Unequal columns and exporting to PDF

[Ann_Camilla]

Hi. Feeling a bit desperate. I’ve typeset this huge book with unequal columns: text in the larger column, pics with captions in the smaller. The pics with captions should stay in the outside column and the text the inside column.
The problem is that, of course, all the chapters are separate files so, when I finally make them into a book, some left hand pages become right hand (and vice versa). However, in the case of unequal columns this is not happening and the narrower column is sometimes inside and sometimes outside. Do I HAVE to go through the whole book and start all over with the wretched columns, page by page or something? I just can’t figure it out. Sigh!
Anyway, thanks as ever for listening — oh yes, Mac Mavericks and CS6.

All the best,

Ann

[Dick Margulis]

On 8/4/2017 5:34 AM, Ann_Camilla wrote:

all the chapters are separate files so, when I finally make them into a book, some left hand pages become right hand (and vice versa).

Don't do it that way.

In a book composed of separate chapter files such as you describe, the best strategy is to have all chapters begin recto.

In the Book dialog box, one of the flyout menu options is Book Page Numbering Options. Click that. Select "Continue on next odd page."

This will leave blank last pages on chapters that have an odd number of pages. This should be acceptable as is, and it is typical in many kinds of nonfiction. If your client doesn't want blank pages, there are a couple of strategies to consider. You can open up the layout on the preceding few spreads, if that works with the design and content, to push the chapter to the next page. Or you can confer with the client on adding some sort of filler (perhaps a chapter frontispiece for the following chapter). Once all chapters start recto, you can assemble the book.

[Ann_Camilla]

Thank you for your reply, Dick. I can absolutely understand what you say but, of course, the publisher does not like to pay for empty pages to be printed in several hundred books! So I’m plodding through, page by page — ugh! Next time I’ll — erm - build the book file chapter by chapter as I go, I suppose.

But honestly, I’m so grateful for any help. Thank you.

[C F Majors]

Could you print them separately to PDF and combine there? 

Carol Majors 

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[Ann_Camilla]

Thanks Carol. I think some chapters would then print oddly as the narrow column should always be on the opposite side to the spine ... sigh!

[C F Majors]

I feel your pain! Good luck !!

[Dick Margulis]

On 8/4/2017 7:23 AM, Ann_Camilla wrote:

Thank you for your reply, Dick. I can absolutely understand what you say but, of course, the publisher does not like to pay for empty pages to be printed in several hundred books!

That's a false economy. Unless the blanks are enough to add a signature to the length of the book, they're free, whereas your time is not free. In any case, I offered a couple of ways to eliminate the blanks without having to lay out the book again.

[John Kramer]

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[Ann_Camilla]

Thank you: but when the chapters do not have an equal number of pages the export does not change the columns over. The narrow column has to be on the outside (away from the spine) and the wide column on the inside. And I have no say in how the publisher prints his books and he doesn't like empty pages. Believe you me, I think I'm fairly cheap and cost far far less than printing 100s of empty pages! :) What I want is for the export to PDF to swap the pages if and when necessary -- as in one-column books. Clear as mud?!

[William Adams]

You folks do realize that InDesign has alignment options which include toward and away from spine, right?

And that by careful use of these, it should be possible to make pretty much _any_ document / layout automatically re-set itself based on whether the current page is a recto or verso?

And no, I'm not still bitter that pretty much every time I've taken the effort to create such a document template / layout and to then write up carefully how to use it, that the graphic designers aren't willing to be disciplined enough to take advantage of such features, choosing instead to draw boxes and create new paragraph styles which over-ride said features. Actually, yes, yes I am. I hate it, and I hate the incompetence which that is a sign of and which one sees in all-too-many contemporary books (such as https://lostartpress.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/virtuoso_excerpt.pdf (how in the Hell Joanna could be a suitable typeface choice for an American book, about a childless Civil War Veteran's tool cabinet, which is filled w/ fractions and numbers is beyond me --- the ragged bottom, many widows, bad breaks and worse hyphenation and trapped whitespace are just salt in the wound) --- and of course, there's the whole matter of their still not fixing the duplicated photo, so that where there should be two pairs of jeweler's pliers, instead one has a photo of a pair of flat pliers)

Ann, if you'd like to package up your document (assuming it's CS6 or later) and if you can accept an IDML from the current Creative Cloud version of InDesign, I'd be glad to re-work the entire document over the weekend so that on Monday you'd have one which would automagically re-flow if you would work out a way to send it to me.

