Page Layout

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Okay, Adobe Acrobat is mine.

But what program (if any) should I get for layout? I'm thinking of just doing it in HTML first ('cause I know it and I have the stuff for it). Any ideas?

[Logan]

I think html has a lot of possibilities for publishing. No other medium gives you the ability to bring up reference text or supply interactive content like html. There's Flash and other web-based technologies, but as a means for organizing text, html has a lot of unexplored possibilities (at least w/respect to rpgs).

If you want layout software, that depends on budget. If you have MS Office, you should have Publisher. Even as a stand-alone product, I think Publisher is reasonably cheap and capable. Otherwise, you might want to try PageMaker or Quark. Both of those are more expensive, but also extremely competent. I'm sure there are other solutions, as well. Unfortunately, I haven't used them so I can't really comment on them.

[Adam]

I'm still using Adobe Pagemaker v6.52 for The Shadowrun Supplemental and other stuff I do in PDF. Pagemaker is actually up to version 7 now, and I have both of them installed on my system, I just haven't had the time to make the full jump to 7 yet.

I could never really get into QuarkXpress, although I've resolved to give it another try when version 5 comes out - sometime this year, in theory. I gave Adobe InDesign a spin also, but found it lacking too many features that I took for granted in PageMaker. Version 2 of InDesign is supposed to be out first quarter 2002, and I'll probably also give it a whirl when it comes out.

If you have any questions about PageMaker, I'd be glad to try and field them; I'm not a guru but I'm fairly handy with it.

[Chris Passeno]

(rant on)
Do not use Microsoft products if you are going to print with your game.  MS products are for printing corny birthday cards out on YOUR home printer.  
(rant off)

The standard formats that printers accept are Pagemaker or Quark (with all the links and fonts included.)  Acrobat is a hit or miss.  If it's made correctly it will go through prepress and production with no problems.  If it's not made correctly, there is very little that the printer can do with the file.  

I once had a simple B&W catalog job come to me in PDF, because the total pagemaker file with links was over 2 Gig.  There were problems with the linked images.  (NOTE:  If a link is a photo, use a TIFF.  If the link is vector art, use an EPS.)  It took 15 billable hours ($1275 US) to fix it.  I would almost have been cheaper for us to recreate the file.

TIPS:
-There is no such thing as RGB to a printer.  It's a different animal all together.  If you are dealing with light, i.e. monitor, use RGB.  To create full color images using ink, you must use CMYK.  

-Don't scan photo's in over 300 DPI.  You aren't going to get any better quality, just a bigger file size.

-Don't scan line art in any higher than 1200 DPI for the same reasons listed above.  Most times, you won't need anything higher than 600 DPI.

If you have any questions, I would gladly help.

Later,
Chris

[mahoux]

I have to completely echo Chris here.  Working in printing, I have seen all manner of jobs come through.  Some go like buttah, others are a nightmare.

For my own personal preference, I like Quark over Pagemaker.  The big drawback is that it is pricey.  Try to steer clear of Adobe InDesign, which is the worst product out on the market.  PageMaker is very competent and it does have some nice features for going directly into PDF- and HTML I believe.

It all comes down to what you are willing to spend.  I know that Adobe does have packages with PageMaker, Illustrator an dPhotoshop all bundled together, although that is in and of itself still pricey.

Another thought is to find a friend who is a student and have them obtain a copy at student prices.  Probably about a third of full cost.

Aaron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Hey all,

Thanks for the replies.

For the record, I'm going to be laying out pages to be made into PDFs -- no physical printing involved. Yet. Maybe one day, but for now I'm taking it nice and slow.

[Logan]

I think we need to look at what Jared wants to do with this software. It's well and good to bombastically say MS products are just for corny whatevers, but it's not a practical viewpoint for this discussion. While it's true that Publisher doesn't have the kind of kerning and leading controls offered in a product like Pagemaker or Quark, it's also true that we're talking about layout for indie rpgs, which are cost-constrained and often intended for digital distribution. I use Pagemaker because I have it laying around, but that's not too common. Also, the intended output is pdf, not actual print. The "production printing" is usually going to be a gamer hitting the "print" button from Acrobat Reader on his PC. That's a bit different from what you're talking about. The point about cmyk vs. rgb is on target, but still maybe not as important for this application.

[Matt Snyder]

Jared -- I can't recommend enough QuarkXPress for page layout, particularly any 4.x version.

I've used PageMaker as well, though admittedly not the latest versions. PageMaker works well enough, but for my money I'd go with Quark. Quark is as

IF you have Adobe Acrobat, then it MAY be simply better to go w/ the Adobe software (PageMaker or InDesign) to produce your PDFs.

