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

Understanding Paper Weights  

The system of paper weights used in North America dates back to medieval Europe. It is important to understand this system, in which 50# (50-pound) paper can well be thinner and lighter than 24# (24-pound) paper.

Copresco (2002). Articles>Document Design>Prepress>Paper

Understanding Print Preview in Photoshop

This is a quick rundown of the Print with Preview function of Photoshop. While it is not a complete guide, it will satisfy the most common needs for the non-designer or the in-house designer. While this article is not meant to explain the Print Preview in all of its details, it will shed light on the most important ones.

Bruno, Elisabetta. About.com (2005). Design>Software>Document Design>Adobe Photoshop

Unexpected White Outlines Around Graphics In InDesign

Sometimes when making PDFs from InDesign, white outlines appear around graphics. Here's why and how to solve it.

Bruno, Elisabetta. Designorati (2005). Design>Software>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

The Unfamiliar

Margaret Richardson explores South African magazine i-jusi.

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

Usability SIG Web Site Tests Macromedia FlashPaper

The Usability SIG is always interested in new ways to put publish our newsletter on the Web. When an upgrade to Macromedia’s Contribute 2.0 included a new program called FlashPaper, we decided to give it a try.

Dick, David J. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Flash

Use Links Efficiently  

When you place content, Adobe® InDesign® 2.0 doesn't just add the graphics and text to your document—it keeps track of the original files as well. You can use the links to update the data if the original file changes, to track down missing graphic information, or to replace a graphic with another, without losing the transformations you've applied. And when you work with text files, it's usually best to remove the link altogether.

Adobe. Articles>Information Design>Document Design>Hypertext

Using Acrobat Standard 6.0 in a Document Review Cycle

A six-part sample lesson on how to use Acrobat and PDF for document review. Included for download are several files referenced in the exercises.

PlanetPDF (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Using Color in Your Documents

People often use colors in their documents in the wrong ways. Many students think that bright colors should be used in a document when they want to attract someone’s eye to a place on the page. Colors alone, however, should be used in synch with white space, font size, type and placement of whatever it is you want someone to be attracted to. Furthermore, just because something is filled with a bright color does not mean that it is eye-catching or attractive. True, bright colors will quickly draw the eye there, but use colors in a way that will make the eye stay there, not glance away in disgust.

Lanier, Clinton R. sense and usability (2008). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Color

Using Design Elements as Page Organizers  

Creating a visual hierarchy has always been the primary concern of page design. Whether the purpose is to instruct, inform or sell -- communication is the primary goal. The designer's task is to organize the page so that the viewer can easily find pertinent information on the page and in the appropriate sequence. The layout or appearance of the page establishes relationships between items -- what is most important, what goes together, what is incidental. Structuring the page establishes clearly defined areas to assist the reader. Design elements can be used to add structure to the page by unifying or emphasizing particular page elements. Although conventions for print and online documents may vary slightly, these techniques can be applied to both.

Birchman, Judith A. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design

Using Distiller to Build Booklets  

Adobe InDesign and Adobe PageMaker include utilities that create booklets using a simple page imposition routine. However, other applications such as Adobe FrameMaker or Microsoft Word do not have these utilities and leave users with a bit of a dilemma when they want booklets made. Using Adobe Acrobat Distiller and a simple PostScript file (sig.ps), you can create booklets from EPS (encapsulated PostScript) pages printed from your application. The PostScript file takes the EPS files and arranges them on pages in a single PDF document. This technical guide briefly explains impositions and signatures and provides instructions for editing the associated sig.ps PostScript file used to create a booklet. Knowledge of PostScript may be helpful but is not absolutely necessary; you need only to make a few clearly explained edits for the sig.ps file to work with any documents you have.

Virginia Tech. Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Using Guides Effectively

Adobe InDesign 2 has some incredible features that aren't found in any other page-layout application and that's why so many designers are migrating to it. What's often overlooked, however, are the cool, subtle, yet powerful features for everyday production work.

