Desktop Publishing and Design: Took, Tips and Techniques  

The organization of your document in combination with its typographic and graphic elements comprise its design. Good design improves your document's ability to communicate effectively. Novice document designers will want to attend this workshop to learn how to use design to their advantage.

Tucker, Kimberly and Lisa Burke-Marose. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Document Design>Typography

Dingbats and Ornaments

Setting type means selecting and arranging groups of characters, but not all of those characters have to be part of the alphabet. Dingbats are non-typographic elements that can enhance your work by adding variety and functionality.

Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Document Design

The Euro: What Will It Mean to the Desktop Publisher?

How will the character be inserted into typeset copy? Every time typesetters set a piece containing a monetary amount in Euros, they will have to type a character that doesn't exist in most typeface character sets. A partial remedy is the inclusion of a Euro character in the character set of Macintosh and Windows. For instance, starting in Mac OS 8.5, pressing Option-Shift-2 will insert the Euro character — but only in the fonts that come with the Mac. Older fonts will insert a different character.

Adams, Peter C.S. Makingpages.org (2002). Design>Document Design>Typography>Europe

Explicit Structure in Print and On-Screen Documents    

The structure of print and on-screen documents is made explicit through headings and links. Three important concepts for understanding explicit structure are (1) the display-unit properties of each document medium, (2) the flexible relationship between explicit and implicit structure, and (3) the distinction between populated and unpopulated locations in a hierarchy. These concepts help us better understand standard print documents, structured writing, websites, help systems, and PowerPoint, as well as the potential effects of content management systems on how documents are created.

Farkas, David K. Technical Communication Quarterly (2005). Articles>Document Design>Information Design>Typography

Fehlende WingDings-Zeichen in PDF-Dateien

Gewisse WingDings Zeichen fehlen, wenn ein PDF File erstellt wird. Dies ist unabhängig davon, ob Winword (Office 97) oder eine andere Applikation benutzt wird. Ausserdem spielt es keine Rolle ob das PDF mit dem Word Makro erstellt wurde oder nicht.

Transcom (2000). (German) Design>Typography>Document Design>Adobe Acrobat

Fractions

Can you find the fractions on your keyboard? If not, you’re not alone. Believe it or not, there are no designated keystrokes for fractions on a Mac. PCs offer a few (1/4, 1/2, 3/4), but they’re so well-hidden most users can’t find them anyway. Yet fractions appear fairly often in copy, so what’s a person to do? It’s too frustrating by half!

Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Document Design

Open Up with OpenType Fonts

OpenType fonts act just like PostScript Type 1 or TrueType fonts in programs like Microsoft® Word or QuarkXPress, but Adobe® InDesign® can perform special tricks with them, such as replacing characters with swashes (fancy versions of a letter), or with ligatures for character pairs such as “ct” and “ffi.” InDesign ships with several OpenType fonts, including Adobe Garamond® Pro, Adobe CaslonTM Pro, Caflisch Pro, and Kozuka Mincho Pro (a Japanese typeface).

Kvern, Olav Martin and David Blatner. Adobe (2004). Design>Typography>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

Packing Light  

Acrobat lets you 'pack' fonts into a PDF in three basic ways: by fully embedding, subsetting, or not embedding them. Each method differently affects a PDF file's size, editability, and typographic fidelity.

Patrick, Teri and Tamis Nordling. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Document Design>Typography>Adobe Acrobat

Smart Quotes

One of the most irritating typographic faux pas is the use of straight quotation marks (also called ‘dumb’ quotes) instead of true typographic quotation marks (‘smart’ or ‘curly’ quotes). How did this dumb-versus-smart muddle begin? Blame the engineers: the standard keyboard layout (which was not created by typographers!) has straight quotes in place of real quotes. As designers, it’s our job to use our ‘smarts’ to work around this all-too-common problem.

Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2002). Design>Typography>Document Design

Typographic Settings for Structured Abstracts    

Structured abstracts contain more information, are of higher quality, and are easier to search and read than are traditional abstracts. However, there is a bewildering variety of ways in which structured abstracts can be printed and little is known about how the typography of structured abstracts can affect their clarity. The aim of this article is to delineate some of these major typographic variables and to comment on their effects upon the layouts of structured abstracts.

Hartley, James. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Design>Document Design>Typography

Typography and Page Layout: Classification of Type

The number of type faces in use today runs into the thousands and as such presents difficulty in selecting the appropriate design for a particular job. Because there are so many type designs to choose from, it is easier to first choose a general type style or classification to suit your graphic design, and then, look for a particular type face that relates to that classification.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography

Typography and Page Layout: Copy Preparation

Copy preparation is a skilled job which, if done properly, assists the smooth flow of work through later stages of the production cycle. All personnel, especially those involved in the composition areas, have seen the results of ineffective copy preparation.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Editing>Typography

Typography and Page Layout: Principles of Design

Principles of design should always be incorporated in any graphic design project to assist its communicating and graphic interest, however in the planning of a basic design, the designer must produce a job to suit the class of work, the copy, and the tastes of the customer.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography

Typography and Page Layout: The Printers' Point System

In the year 1898 the English typefounders, as a body, adopted a system (which had been in use in America since 1878) of casting their types to a certain fixed standard. That standard was the American pica, 83 of which equalled 35 centimetres. The pica, which measured 4.21mm, was divided into 12 equal parts called 'points', which makes the size of a point approximately 0.35 mm.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography>History

Typography and Page Layout: Type Faces

To identify type or recognise a wrong font, you must know what the variables are, because differences amongst the thousands of type faces available today can be minute. Since an untrained eye cannot distinguish even gross differences, you should become familiar with the fundamental features of type.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography

Typography and Page Layout: Typesetting

Typing or setting text lines to the same length so that they line up on the left and the right is known as 'justification.' The information that you are now reading has been typeset using this method. The practice originated with Mediaeval scribes who ruled margins and text lines so as to speed writing and fit as many characters on a line as possible.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography

Typography and Page Layout: Typesetting Terminology

A glossary of typographers' terms.

Magnik, John. Typography First. Design>Document Design>Typography>Glossary

The Unfamiliar

Margaret Richardson explores South African magazine i-jusi.

Richardson, Margaret. Font Magazine (2005). Design>Document Design>Typography

Why Design Matters

As business communicators, our goal is typically to influence opinion or change behavior in order to achieve business objectives. To accomplish this, we must get people to interact with our message. A page of 12-point Times New Roman text is seldom compelling, so what you are left with to persuade people to read your publication is graphic design.

Canfield, Jocelyn. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Design>Document Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric

Word Spacing

When setting type, most of us are very conscious of type style, size, width and line spacing. Many of us also pay attention to letter spacing and kerning, even if we’re not as confident in these areas. But word spacing--the space between words--is probably the most neglected of typographic attributes. This seemingly small detail plays an important role in the color, texture and readability of your type.

Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Document Design