Summer's birthday 2010

Norman · **Posted:** Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:19 pm

I checked the shop and it doesn't seem to have that much customization. Maybe there are other shops which have more options to set. Here is a german shop with a beta application. If we decide to print it in an online shop maybe we find something that allows us to customize it and maybe can make a pre version of it so that we can see how the final result would look like.

If people want do to it digital they should maybe try to take adobe elements or the open source program scribus. It is really good for creating pages. I know that it is not easy, but it would improve the quality and is much better than word and also allows color management and .pdf creation.

palosas · **Joined:** Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:00 pm **Posts:** 60

palosas wrote:

Nemesis wrote:

Nyrki wrote:

Don't be confused, Nemesis. You're right, it's a common book present we're making. If we're to send our pages to the member who will have the book printed, then only he can see the full result.
Or do we go for a digital version for all the members who participate? Why not, I'm open, even if I consider my birthday message to her a bit personnal. That's quaint, I know.
Would be interesting to see what the other members think about it.

I think we should go for a digital for all members.
If we write it separately it might look a bit confusing.. well you know, I think it should be at least a bit unifrom.. What do you think? (maybe someone mentioned it.. but I lack time so I wasn't able to read all posts .. sorry guys

)

Anonymous of Holland · **Posted:** Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:31 pm

I agree with the posters above here, it'd be a lot nicer if there was some uniformity in the pages.
Maybe someone could make a photoshop or PSP template for a page or something? Or maybe just an example page would be enough.

Aqualize · **Posted:** Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:43 pm

Nyrki wrote:

Aqualize wrote:

With separate pages I meant the physical paper, that one would get them as normal photos on paper and not as a booklet. But perhaps today the photo shops makes booklets also from photos.

Yes, the shop I visited can make booklets from a series of pictures. The actual size of the booklet would give a minimum image resolution. But I agree the PDF solution allows to control easier this problem.

Aqualize wrote:

Of course everything is rasterized before getting out on paper but the difference is that to a photo shop you send an raster image (like a JPEG file) that would be scaled to fit the paper. The process could be like taking a print-screen of the text in MS Word (or whatever) and then cutting the edges of in some image editor etc. A lot of manual labor and will probably not be so good. If the image is very small (like on the computer screen) it would probably make the font a bit blurry.

The idea Norman and I seem to have is that everyone makes their own PDF files and they are combined into one file before going to shop print shop. Then nearly everything (font, layout etc.) is stored in its natural vector format (except inserted high-resolution photos of course) and a total control of the output is obtained.

We could even make it so that we create a template for MS Word/Open Office Writer with a colored page header that should contain e.g. name of author and page number. It will create a little bit of uniform look of the booklet but the rest of the layout of each page I feel should be up to each member to create some elaborate style (perhaps with a few tips if requested).

Thank you for explaining, Aqualize ;-)

Using PDF would help, I agree. But let's be careful. PDF files are not always self-contained. Sometimes they rely on the system, for fonts for example. So the rendering is different, once on the printer machine. Beside this and access of everyone to PDF production (not obvious to get good PDF printers), I agree that PDF probably offers the best potential for professional quality.
I really like your idea of a template to standardize to whole. I was thinking about something in the same direction.
I will continue to search for companies that accept to print one-shot (or really small series) professional quality from PDF documents. Beside, I will try to produce A5 PDF files. Never tried before.

PDF should be able to be self-contained (as they can have embedded fonts etc.).
I don't know how the CutePDF writer I suggested earlier handles this. Perhaps a program that natively exports to PDF can provide more control over the process.

Aqualize · **Posted:** Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:52 pm

Norman wrote:

I checked the shop and it doesn't seem to have that much customization. Maybe there are other shops which have more options to set. Here is a german shop with a beta application. If we decide to print it in an online shop maybe we find something that allows us to customize it and maybe can make a pre version of it so that we can see how the final result would look like.

