The Sound of One Crow Laughing

(unless, of course, a word processing program bigger than WordPad classifies.)

Recently, I promised someone a writeup of how I've been formatting things to print, and figured I'd post it here while I had it.

At the moment, I'm working my way through Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, the text of which can be found here. So far, the theory holds. It's time consuming, but it's hands-on. I like that. It means the only error possible is mine, and I can fix my own errors. :D Here's hoping it's of aide to him, or to any of you playing along at home.

(be warned, though: It's wordy.)


Lock-Ups and Formatting for Printing,
(and re-inventing the wheel)

Making the Lock-up:

“Lock-up” is the word my ex-husband would always use when talking about the grid pattern he used to help him put pages to be printed in order. He, being a mathematical creature, had a formula for setting one up; my way was always more visual/pattern oriented, and it's this I give to you. As yet, it hasn't failed me.

1) Decide how big you want your signature to be--that is, how many pages you want each signature to have. For this example, we'll use six sheets of paper folded in half for twelve leaves and 24 pages.
2) Make a mock-up of a single signature. It doesn't have to be the same size as your intended finished product, but it does have to have the same number of pages. Once you've got them all folded together into a signature, go through and number the corners of the pages in order, as they would be in the book.
3) Open the signature flat and lay its pages out. You should see something like this:

4) When you put the fronts and backs together into a grid,

a pattern emerges:

5) Following the same pattern, you can set up a lock-up for a signature of any size.

6) Once you have a pattern made for your first signature, go on and set up patterns for the rest of your text. It'll save time and hassle later. Also, feel free to make those grids big enough to annotate—the first page of a printed book is rarely the first page of the story inside it, after all.

A good idea before beginning to print: Print a sentence or two on both sides of a sheet with your intended printer and paper, so you can tell a) which way your printer feeds first, so when you flip pages to print their backs on, everything is oriented properly, and b) whether your paper is thick enough to have printed matter on both sides without a lot of bleedthrough. Keep this page close to hand. If bleedthrough is a problem, consider heavier paper (which might affect your signature size) or see whether you can adjust how much ink your printer puts out. Every printer is a little different; getting to know yours will save you MUCH trouble later. Now then, on to...

Formatting the Text:

First step: Apply formatting to your source text.
Don't change the order of things yet. Right now, we're just applying orientation and margins and columns to your source text, to see what will end up on a page. Now would be a good time to add blank spots for the bits that'll be glued to the endpapers and title pages, publication data, etc., and to tip page numbers into the corners of the text of the book. Have a look at a professionally printed book for formatting ideas, and when the time comes to start transferring data, remember to make that blank first page your Pg 1, and paste accordingly. So.

Second step: Tell your word processor and printer what size paper you're working with.

For the sake of the example, let's say you're using standard-sized typing paper for your sheets, since 8.5x11/A4 is the usual default. If your printer will print smaller- or larger-than-standard sheets without complaint, you've a bit of freedom in final size here. If the odd-sizes are possible, then go to the File menu and select Page Setup. Where it asks for Page Size, enter the appropriate measurements and proceed to step three. If, like mine, your printer refuses to work with anything besides 8.5x11/ A4, then my dear, you'll simply have to get creative with your columns, margins, and rows. It's possible to do, though.

Third step: Set up page orientation, margins around edges, and space between columns.

Go to wherever your word processor keeps its Page Format option (in Word and Works, I believe it's under the File menu.) Set your Page Orientation to Landscape and your top, bottom, left, and right margins to .5” (or wherever your minimum margin is for your program and printer).

Next, find the Columns option in your Format menu. Select two columns of equal width. Then it's time to decide on a space between those columns. Depending on what sort of binding you're doing and what your outer margins are, you may need more or less space for gutters. I've made one wee blank book with a hedgehog stitch (a la Moleskines) and I'm experimenting with a springback for my book-in-progress (which, hypothetically, should pop open to lie mostly flat, like a ledgerbook should). The hedgehog opens beautifully flat. From what I've read, hollowbacks and casebindings will want a little more gutter room, but I haven't any experience with those. Yet. Remember, each column is a page—what you see is what you'll get. If you've got .5” margins around your page, I'd recommend at least 1” of space between columns, so you've .5" on the insides of each page. If you're wary of gutterspace, try 1.2”. Now would be a lovely time to save the changes you've made.

Fourth step: Apply the Lock-up.

Open a new document—keep your source text document open—and apply the same formatting to the new one as you have to the original. Here's where the fun begins.

With your lock-up pattern near to hand and a good understanding of where you'll start (this may require a larger version of the lock-up, with notes like “blank,” “title,” “contents,” “text pg. 1,” etc.) , start copying and pasting from your original document. Note that I say COPYING instead of cutting—if you cut from the original, chances are the autoformat will pop the next column up to fill the void left by the cut text. So. COPY and paste into the new document, following your lock-up pattern.

At the end of every column, go up to your Insert menu and select Manual Break. From that menu of choices, select Column Break. This will keep your columns to themselves instead of letting them wander if you have to cut something from the lock-up document to put it somewhere else.

Every ROW in your lock-up will be one landscaped, two-column page in your document: one page for the Front, one page for the Back. (remember this? )

I leave it to you to decide whether to create all the fronts in line and then all the backs, or to follow the lock-up exactly and then print every other page when the time comes, turning them over to print the backs on the flipside of their proper fronts, and so on. Once you have all the data in the right columns, you can even print things page by page if you like. I have yet to discover which is the most efficient, error-proof way.

Be patient. Save often. Double and triple check before you print. And post pictures/comments/critique!

Happy binding; let me know how it turns out?