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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Peter Gold Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 9:41 AM To: Linda G. Gallagher Cc: Steve Rickaby; [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 5:48 PM > To: Linda G. Gallagher > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 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 _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.