Fine tuning pagination

Tue Apr 22 12:32:31 PDT 2008

Continuing with my ignorance showing, the book is the third edition, all
created with the same templates I designed a year or so ago. I just learned
about the 16-page signatures last week. Previous editions were printed with
a different process, and signatures were not an issue.

I don't know yet whether I'm extending or reducing, as the content is
currently being reviewed and the index has not yet been created. The book
also has to be finished by May 9, so I don't have a lot of time and likely
don't have budget for additional software or personnel. I will inquire,
however.

So, I likely have to make do with combination of your suggestions and what I
can manage to figure out. Not an ideal situation, I'll grant you.

If anyone knows a guru I might engage, let me know, but I don't think time
or budget will permit. I'll also look into that plug-in.

Thanks all!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Linda G. Gallagher
TechCom Plus, LLC
lindag at techcomplus dot com
www.techcomplus.com
303-450-9076 or 800-500-3144
User guides, online help, FrameMaker and
WebWorks ePublisher templates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: knowhowpro at gmail.com [mailto:knowhowpro at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Peter
Gold
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 9:41 AM
To: Linda G. Gallagher
Cc: Steve Rickaby; framers at frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Fine tuning pagination

Hi, Linda:

You didn't say if the major problem you're facing is reducing content
to fit the space available, extending it, or a combination of both.
Your approach to a solution depends needs to consider these issues.

Your feeling of ignorance may come from being offered so many good
suggestions without an overall design plan to apply them to. They are
not dumb questions; IMO, you'll be more comfortable answering them
yourself once you're able to view them in context with your design
solution.

I strongly suggest that you either engage a typesetting-savvy
designer, and dig into good typography and book design books, online
forums, and similar resources before committing to an overall
solution. All the well-meant suggestions on this thread are
fragmentary techniques that are useful in achieving the design
solution you settle upon, but they aren't solutions in themselves.

Without an overall design solution planned in advance, you'll risk
building a "giraffe" - a horse designed by a committee.

In addition, applying many ad-hoc tweaks will make future maintenance
difficult or impossible.

HTH

Regards,

Peter
_______________________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Linda G. Gallagher
<lindag at techcomplus.com> wrote:
> Steve,
>
>  OK, I'm going to show my ignorance, but maybe I'm not the only one. Dumb
>  questions follow.
>
>  <Manually stretching the main page flow to take lines back>
>
>  Do you mean to make the main text frame on a body page larger? Hmm, seems
>  like that will look odd if pages have different size text frames. I do
only
>  have headers, so I don't have to worry about bumping into footers.
>
>   <Manually shrinking the main page flow to move lines forward>
>
>  Similarly, make the text frame on a body page larger?
>
>
>   <Micro-control of text, for example adding small amounts of negative
>  tracking to pull a hyphenated word back from a page foot>
>
>  Negative tracking?
>
>  Thanks!
>
>
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>  Linda G. Gallagher
>  TechCom Plus, LLC
>  lindag at techcomplus dot com
>  www.techcomplus.com
>  303-450-9076 or 800-500-3144
>  User guides, online help, FrameMaker and
>  WebWorks ePublisher templates
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Steve Rickaby [mailto:srickaby at wordmongers.demon.co.uk]
>  Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 5:48 PM
>  To: Linda G. Gallagher
>  Cc: framers at FrameUsers.com
>  Subject: Re: Fine tuning pagination
>
>  At 15:41 -0600 21/4/08, Linda G. Gallagher wrote:
>
>  >I'm working on a book for a commercial publishing house that prints in
>  >16-page signatures. I've not done anything quite like this before.
>  >
>  >I need to get the book to fit into an exact multiple of 16 pages. I've
done
>  >basic pagination control with my paragraph styles and with a page break
>  >paragraph style, but this calls for greater fine tuning.
>  >
>  >I'd appreciate advice, tips, whatever, on how to fine tune pagination to
>  >meet this need.
>
>  Two subjects:
>
>  1. Making pages beautiful
>
>  2. Making a book the required length.
>
>  FrameMaker gives you a wide range of controls you can use to balance
pages:
>
>   Ensuring that book parts have the correct basic pagination, to trim to
>  odd/even page count or whatever
>
>   Widow/orphan control in the paragraph designer
>
>   'Keep with next' option in the paragraph designer
>
>   Manually stretching the main page flow to take lines back
>
>   Manually shrinking the main page flow to move lines forward
>
>   Manually bouncing paras to the top of a new page/column
>
>   Moving large objects like figures and tables around to maximize page
>  occupancy
>
>   Micro-control of text, for example adding small amounts of negative
>  tracking to pull a hyphenated word back from a page foot
>
>  The page shrink/stretch options are easier to use in a design that uses
>  headers rather than footers.
>
>  All the above can be used to beautify pages by minimizing widows and
>  orphans, making sure that, say, the introductory sentence to a bullet
list
>  does not lie last on a recto page, and so on. These are all about making
>  pages beautiful. At the end of the day, though, you might have to pad out
>  the page count to get your total page count to a multiple of
16/32/whatever.
>  It's not uncommon to find printed books with two or even four blanks at
the
>  end for this purpose. I have even had it suggested that chapters could
start
>  on a verso page, but I don't like it. In the case of grossly excessive
page
>  count, you might even have to resort to major design changes, like
setting
>  specific sections in multiple columns (it's happened to me).
>
>  This sort of process should be done, of course, as absolutely the last
thing
>  after all text changes have been done. It is a serial process that starts
at
>  the beginning and works forward towards the end of a book because
everything
>  knocks on at least to the end of the current chapter/book part. You can
do
>  98% of what you want with FrameMaker global controls, but you are almost
>  always forced to 'break the rules' about local overrides to get the last
2%
>  just right. Just live with it ;-)
>
>  --
>  Steve