William

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[Dick Margulis]

I'm not sure that will accomplish what Ann is trying to do. It could
have, perhaps, had she planned the book that way. That is, I can imagine
a strategy that would accomplish that. However, she now has separate
column frames of fixed widths, and I don't think ID has any alignment
options that will swap them.

[William Adams]

How does re-working the entire book from beginning to end so that it will then automagically re-arrange itself as paginations changes not accomplish what she wishes to do?

Remember folks, when you set up a project you have two options --- you can put forth the effort to plan it out properly and to do it right, or you can cheat and save time and risk that you will have to do it over.

William

[Alan Clarke]

I’d accept William’s kind offer to do it over the weekend. I’m putting that offer in my file. :-)

Still, in just about every book on my shelves I see chapters beginning on rectos, no matter where the previous chapter ends. Single blank verso pages are a fact of life in book publishing and I don’t think too many publishers worry about them. Books are published in folios or 4, 8, 16 pages and even 32, I assume—although I seldom get them that big. It’s the folio page count that determines the number of pages in the book. The total page count has to be divisible by the folio count, 4, 8, whatever. I cannot see how one can end-stage design a book without knowing the printing process to be used. It’s inevitable that there will be blank pages on the left. Sure, copy can often be stretched out to move to the next page but it’s usually not worth the effort. 

My cure, if I understand the problem correctly, would be to begin all InDesign chapter files on the right and then go to the back and delete every blank page that you can until there are no more blanks on the right. Let the last page in each chapter file be a blank verso or if it has a little text on it, fine. Of course I am just repeating what Dick said below so I am really just agreeing. 

Alan F. Clarke

bozone...@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dangerous is the lion’s lair,

even when the lion’s not there!

                           --Caius Marius 

[William Adams]

I've done a fair number of continuously paginated books --- one, the Naval Institute Press's _Combat Fleets of the World_ actually was continuous w/ new sections picking up directly where the previous one had left off (here's a secret --- we'd identify a couple of sections throughout the book to always start on a new page and force things in various ways to ensure that happened).

Wish I could do freelance, but I have a non-compete agreement here at my day job, hence the offer to do it out of the kindness of my heart.

I really wish folks would take advantage of the nice features for this sort of thing in InDesign --- using them has _got_ to be a marked competitive advantage, and that sort of thing _ought_ to translate to winning more work.

William

[Ann_Camilla]

Thank you everyone for your help. I've plodded through the book and rearranged the chapters where recto pages became verso but am definitely going to visit your template/layout/write up about towards and away from the spine. I thought this only applied to anchored frames but am looking forward to seeing the light. The publisher I work for (specialises in military history) is NOT going to go for all chapters starting on a recto if it leaves a blank verso, so that's that.

And it's so so kind of you, William, to offer to do this for me but I'll just grin (!) and bear it this time. I'll set up a new variety of template as I mentioned above and thank you very much for all your kind offers and advice.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Ann

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[Sharon Villines]

> On Aug 4, 2017, at 11:20 AM, Alan Clarke <boz...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> Still, in just about every book on my shelves I see chapters beginning on rectos, no matter where the previous chapter ends. Single blank verso pages are a fact of life in book publishing and I don’t think too many publishers worry about them.

I’m working on a book with all chapters starting on the right. I don’t think any non-fiction books start on the left. When possible, I’ve enlarged illustrations to throw some text on the blank page. On others I have placed a quotation so it doesn’t look so bare.

But if you change the master or do a master based on the original, does that help? Redefining the style?

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Sociocracy: A Deeper Democracy
http://www.sociocracy.info

[Ann_Camilla]

Thanks Sharon. The publisher does not like blank pages so there's nothing I can do about that. Their house style is their house style. Full stop!

The masters don't really help with the layout and I do apologise for a rather misleading subject line because of course the lack of movement comes when I put the chapters together in a book. I'm currently playing around with the anchor placement in the object styles I use for pics and their captions in the hope of a eureka moment!