Quark produces PDFs easily enough by  printing to a .ps file (postscript file) then converting the .ps file to a PDF with Adobe Acrobat Distiller, which I THINK is part of the Acrobat suite.

mahoux -- can you tell me why you think InDesign is a bad piece of software? I may be getting access to it in the near future, and I want to know what I'll be getting into

[Adam]

Adobe Acrobat Distiller, which I THINK is part of the Acrobat suite.

It is. Pagemaker also includes Distiller, but not the latest version, and you obviously can't do any after-distilling touch-ups without the full version of Acrobat.

[Chris Passeno]

Since Jared stated that he is gonna do the "not print" route, then yes you can use MS Publisher or even MS Word.  You can Print-to-file most any software and then Distill to make a PDF.  Not the best way, but it works in a pinch.

At what point is printing it at home not feasible?  25 pages, 50 pages, 100 pages?  I know that Jared's games are not page-heavy, but ink cartridges are expensive.

My point is that someone, more likely a customer, is gonna take that PDF to a print-shop at some point and have it printed out.  Print-shops use postscript RIP printers.  Postscript RIP printers are notoriously picky.  Why not create it from the beginning correctly and avoid print problems in the future.  Besides, if you eventually go to press with the job, why reinvent the wheel?

Later,
Chris

[Nathan]

Well, I am working on three PDF products, so let me chime in here at the moment.

I am going to try to go right around 32 - 64 pages for my stuff. 32 seems to be the most likely - not too difficult to print out, not too heavy to download. To cram all of my 32 pages with content and not tables/character sheets/intro adventures -- I am going to include all the extras as other PDFs within the one big zip file. I want my game to be downloaded nearly instantly, so I want it to be under 3 meg or so.

So, believe it or not these all have issues with layout. If I decide to go with a bad cool layout with tons of images and stuff, my file is going to be much larger. If I go with tons of artwork, my file is going to be much bigger. What program do I use then? Do I keep it with a simple word processor? Or what?

I have Adobe Pagemaker and access to Quark. Pagemaker is easy enough to fiddle with for my stuff - especially if I keep my layout simple. I figure I am going to play it by ear, try to keep it simple and small -- but just do what I can. Corel Wordperfect might be fine -- but my images won't look anywhere near as good.

What is the best for a downloadable product? I'd say it would be a medium between all those aspects. The product should have art, but the art does not need to be outrageous. The layout should be simple but well-organized. The file shouldn't be 400 pages long. Then, use the strengths of what we have. I am going to add tons of hyperlinks inside my PDF. When someone sees "Result", it will allow them to click it right to the section where Result is discussed. This will make it ten times easier for folks to learn the rules and find rules real quick. Also, I am going to include a printer easy version of the book w/o artwork. The character sheet will be included as a separate file. A starter adventure will be included as well. What else will work? An html version?

Those are my two cents -- I'd say keep it simple, focus on making it compact and useful -- and then you might be in the homestretch.

And as to reinventing the wheel, if you are going to print the product, I'd say sell out to that. Printing can offer so much more flexibility -- you can do much more with art, layout -- you can include a bunch more information if needed. If you are doing it for the web, sell out to the web -- make sure you do the best darn web product you can do. If at a later date you decide to print the sucker, you'd probably want to get more art, a better layout, and so on anyway.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Marco]

I realize it's not the greatest answer (and we run Tomcat-JSP of a Linux box so don't think I'm a MS booster) but the Adobe Word Converter works really well. Word is a pain when it comes to complex layout (especially compared to Page Maker) but if what you're doing is a page of text with some interspersed pictures ... maybe a column or two, it's hard to beat.

Our latest 138p Steampunk release was done with Word (we did our 100p Monsters book with Page Maker). You can check it out at our web-site. We think the formatting came out very well (and the navigational links were just natively part of Word's heading system--it was all but seamless).

-Marco
[ http://jagsgame.dyndns.org/ ]

[Gordon C. Landis]

Pointless Nostalgia mode ENABLED:

Ah, I remember when Ventura Publisher was state-of-the-art, with those sweet Bitstream fonts.  Anyone out there know if Ventura still exists?  Or remember working with it?

(empty ec-cho ho oess)

Xerox - apparently they have an inverse Midas touch when it comes to micro-computer stuff . . .

Gordon

[Tim Gray]

For DTP software, the cheapest is probably Serif PagePlus, which hasn't had a mention yet. As far as I know it's available in the States too... Most of the irritating glitches are ironed out as of v7. It'll only output in its own format (or, I think, PS and EPS), so possibly not a good choice for dealing with professional printers. On the other hand, it costs £1000 less than Quark - that'll do for me!

[efindel]

Personally, I like LaTeX, but I'm just strange.  :-)