Long Doc Formatting Assistance

[Pete]

Greetings friends,

I am helping the editor of a (very low budget) journal to format books.
These are fairly complex and long documents (although, in the scheme of
things, probably not too complicated). I would estimate that we are
intermediate level users. We both have macs (mine is a Macbook Pro
using OS X version 10.4.8) and are working on Word 2004 version 11.3.
Here are some of the formatting needs of the books we are working on:

The goal is to have a book (probably in the 200 - 300 page range) with
continuous pages from start to finish. Book chapters need to start on
odd number pages. Sometimes we have to insert a blank page to fulfill
this requirement. The blank page must have a page number and "Blank" in
the header and both must show. For some reason this has been difficult.


We have also struggled with when we make a change, the rest of the
document shifts (header titles revert to the previous section, page
numbers shift).

We are needing a document that has 1 3/4" margin on the bottom and top
(from the top of the header) and two inch margins on the sides. For
some reason these also have shifted.

For the first page of each new chapter the header and page number do
not show.

Lastly, we have a table of contents and an index we are working with to
integrate into the book. We have been doing the TOC by hand. The index
has been done manually by looking up the words and inserting the
indexing function and then letting word format the index. At times, the
auto-indexer has been off in terms of page numbers.

Obviously, there are number of questions here. Here are my questions:

1) Does anyone recommend a resource (book, training, website) that
would answer these questions?
2) Would we be better served, given our experience level, by having
someone else do the formatting for us? If yes, how would you recommend
that we find such a person (we have a small amount of money)?
3) What fixes would you recommend for the above questions?

Sorry for the long post with multiple questions. Any advice or ideas
would be very helpful. Thanks!

Pete

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Pete

I am helping the editor of a (very low budget) journal to format books.
These are fairly complex and long documents (although, in the scheme of
things, probably not too complicated). I would estimate that we are
intermediate level users. We both have macs (mine is a Macbook Pro
using OS X version 10.4.8) and are working on Word 2004 version 11.3.
Here are some of the formatting needs of the books we are working on:

The goal is to have a book (probably in the 200 - 300 page range) with
continuous pages from start to finish. Book chapters need to start on
odd number pages. Sometimes we have to insert a blank page to fulfill
this requirement. The blank page must have a page number and "Blank" in
the header and both must show. For some reason this has been difficult.

Is there an automatic way to create a non-blank, even-numbered page at
the end of a chapter, if the chapter would otherwise end on an odd page?
(by John McGhie)
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/tblsfldsfms/insevnpgendchapcontent.htm

We have also struggled with when we make a change, the rest of the
document shifts (header titles revert to the previous section, page
numbers shift).

Not quite clear what this means. It's natural that the pagination
changes with the flow of text as new content is added or old content
deleted, but other than that ...


[..]

1) Does anyone recommend a resource (book, training, website) that
would answer these questions?

Creating a Template (Part II, by John McGhie)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm

2) Would we be better served, given our experience level, by having
someone else do the formatting for us? If yes, how would you recommend
that we find such a person (we have a small amount of money)?

Well, that's a tricky question for many things one does: Make or Buy?

Personally, I don't think you will be better off by outsourcing the
formatting _of each and every book_.

But you need a template to work with, supposedly all books will have the
same layout.

You can certainly learn to do a lot yourself, by reading the above
articles, applying the knowledge, coming back here when you are stuck).
This takes your time. When you are payed for that, your employer can
usually decide whether doing it in-house or somewhere else is worth the
time.

When you work for free, the answer at hand is often: of course, it's
cheaper if I do it myself then.

Can be tricky, because maybe it would be better for your project to work
somewhere else in the meantime, and donate some money you make there for
the project. With, say, NGOs, this makes a lot of sense often (it does
not give you the same immediate "good feeling" for your work though --
and the whole point probably does not apply in your case anyways).

If you are looking for Word experts, the mvps.org page has a section
where many of us who do such work are listed. I can't find fault with a
posting inhere looking for a template designer (naturally ).

Greetings
Robert

 

[WilliamWMeyer]

Greetings friends,

I am helping the editor of a (very low budget) journal to format books.
These are fairly complex and long documents (although, in the scheme of
things, probably not too complicated). I would estimate that we are
intermediate level users. We both have macs (mine is a Macbook Pro
using OS X version 10.4.8) and are working on Word 2004 version 11.3.
Here are some of the formatting needs of the books we are working on:

The goal is to have a book (probably in the 200 - 300 page range) with
continuous pages from start to finish. Book chapters need to start on
odd number pages. Sometimes we have to insert a blank page to fulfill
this requirement. The blank page must have a page number and "Blank" in
the header and both must show. For some reason this has been difficult.


We have also struggled with when we make a change, the rest of the
document shifts (header titles revert to the previous section, page
numbers shift).

We are needing a document that has 1 3/4" margin on the bottom and top
(from the top of the header) and two inch margins on the sides. For
some reason these also have shifted.

For the first page of each new chapter the header and page number do
not show.

Lastly, we have a table of contents and an index we are working with to
integrate into the book. We have been doing the TOC by hand. The index
has been done manually by looking up the words and inserting the
indexing function and then letting word format the index. At times, the
auto-indexer has been off in terms of page numbers.

Obviously, there are number of questions here. Here are my questions:

1) Does anyone recommend a resource (book, training, website) that
would answer these questions?
2) Would we be better served, given our experience level, by having
someone else do the formatting for us? If yes, how would you recommend
that we find such a person (we have a small amount of money)?
3) What fixes would you recommend for the above questions?

Sorry for the long post with multiple questions. Any advice or ideas
would be very helpful. Thanks!

Pete

Hi Pete,

I hate to throw another imponderable into your mix, but you should also
consider that Word may very well not be the tool of choice here.

What you're describing is producing a "book," and something closer to a true
Desktop Publishing application, like Quark, InDesign, or the program I use
most, Ventura, might be easier to manage in the long run than Word is for
such a purpose.

Of course, such programs are expensive and would have a learning curve.

Just my 2 cents,
WilliamW

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Pete,
[see below]

I hate to throw another imponderable into your mix, but you should also
consider that Word may very well not be the tool of choice here.

What you're describing is producing a "book," and something closer to a true
Desktop Publishing application, like Quark, InDesign, or the program I use
most, Ventura, might be easier to manage in the long run than Word is for
such a purpose.

Of course, such programs are expensive and would have a learning curve.

William makes a very good point. I'm not sure what you mean by "journal",
but such programs are *substantially* discounted for academic uses, although
that may forbid commercial use. But academic books don't make a profit, so
not sure how that applies. May be worth checking into.

You are already facing a bit of a learning curve with Word, so a new program
might not be that much more time-consuming, especially since you seem to
expect to repeat this process many times. I would expect all these programs
to have a 30-day downloadable trial.

On the other hand, if you expect to hand this process off to someone else in
a few years, easier to get someone to agree to be Word-savvy than a page
layout program.