Ann

[Ann_Camilla]

So I've been experimenting with the alignment options in the Object Styles: graphics frame and text frame but actually haven't managed to change anything, let alone the alignment. If anyone would like to see JPGs of how it should be and how it shouldn't be (after the addition of a new page before), here are a couple of links <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3qIjq87cSsDM3RWTzhVaGJESmM>

<https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3qIjq87cSsDaVZQZWdrT3VZTkU>

although I'm so non-technical that I'm not sure they work!

On Friday, 4 August 2017 14:27:24 UTC+1, William Adams wrote:

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[Dick Margulis]

Ann,

You're nothing if not obstinate.

Try this:

1. Save a new copy of the file.
2. On the master page, with "Enable Layout Adjustment" checked, change the width of the text column to the full width of the page.
3. In your paragraph style specifications, align the paragraph to the spine and give it an indent of whatever your narrow column plus ditch add up to.
   

You will still have to deal with the object styles for the images and captions, but that should at least get your text columns taken care of.

On 8/8/2017 10:12 AM, Ann_Camilla wrote:

[Ann_Camilla]

And you, Dick, are nothing if not generous with your time and full of good ideas!

Thank you. This sounds good if too late for this particular book. However, it's the first of many and I can now experiment with setting new templates.

[Ann_Camilla]

Yes, I've been experimenting with the Object Styles' text and graphics frames but haven't managed to get anything at all to move anywhere, let alone nicely!

[Brad Walrod]

Ann,

I haven’t read every word you’ve exchanged with others, but this certainly reminds me of how much I use and enjoy Gabe Harbs’ Reflective Objects plug-in. Here’s a link to the page, and that before-and-after example there is from one of my jobs.

(I lost a couple of paragraphs from the top-left spread, and all the objects on subsequent pages flowed back and were in place — at the opposite side of each page than they started.)

Brad

[Ann_Camilla]

Thanks Brad. I found that but read the reviews and people don't seem to be able to make it work with CS6 -- and indeed it hasn't been updated since CS5. It looked like my saviour, exactly what I needed. :(

[Brad Walrod]

Hmm . . . okay. It definitely works manually, as I use it all day when building college textbooks and throwing art around in CS6 — having them pop into place on next/previous pages. I guess I haven’t had need for the automated aspect in a while. Sorry.

[Ann_Camilla]

I should be delighted to buy it if you can tell me what you mean exactly by 'works manually'. I've been doing it manually: i.e., set each chapter as a separate file; make a book and then find some chapters start on an even page rather than odd and so I have to go through moving text/images/captions by hand. Then the author adds something and that fills an extra page, everything gets bumped on and I'm back to plodding through, page by page. Aargh!!! :)

[Brad Walrod]

Well, it sounds like you need it to work automatically. By manually, I mean that I can drag properly set up objects quickly across or between spreads and they snap to the mirrored-image positions without need for precise placement on my part.

[C F Majors]

The most important thing I have read in this thread is this advice:  the key is to determine certain sections that will start recto and make sure everything between them works out that way. That should help the amount with back and forth the editor is creating for you with revisions. 

On Aug 8, 2017, at 12:12 PM, Ann_Camilla <camill...@gmail.com> wrote:

[William Adams]

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 2:48 PM, C F Majors <cfma...@gmail.com> wrote:

The most important thing I have read in this thread is this advice:  the key is to determine certain sections that will start recto and make sure everything between them works out that way. That should help the amount with back and forth the editor is creating for you with revisions. 

Yes, but w/ a suitable automated system, that shouldn't need to be an issue --- I never bother w/ that on jobs done using (La)TeX, and on the publications I did where I had set up the templates so as to allow for automagic flip-flopping, it was never an issue --- I'd just set the start page for things by rearranging them in the book, open and review the files, then export to .pdf

William

 

[Ann_Camilla]

Well as there are no sections that need to start recto (other than the title page of course) this isn't possible. Believe you me, if the publisher would always allow for starting chapters on right hand pages, the whole thing would be a doodle and I wouldn't have started this post! I am enormously grateful to everyone. This, like the PageMaker group I used to belong to in the 90s, is full of amazing people. Thank you all.