Janet Chui (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} marrael) wrote,@ 2004-12-05 15:12:00 |
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The Layout Person's Lament
Listen up, writers. I have some beef with you.
First, congrats are due to you when you get your writing accepted for a publication. Then, when you want to make the life of the layout/graphic designer person happy (the person putting your story into the magazine/book or on the internet), here's what you keep in mind when you're writing/editing your final manuscript:
Learn to indent your first lines in paragraphs not by hitting the "tab" key on your keyboard, but by going into Style>Paragraph or Format>Paragraph and setting your first line indent there, at 0.4" or 0.5" or whatever you like. If your writing software is worth anything, you'll be able to do this, and whenever you hit "Enter" for a new paragraph, the 0.4" or 0.5" indent on the new line is automatic. Tada.
Why you should do this: Layout progams and their capabilities differ, but one thing will stay the same: something, or, more likely someone is going to have to take out all your tabs out one by one. Some layout programs will ignore tabs, but the tabs do stay there and are annoying and often screw up paragraph indents.
While we're on this subject, don't hit "Enter" twice for a new paragraph. If you've figured out Format>Paragraph, you'll know that if you want extra vertical space between paragraphs, there's also a way for your program to do this for you.
Why you should do this: Same reason as above. Cept when you don't do this, even the layout program may not be able to take out your extra line breaks and the layout person has to do this manually. If yours is a long story, count on the layout person getting very pissed.
If you decide to hit "Space" twice after each sentence in your writing, at least keep it consistent and don't sometimes give three or four spaces after your sentences. I know extra spaces can happen while you're editing, but try to count them if you're really set on using two spaces between sentences.
Why you should do this: If the layout person is trying to make your prose pretty and avoid the layout problem called "Rivers of White Space" (a readability and aesthetic problem), said layout person actually only needs one space between sentences, not two or even more. Double spaces after sentences can be easily removed using a "Search and Replace" function, but if arbitrary triple or quadruple spaces are common in your manuscript, you're making the layout person's job harder than it needs to be. And if the layout person decides not to fix your text, yours is going to be the ugly-looking story.
If you've got en or em dashes in your story, decide on whether you want spaces on either side of them or not, and keep it consistent. Don't sometimes give space on one side of the dash only, and sometimes one or two spaces on the other. If you don't know how to make en or em dashes, you are allowed to use double-hyphens...but please, please, keep the use of them consistent.
Why you should do this: So as not to piss layout person off. See above. Yes, the layout person is supposed to fix some of these things, but you can help by keeping the same problem consistent, so that an automatic function will fix it, and save time.
Don't make manual page headers and footers ie. headers and/or footers you typed to the top of, or bottom of, every page by yourself. Figure out how to make the program do them.
Why you should do this: See above. You're making the layout person do manual work again, and trust me, he or she's already dealing with laying out the final publication pages one by one.
These requests may or may not differ from what editors or your professors demand, but the biggest thing is that if you have one way of doing things, (1) keep it the same throughout the manuscript and (2) please learn automatic paragraph formatting and header/footers.
Oh, and KEEP SHOUTING TO A MINIMUM in your text. Except in rare cases, the caps really aren't going to stay, and will be formatted some way else.
For the record, I've laid out over 160 pages of text for this anthology. And I'm working with the same text-formatting rules as I did when editing for the newspaper in KY and doing PR stuff in Singapore. I'm pretty sure these demands are standard, and I know they will make the layout person love you.
Listen up, writers. I have some beef with you.
First, congrats are due to you when you get your writing accepted for a publication. Then, when you want to make the life of the layout/graphic designer person happy (the person putting your story into the magazine/book or on the internet), here's what you keep in mind when you're writing/editing your final manuscript:
Why you should do this: Layout progams and their capabilities differ, but one thing will stay the same: something, or, more likely someone is going to have to take out all your tabs out one by one. Some layout programs will ignore tabs, but the tabs do stay there and are annoying and often screw up paragraph indents.
Why you should do this: Same reason as above. Cept when you don't do this, even the layout program may not be able to take out your extra line breaks and the layout person has to do this manually. If yours is a long story, count on the layout person getting very pissed.
Why you should do this: If the layout person is trying to make your prose pretty and avoid the layout problem called "Rivers of White Space" (a readability and aesthetic problem), said layout person actually only needs one space between sentences, not two or even more. Double spaces after sentences can be easily removed using a "Search and Replace" function, but if arbitrary triple or quadruple spaces are common in your manuscript, you're making the layout person's job harder than it needs to be. And if the layout person decides not to fix your text, yours is going to be the ugly-looking story.
Why you should do this: So as not to piss layout person off. See above. Yes, the layout person is supposed to fix some of these things, but you can help by keeping the same problem consistent, so that an automatic function will fix it, and save time.
Why you should do this: See above. You're making the layout person do manual work again, and trust me, he or she's already dealing with laying out the final publication pages one by one.
These requests may or may not differ from what editors or your professors demand, but the biggest thing is that if you have one way of doing things, (1) keep it the same throughout the manuscript and (2) please learn automatic paragraph formatting and header/footers.
Oh, and KEEP SHOUTING TO A MINIMUM in your text. Except in rare cases, the caps really aren't going to stay, and will be formatted some way else.
For the record, I've laid out over 160 pages of text for this anthology. And I'm working with the same text-formatting rules as I did when editing for the newspaper in KY and doing PR stuff in Singapore. I'm pretty sure these demands are standard, and I know they will make the layout person love you.
