Re: Graphic designers creating with Word
- From: Clive Huggan <REMOVETHISoffice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 07:55:34 +1000
Hello Chuck,
I'll second every word Bob wrote (except "rant" -- he has the measured
self-control of a high court judge ;-)
One of the factors covered in the articles Bob recommends is the
significance of printer drivers in determining the pagination of Word when a
document is printed. Different driver = different pagination. And because
of differences in screen display it's more likely that a given Word document
will display differently on Windows from OS X than from one Mac to another
or one PC from another. That's why it's highly desirable to lock down the
pagination of a file produced in Word by sending it to the printer (whether
commercial or just the person who hits "Print" on their laser printer) as a
PDF.
That's why some of us who are heavily involved in collaborative development
of long documents send a PDF along with the Word document for colleagues to
print from, so they know how it looks on our screen.
All this originates from Word having no concept of a "page", as distinct
from page layout applications. For word processing that's a huge advantage,
because if you have to add a couple of lines to the front of a long
document, provided you have formatted it along "minimum maintenance" lines
you don't have to hand-tweak the document at all, other than to initiate an
update of the table of contents. How far from the age of the typewriter...
(Minimum maintenance = no/few hard page breaks, headings glue themselves to
the following text so they follow the text over to the next page, etc etc --
an article is in appendix A to "Bend Word to Your Will".)
Chuck, I notice you say:
After 2 meetings, I have the
strong feeling that I'll be using Word (instead of InDesign) to produce
ads, flyers, and other short documents for that group - because that's
what they use. PDFs are OK, but Word files produce the most comfort.
If you have skills in InDesign, you'd be better gently insisting that you'll
take contributed material from them in Word, then transforming it in
InDesign and outputting to PDFs. A little pain and horror will be good for
them, and if they want publicity from your publication...
[This may or may not be relevant: If you don't have extensive experience in
InDesign and cost is a consideration, Apple's Pages application isn't too
bad for your type of task. Here in Australia it's 1/20 the cost of InDesign
and dollar-for-dollar it's good value. It has some limitations, mainly
resulting from being heavily based on pre-designed templates (and by the
time you have solved the problems it's arguable that InDesign would have
been quicker), and I have concerns that Apple are not developing the product
quickly enough to overcome some significant shortcomings. But for products
that don't vary by huge amounts it's fine; my wife uses it for a community
publication and really likes it most of the time.]
Finally, you won't find any coverage of graphics in "Bend Word to Your
Will": I say "I don¹t do any graphical work in Word documents (the
screenshots in this document excepted), since Word is not optimized for
graphics, cross-platform graphic problems are endemic, and page layout
software is designed for this purpose".
'Nuff said...
Cheers,
Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
On 28/9/06 4:44 AM, in article #h$00Tm4GHA.3396@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"CyberTaz" <typegeneraltaz1ATcomcastdotnet> wrote:
Boy, you really had to go and hose down the hornet's nest, dintcha? :)
You'll undoubtedly get a lot of response on this subject, but let me be the
first to provide [My] 2 Cardinal Rules of page layout/graphic design using
Word:
Rule #1- *Don't*
Rule #2- If tempted to do so anyway, see rule #1
Seriously, though, simple to minimally complex layouts can be accomplished,
but it takes a pretty good understanding of how Word is designed to work -
which you've already found is *not* how one might "expect". Most of those
who would encourage such projects in Word are seasoned professionals who are
often forgetful of a couple of things: the techniques 'seem simple' to them
because they have been doing those things for years (may even have been the
originators of same), that they probably *had* to do so out of necessity,
and what a hassle it was to master the tools.
The most important point is that we're dealing with a _word_ processing
program, which by definition means text, not graphics. Virtually every
layout feature added to Word over the years [IMHO] has been a concession by
MS to the marketplace that Word be the "Swiss Army Knife" of software - only
with an unlimited arsenal of blades & attachments. The result is that most
of the 'accoutrements' are mediocre at best & contribute more to frustration
& corrupt docs than to professional results for even talented users.
Before I rant any further, I should point out that if any of the doc types
you mention are to be printed commercially, Word does *not* support CMYK,
Spot Color, Color Management, high-res (over 300 ppi) as well as many of the
other desirable (if not mandatory) features found in a program such as
InDesign. In order to produce high quality image output the images must be
linked, rather than embedded, and supplied to any destination the doc might
go. Word is also lacking in pro caliber typsetting controls for tracking,
kerning, baseline shift, ligatures, etc. - althought the advent of Unicode
has helped somewhat for a wider array of glyphs. And on, and on, and on...
If you're still interested, you might want to start here;
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/PagesInWord.html
for a more comprehensive understanding of how Word *does* work. In
particular, the links
About the Draw Layer: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/DrwGrphcs/DrawLayer.htm
&
About Floating Graphics: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=268713
will definitely be useful as well as informative. You can also learn a great
deal about using Word in general from the following article written by MVP
Clive Huggan - It has almost become the "serious Word user's bible".
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html
Additionally, there will usually be someone here to offer assistance & point
to other material on specific topics.
"Chuck M" <chuckmiller@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1159377324.989158.10640@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I represent our monthly newsprint arts/community paper as a member in a
new group of community organizations. After 2 meetings, I have the
strong feeling that I'll be using Word (instead of InDesign) to produce
ads, flyers, and other short documents for that group - because that's
what they use. PDFs are OK, but Word files produce the most comfort.
My experience with Word and fancier formatting is that Word thinks in a
way that I cannot anticipate. Same language, but a very different mind.
Simple things can take me a long, long time.
Recent example: A small graphic was to be added to an order form. Not
as part of a text box (if that's what they're called). But stand alone.
With type around it but separate. But every variation on inserting
picture that I tried placed the picture in one of the text boxes.
That's obviously wrong, I thought, but it really wasn't. After an hour
or so, I discovered if I selected the graphic inside the text box, I
could Format the picture to relate to the page and not the text box. So
I had to put it in the wrong place to get it to the right place. That
gives my mind a small kernel panic.
If someone has assembled, let's say, a list of things graphic designers
need to know to use Word for page design, it wold probably save me
enough time to clean my bachelor apartment. (And if you saw my place
you'd know that's a lot of time.)
.
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