date is the use of more than one platform for the authoring and localization (translation) of texts, ads, publications and software. The two most prominent platforms used for publishing media are the PC platform (Win 95 & 98) and the Macintosh. When a document is created, it is often authored for the source language; in other words, the authoring is not done with translation in mind.

Knoerndel, Dan. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Publishing>Document Design

Newsletter Design for Non-Designers  

Newsletter design comprises everything from column width and typeface to clip art style and paper color--where do you start? You don’t need to be a graphic artist to design an appealing newsletter—but you need to know the basic principles and how to apply them consistently. Consciously or not, every time you read something, you make judgments about its design. Was it easy to read or skim? Did the artwork seem appropriate? Were the page numbers easy to locate? In this workshop we will review these and other design elements and how to make them work for your newsletter.

Disch, Cheryl and Cheryl Lockett Zubak. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Document Design>Publishing>Newsletters

Online Documentation: Design Issues

Designing online documentation? You mean I can’t just take the word processing file and make it available on our network, or throw the document into a Windows Help file and ship it? Well, I would not recommend either of those options. You should take many things into consideration when you design an online document.

TechCom Plus (1999). Design>Publishing>Documentation>Online

Preflight Publications for Perfect Printing

Want to make friends with your service bureau and printer? Just bring them perfect files every time. Use the Save for Service Provider plug-in built into Adobe® PageMaker® 7.0 , and you’ll never have to worry about last-minute calls from your service bureau or printer again. Here’s an example of how you can use this plug-in.

Adobe (2003). Design>Publishing>Document Design>Adobe PageMaker

Printers' Tips to Desktop Publishers

This collection is a compilation of tips from many sources. As a sales rep for a commercial printer (Altman Printing Company), I have personally experienced most of these situations. If I had had something like this to give to each of my clients in the beginning, it sure would have made everyone's life a little easier!! Some of the tips below should be added to the back of your DTP Bible! If you don't follow some basic rules -- sooner or later you will realize: just because it comes up on your screen real pretty, and it prints to your laser printer just fine --- doesn't always mean that it is going to output correctly from a high-resolution imagesetter or print the same way!!

Foster, Julian A., Jr. Teleplex. Design>Publishing>Document Design>Printing

Simplify Your Life With Templates

Adobe® PageMaker® 7.0 includes more than 300 templates. Just open the Templates palette, select a category, choose a template, replace the placeholders with your content, and you’re done. You’ll get professional-looking results every time without fussing over special layouts or worrying about choosing appropriate fonts.

Adobe (2003). Design>Publishing>Document Design>Adobe PageMaker

Small Scale, Big Impact: Creating an Employee Newsletter  

Every few weeks we receive a flyer about a 'seminar' or a 'workshop' on newsletters -- now to write them, how to design them, how to produce them, how to improve them. Although we haven’t actually attended any of these seminars, they travel to many major cities, and the list of topics covered and the testimonials printed in the flyers are impressive. This phenomenon of the successful traveling newsletter seminar suggests that A) lots of people (hence organizations) are interested in creating or improving newsletters, and B) there’s lots to be learned about newsletters.

Anderson, Pamela A., Sally Nereson, and Dorothy J. Wiemann. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Document Design>Publishing>Newsletters

Publication Management

A graduate seminar in intensive work developing and using systems to manage documents delivered electronically and in print using single-sourcing technologies. Theory and practice of managing publication projects across groups and organizations.

Stolley, Karl. Illinois Institute of Technology (2009). Academic>Courses>Document Design>Publishing