A continuation of the Kindle formatting issues On one of the Facebook groups I participate in, there’s been some general poo-pahing over my most recent posting on the problems with Kindle formatting. I can understand it because many in that group only upload very simple novels. But the problem may be worse than I thought. So, I thought I better give some samples. In the process I found that Kindle has indeed destroyed the Kindle version of this … Continue reading →
There has been a brouhaha building as designers around the world are realizing that Adobe has shot itself in the foot. InDesign Secrets has an article today which covers most of the issues: Adobe Drops Fonts, Leaves Users Stranded by: David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion | August 21, 2015 If you have installed the standards sets of fonts from your old software releases: CS2 through CS6, make sure you keep a back up. InDesign CC (2015) does not install them … Continue reading →
writing in English class, silviac I’ve talked many times over the years about needing an extended keyboard. Creative Pro has a good article about the two Enter keys and their different functions in InDesign. But this is just the beginning of the advantages. The numerical pad on the right must be used for keyboard shortcuts for styles. Applying styles by shortcut is a major factor in production. It can cut your formatting times by 75% or more … Continue reading →
Some of you have wondered why there’s been no update to CC (2015) in the book. Basically nothing was changed, I thought. So, I found no reason to update though I was using the new version for my production. It works very well. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to temporarily go back to (2014) for InDesign. I’ve been working a very limited schedule lately due to other things I need to get done. … Continue reading →
I decided I needed to beat an old drum. Readability is the focus of book design typography. This was the core of curriculum in my digital publishing degree. It’s the center of my graphic design and book design efforts. Without comfortable, readable content, your book has a severe handicap. What is readability? This is all about book design typography. Here’s a little graphic to show you some of the things that influence how easily you can read a … Continue reading →
Kerning is that area of typography rarely talked about. Ilene Strizver has a good article on kerning, both what it is and how to accomplish it, in the July issue of InDesign magazine. One of the sure signs of a pro book designer is in the kerning of the heads and subheads. That along with solid widow, orphan, and runt control are major areas of page layout normally ignored completely by users of Words. Of course, the sad … Continue reading →
InDesign Secrets has an important posting today. There are some concerns with the new update. Minor stuff. It uninstalls all earlier versions by default That can be fixed by unchecking Remove old versions in the Advanced Options in the CC app install dialog. Mac users must be running 10.9 or 10.10 It may not even update with the older OSes.
Continue reading →Another incremental release? Of course… But that’s to be expected. The whole paradigm of the subscription model is that the applications keep getting better and you get an automatic update as soon as it is released. There’s been a huge amount of work put into InDesign CC (2015), but most of it does not apply to us: producers of the artwork published as books in print and as ebooks. However, one of the new abilities is very helpful. It … Continue reading →
As I mentioned a while ago, I made textbook versions of my two best sellers: Practical Font Design and Writing in InDesign. The process was very simple and easy. I just uploaded the PDF I had developed for download. It had a bit of color added, but it is basically the print version slightly optimized for viewing on-screen. The conversion was very fast and seemingly flawless. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s just a wrapped PDF so far, with … Continue reading →
Joel rarely writes for his blog any more, but it is a treat when he does. Today’s article is an excellent example of why his blog is so good: clean, concise, and useful. We can boil down the advice to the following: Fiction authors are unknown Fiction is marketed to a much wider audience who is initially unknown by the author. The new author needs to work very hard on becoming known. Giving away books is essential as … Continue reading →