Been trying to help with a print job. Author has had all sorts of issues. One thing that rand an alarm bell was finding out that the author needed to edit a PDF.
Noooooo....
This isn't good. I know you can (After all I did the Adobe exam in PDF many years ago) but really PDF is a delivery medium. Not a work in progress file. They are designed to be bolted down. Attempts to do big edits is nearly always bad voodoo.
Suggested workflow
This is the kind of workflow you need. Basically, it's your text > InDesign >PDF. Consider each of the ">" as a one-way street.In more detail:
- Your manuscript. Completely finished and proofread, any graphics either scanned properly or to be created. Once you’ve passed it over, I wouldn’t expect anything other than very minor tweaks to the copy. You need/should not do any formatting other than very basic forms such as Chapter heads, subheads, lists, footnotes. If you are doing an index that will be done after formatting. Page numbers/folios will be added automatically, Contents, footnotes will be positioned and generated automatically.
- I would take your text file and images (if any) and would do a quick and dirty format to judge length etc. I would properly format a chapter and send that back to you as a pdf for checking approval of layout style, fonts, sizes, etc.
- Then make tweaks as required.
- Once approved the remaining sections of the book would be formatted - each chapter, if it suited the book, would be sent for proofing individually.
- Once whole book approved, print-ready PDF would be generated.
Printing the book.
Then I looked around for some low-run print prices. As usual huge variation, from around £3.50 a copy to over £8. Same product, same quantity, same spec.
I only half understand why this is. I assume that expensive printer may be subcontracting to cheap. Or quality may be different, or expensive printer deals with people who need a lot of hand-holding while cheap printer just talks print speak. But it's still a huge difference.
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