If people want do to it digital they should maybe try to take adobe elements or the open source program scribus. It is really good for creating pages. I know that it is not easy, but it would improve the quality and is much better than word and also allows color management and .pdf creation.

What Adobe program are you referring to? First I thought there were a elements variant of InDesign, but it's not. Using photoshop elements for this seems strange.

Yes, I'm open for using a desktop publishing software instead of a word processor. I'm checking out Scribus right now, also installed OO.org to see what "Draw" offers (Wikipedia described to partly compete with Scribus).

EDIT:
I tested scribus. It has a lot of features, perhaps not everything is intuitive (took some time before I found where to change the color of a shape) but I would be willing to learn.
OpenOffice.org Draw, as far as I can see, don't support any custom set ICC color profile, as some (many?) print shops supplies their own it would be good if we can use that in the program (scribus supports that). I don't know what will happen if the print shop gets another color profile, if it can be converted (an approximation) or it messes up everything.

Aqualize · **Posted:** Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:57 pm

palosas wrote:

[...]

I think we should go for a digital for all members.
If we write it separately it might look a bit confusing.. well you know, I think it should be at least a bit unifrom.. What do you think? (maybe someone mentioned it.. but I lack time so I wasn't able to read all posts .. sorry guys

)

I think we are going for a common template (border of a page) but the content inside I feel should not have any restriction on fonts etc. or even digital (some scanned hand-written parts could look nice). To put a personal touch and show that there is different people that has had say about how they want to present it.

Norman · **Posted:** Tue Mar 23, 2010 8:55 pm

@Aqualize Please use the edit button.

Maybe it was Adobe Illustrator and not Elements. I would recommend to use these types of programs because it is the best way to create a page if people want to make it fully digital.

People have time to create something and maybe should start now to learn how programs like Scribus work.

If people don't want to make it digital they should be allowed to do so. I also think that we don't need a template. Everyone shall make it the way he wants. Of course the size and the max number of the pages are given. Maybe also the name if people want it.

palosas · **Joined:** Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:00 pm **Posts:** 60

Aqualize wrote:

palosas wrote:

[...]

I think we should go for a digital for all members.
If we write it separately it might look a bit confusing.. well you know, I think it should be at least a bit unifrom.. What do you think? (maybe someone mentioned it.. but I lack time so I wasn't able to read all posts .. sorry guys

)

I think we are going for a common template (border of a page) but the content inside I feel should not have any restriction on fonts etc. or even digital (some scanned hand-written parts could look nice). To put a personal touch and show that there is different people that has had say about how they want to present it.

So someone might post here something like a form?

kirirur · **Posted:** Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:10 pm

I think that someone could post here a couple of examples. I mean, unfortunately I'm not such a creative guy (not in that form at least), when this topic has started I had a sort of idea in my mind but while reading it changed several times and it's now quite blurred.

So maybe if someone could post one, or two quick sample on what we're talking about it could help not only me but maybe everybody to have a better idea of what it could be the final result.

Aqualize · **Posted:** Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:36 pm

kirirur wrote:

I think that someone could post here a couple of examples. I mean, unfortunately I'm not such a creative guy (not in that form at least), when this topic has started I had a sort of idea in my mind but while reading it changed several times and it's now quite blurred.

So maybe if someone could post one, or two quick sample on what we're talking about it could help not only me but maybe everybody to have a better idea of what it could be the final result.

I threw this together in Scribus. Example PDF here, and not aspiring to become the visual layout of the border or anything. So every page would have that at the top and then a contributor can paste a scanned image (high-resolution) into the other area. Or work with scribus doing the layout and text digitally. Or a mix of both.

The page numbers could be like 1-1,1-2,1-3,2-1,2-2,2-3 etc. With an index in the beginning sorting by the major number together with its contributor. Other way everyone has to have a fixed number of pages to complete. Or the last action before submitting is to number the pages as what the previous guy had as maximum. Otherwise (and possible in these cases) a chaos of which page numbers should be where will happen.

Summer's birthday 2010

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