The Booklet Itself

[Thangobrind]

I have a few newbish questions for Geoffrey related to the fabrication of the Carcosa booklet.

(1) What PDF program did you use for layout?
(2) How did you staple/bind the finished product? (What sort of stapler did you use?)
(3) Do you have any useful tips for fabricating similar booklets?

[geoffrey]

Dec 24, 2008 13:26:38 GMT -6 Thangobrind said:

I have a few newbish questions for Geoffrey related to the fabrication of the Carcosa booklet.

(1) What PDF program did you use for layout?
(2) How did you staple/bind the finished product? (What sort of stapler did you use?)
(3) Do you have any useful tips for fabricating similar booklets?

1. I did the whole thing on Microsoft Word. I used 9-point Arial font, right justified, landscape, double columns, and 1/2" margins. I honestly have no idea if I did it the hard way or not, since I'm not a techie-type. I simply typed everything into Word, then formatted it in the ways I just mentioned.

I then emailed the finished Word documents to a friend who converted them using her Word 2007 program. Another Good Samaritan converted the map to a PDF for me. I'm not sure what program he used.

2. Unfortunately, the staplers I could find were prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, a local printer is willing to both staple and trim the booklets for a reasonable fee. Everything else I do in my own house.

3. Hmmm. I would probably try to find out if there is an easier way of doing it than I did. I did everything by the seat of my pants. The page numbers were particularly galling to get right. For all I know, Word has a template or something that would have reduced my work tenfold. About the only thing I can suggest is to have your document formatted in the way you want it before you even start typing. That way you don't have to set up your tables twice, which is what I (stupidly) did.

Another pain in the rear was cutting and pasting in Word all the pages in the proper order for them to be printed-out and folded into a book. Again, for all I know Word has a simple way of doing it. I trudged through doing it one page at a time.

I apologize for not being more help! I'm definitely an amateur on this topic. Maybe someone like Dan Proctor or someone else with some expertise will be of more help. I used the brute force method. It ended up looking real nice, but I probably made it more work than it had to be.

[Finarvyn]

Dec 24, 2008 14:10:38 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Another pain in the rear was cutting and pasting in Word all the pages in the proper order for them to be printed-out and folded into a book. Again, for all I know Word has a simple way of doing it. I trudged through doing it one page at a time.

Oh, this has to be the bane of my existance as well. I love folded-over booklets a lot better than 8.5x11" size, but getting the pages in the right order in Word is enough to make me want to scream.

[yesmar]

Here's an observation for you, Geoffrey. Starting on page 9/10, the page numbers in the Supplement V--CARCOSA consecutive pages PDF get cut off on the bottom. This is slightly annoying to me as I tend to read the consecutive pages version more than the booklet version.

I had the same problem when I took my OD&D TLB and converted them from Word 2008 to PDF files. My solution was simple and would probably work for you as well. Prior to saving as PDF, I tweaked the bottom margin so that it no longer lopped off the bottom of the page numbers. Then I saved my docs as PDFs and the page numbers looked perfect in those PDFs. This might work for this problem with your consecutive pages PDF.

[jimlotfp]

I have options for adding Page Numbers into Word documents (under the Insert menu) as well as setting the document up as a booklet (Page Setup option on the File menu).

That's how I did both the original version of the Creature Generator and FFV.

[greyharp]

Here's what I use and it works very well:

bookletcreator.com/Instructions/

Upload your pdf to the site and it produces a booklet with all the pages in the right order. No mucking around with formatting and the job's done.

[Thangobrind]

That, Greyharp, is extremely handy. Thanks for the link.

[Thangobrind]

Jim, I'm familiar with your creature generator (downloaded it the other day from RPGNow -- great product) -- what is FFV? Also, is there any way I can download your prototype for the creature generator? The Goodman Games version is very clean and nice, but I'd love a glimpse at the unedited version.

[Deleted]

What I've done to get the print order correct is to first fold over an equal number of blank pages to approximate the booklet size you wish to print. Number each of these pages with a pen or pencil as they will be ordered in the booklet. Then, flatten them out and write down the order, front and back, the pages will be printing out flat. When printing on the opposite side, insert the pages the same way they came out. As is consistent with other instructions to print in this fashion, my explanation may not be very clear but hopefully is helpful to those who are able to understand it.

[jimlotfp]

Dec 25, 2008 15:44:13 GMT -6 Thangobrind said:

Jim, I'm familiar with your creature generator (downloaded it the other day from RPGNow -- great product) -- what is FFV? Also, is there any way I can download your prototype for the creature generator? The Goodman Games version is very clean and nice, but I'd love a glimpse at the unedited version.

FFV details are at my blog: lotfp.blogspot.com, upper right side there with the naughty word. Buy it today!

As far as the Creature Generator, I really shouldn't be distributing the original version in any form. Really, the only significant differences between the versions are the layout, artwork, and the introduction.

Here is the original artwork (and my original artwork which was used to create the artwork that was in the original printing of the Generator): lotfp.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-on-artwork-for-random-esoteric.html The one thing I wish was different for the new version is I wish they would have used at least one of Aino's pieces.

The original layout was an A5 (basically digest-sized) booklet with Times New Roman 6.5 font for the text to fit it all in 28 pages including front and back cover.

The introduction was about 50% different... with the difference being that the self-published edition had a profanity-laced rant against WotC (although I didn't say that name). Necessary considering my state of mind at the time (the Creature Generator was my first signs of mental life after my divorce), but probably not so necessary for the product itself.