White, Terry. Mac Design Magazine (2003). Design>Software>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

Using HTML as a Single Source Solution: A Case Study  

This paper presents an overview of the process and toolset developed for maintaining, updating, and generating user documentation for a complex Department of Defense (DoD) vulnerability analysis model. The roles of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in developing a single source solution are examined. The additional role of the Alchemy toolset, which is a customized solution to address page layout formatting in HTML, is also examined. Finally, practical application of this process/toolset to a generic software project is discussed.

Butkiewicz, Mark and Lisa Garriques. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Document Design>Information Design>HTML

Using Layers Creatively

Adobe® PageMaker® 7.0 includes a powerful Layers tool with countless applications—we’ll show you three in this tip: 1. Multiple versions 2. Quick arrangement of layers from top to bottom 3. Layered communication—'stick-on' notes

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

Using OpenType Pro fonts in InDesign 1.x

This document is intended to serve as a brief introduction to both the new OpenType font file format, as well as the ways you take advantage of the advanced features of OpenType Pro fonts within InDesign.

Cole, Tim. Mac Design Magazine (2003). Design>Software>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

Using Perception in Managing Unstructured Documents

Over the last ten years, the increased availability of documents in digital form has contributed significantly to the immense volume of knowledge and information available to computer users. The World Wide Web has become the largest digital library available, with more than one billion unique indexable web pages. Yet, due to their dynamic nature, fast growth rate, and unstructured format, it is increasingly difficult to identify and retrieve valuable information from these documents. More importantly, the usefulness of an unstructured document is dependent upon the ease and efficiency with which the information is retrieved. In this paper, we define an unstructured document as a "general" document that is without a specific format e.g., plain text. Whereas, a document divided into sections or paragraph tags is referred to as semi-structured e.g., a formatted text document or a web page.

Cheng, Ching Kang and Xiaoshan Pan. ACM Crossroads (2004). Articles>Document Design>Online>Cognitive Psychology

Using Photography to Illustrate Technology Trends and New Capabilities  

The very best of today’s public relations photography devises visual statements by carefully blending composition and lighting. Dramatic use of color has emerged as a strong graphic element over the past decade. Today’s inexpensive scanners and related image manipulation software provide new capabilities to manipulate B/W and color photos.

Brus, John M. STC Proceedings (1993). Design>Document Design>Image Editing>Visual Rhetoric

Using Text Organizers  

Many technical documents are rich in text and poor in graphics. Not all documents have photographs and illustrations to provide the reader with visual cues. Text organizers can be used as a method for relieving the visual grayness that happens when a document is all text. Headlines, kickers, subheads, headers, footers, pull quotes, and bulleted lists are all text organizers that can be used throughout a technical document to promote a better flow of information.

Sadowski, Mary A. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Technical Illustration

Version Cue: Balancing Simplicity, Functionality in CS Workflow Tool

Adobe's release of Creative Suite last fall introduced Version Cue, a tool designed to help individuals and small creative teams keep track of the latest versions of their graphics and page layouts. The Seybold Reports took it for a test drive to assess its performance.

Dyson, Peter and Mark Walter. Creative Pro (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Workflow

Viruses and the Desktop Publisher

Viruses are of particular interest to the desktop publisher because we frequently exchange disks with clients, open other people's Word files to edit them, and receive unsolicited files via email — all examples of 'at risk' behavior. Everyone should practice 'safe computing' and Windows users especially should make certain their anti-virus software is kept up to date. A list of vendors and informational sites can be found in the sidebar on the right.

Adams, Peter C.S. Makingpages.org (2002). Design>Document Design>Security>Viruses

A Visible Ideology: A Document Series in a Women's Clothing Company    

Studying corporate documents provides clues to the larger philosophy of the organization. This article explores a sales document redesign that indicates a subtle shift in ideology for a women's clothing company. The corporation uses direct sales to market clothes to a variety of women. In one season, the documents change from relatively outdated designs to more updated, professional layouts. However, the content of the documents changes very little. The author contends that the document redesign indicates a move to a more feminist out-look for the company and uses the concept of ethos to describe how the document design represents a slowly changing ethos for the corporation. A specific content shift towards feminism is, however, less apparent.

Cronn-Mills, Kirstin. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Document Design>Case Studies