Layout

The way elements are arranged on screen carries lots of meaning that we interpret subconsciously when decoding web pages.

Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2006). Design>Web Design>Document Design

Learning PageMaker

One way to learn PageMaker is just to use it. If you have experience in publishing, PageMaker is designed to be familiar to you, like using a light table. There are a few 'gotchas,' of course, but if you're an experienced publisher, learning PageMaker should be a snap. It's a complex program. But the good news is that PageMaker is a lot easier to learn than competing products like QuarkXPress. In addition to the obvious — the PAGEMAKR mailing list — you may want to take advantage of the many training materials available. In 1985, desktop publishing was brand new and unexplored territory. Today, millions of people use desktop publishing software worldwide. Of course, there's a lot more to learning desktop publishing than learning PageMaker: there's typesetting and graphic design, for starters.

Adams, Peter C.S. Makingpages.org (2002). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker

Linking 101  

Linking is surely one of the least understood functions of many applications. But if anyone can explain how it works in PageMaker, Illustrator, and FrameMaker, Professor Kvern can.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Document Design>Hypertext

Logical Order of Page Components

There is a natural flow to many visual interactions - the flow of a visual dialogue between page your features and your user's private mental commentary.

Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2006). Design>Web Design>Document Design

Making PDFs Smaller

How can I reduce the size of several PDFs at once?

Rosenthol, Leonard. PDFzone (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Making Screen-Ready PDFs

Is there a quicker way of making screen PDFs from print-ready PDFs?

Miller, James. PDFzone (2003). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Managing Quality Graphic Design in a Documentation Project  

Supervising the design of documentation is challenging for documentation managers who have little or no educated knowledge of design. However, quality design that maintains ease of reading, accessibility, comprehension, retention, and aesthetics is vital to the usability and success of the documentation and should be carefully monitored by the documentation manager. Decisions must be made up front on four design areas -- packaging, layout, typography, and highlighting -- before the project is underway. In addition, audience analysis and a design style guide are two techniques that managers should embrace in supervising design.

Listeman, Amy J. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>Graphic Design>Document Design>Documentation

The Many Faces of Cheapness  

In the spirit of Adobe Magazine's Cheap Tricks Contest, a grab-bag of ways to save money, save time, and cheat fate.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1996). Design>Document Design>Prepress

Markup PDF Pages with Drawings

Using Acrobat, PDF has been established as a popular and user-friendly medium for collaborative workflows. Not only can you add sticky notes or highlight text, you can even draw polygonal or freehand annotations. This tip explains how.

Shea, Dan. PlanetPDF (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Marrying Digital and Paper Documents

The use of physical paper or digital files is not an either/or choice. The two are complementary. Currently, there are many examples of paper used as an interface to digital processes. The UPC found on items we buy and the barcoded labels on the packages we send are two prevalent examples. Many papers we use to reach our customers or to do our work within our organizations have at least one barcode.

Zukowski, Deborra J. e-Doc (2005). Articles>Document Design>Information Design

Merge Records With a Publication

Tired of copying and pasting when doing mass mailings? Take advantage of the new data merge feature in Adobe® PageMaker® to create form letters, envelopes, or mailing labels from records. The following steps show you how to use the data merge feature.

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

Merging Usability Practices with Document Design and Development    

Examines the phases of document development and describes how to incorporate them with usability techniques to ensure that your information products remain continually useful and valuable.

Filippo, Elizabeth G. Intercom (2007). Articles>Document Design>Usability

Model Documents  

The documents below demonstrate different types of writing or writing for different purposes.

Pearson Education (2005). Resources>Business Communication>Document Design

Moonlighting with PageMaker  

The truth about PageMaker's not-so-secret life in the office.

Nordling, Tamis and Wendy Katz. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker

Moving from Unstructured to FrameMaker Plus DITA

This page provides some answers to the question 'What resources would you recommend for someone moving from unstructured Frame to Frame+DITA?' Carla Martinek, Translation Coordinator/Editor, started making this list in response to a CMS question on the FrameMaker+DITA listserv, and thought it would be worth sharing.

KeyContent.org (2006). Resources>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Much Ado about Nothing, Part I: The Importance of White Space    

White space is a paradox: by definition it contains no information, yet it clearly communicates despite lack of content. Hart describes how to incorporate white space into the information design process.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2008). Articles>Document Design

Multi-Column Layouts Climb Out of the Box

A project I recently worked on required an elastic layout with two columns of equal height, each with a different background color. As usual, there was no way to tell which column would be taller. I immediately thought of Dan Cederholm's Faux Columns, but I needed an elastic layout. I also looked at the One True Layout, but this seemed buggy and required too much extra markup and too many hacks for my taste.

Pearce, Alan. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Document Design>CSS

New Uses for Old Clipping Paths

No one enjoys drawing clipping paths (or, if they do, they rarely admit it in public). The transparency features in Adobe® InDesign® spare you the headaches of drawing clipping paths because the program honors background transparency in Adobe Photoshop® files. However, there are still times when a clipping path comes in handy, so don’t throw the Bézier out with the bathwater.

Blatner, David. Adobe (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

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

Newsletter Make-over Clinic

One of the most frequent problem areas I encounter in the publishing field is when editors, writers and, yes even business people are expected to turn out a good newsletter. If my car isn't running right, I take it to the mechanic. I don't expect the car wash to fix the motor any more than I expect the mechanic to give it a wash and wax. Rare are the instances where the writer or editor is also a good designer and/or typographer. Yet they're almost always restricted by the software they use, the availability of good clip art or images, and the time to think about the details. I'm going to restrict myself to just the initial visual and organizational points in this critique. We could spend days talking about minutiae and the array of options involved in a full scale makeover. What I'll do is share some quick and easy areas where a simple fix will make a big difference.

Showker, Fred. Design, Typography and Graphics (2002). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design>Newsletters

No More Lost Work, No Matter What You Use!

Create file versions on the Adobe Web Workgroup Server using your favorite Adobe application. Restore any version using Adobe GoLive.

Adobe (2003). Articles>Software>Document Design>Adobe GoLive

On the High Wire  

Some unexpected ways that Adobe Acrobat software can help with design and publishing tasks.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1995). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

One Hundred and One Spots, or How Do Users Read Menus?  

Proceedings of a paper about how readers interact with designed documents.

Aaltonen, Antti, Aulikki Hyrskykari and Kari-Jouko Raeihae. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (1998). Articles>Document Design>Interaction Design>Usability

Only the Strong Survive  

Picking the right strength characteristics when you're buying paper can determine whether your job holds up on press, in the mail, or in your customers' hands.

Sidles, Constance J. Adobe Magazine (1997). Articles>Document Design>Prepress>Paper

Open Directory Project: Desktop Publishing

A directory of dozens of online resources in desktop publishing.

DMoz. Resources>Directories>Document Design