Production: page layout software and tips

[Runjikol]

With so many avid writers there has to be some advice to be shared about what software to use and what method of production to use in putting together one's Free RPG.

What's your choice of software & why?
Eg. MS Word because I know how to use it, already.

What's your method of production?
Eg. Put all the information together, headings, sub-headings, page headers, page footers.
Put in columns, tables and graphics within the text.
Spend two weeks aligning everything, no orphan table-rows, no orphan paragraphs, etc.
Last put in background images.
Print into PDF with the Office PDF/XPS add-in.

[pstmdrn]

I really like Microsoft publisher, but you need to download an Add on to publish a as a pdf. Also, it sucks for using Vector graphics. Edit the vectors in another program before importing.

[SheikhJahbooty]

When I bought my new netbook, I couldn't be bothered to buy or pirate any software for it, so I've been stuck with OpenOffice, and GIMP, and recently Scribus, but I have to say, it hasn't hurt my productivity at all. There's a few things about OpenOffice that I wish were like MS Word, but there are a couple things I like better. It's all give and take.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I'm a big fan of the free . It comes with the ability to produce pdfs in one click by default, and has pretty much all the features of the Microsoft suite. With the various revisions (2007/2010) of the MS office programs - this one is also the most familiar appearing and a bit easier to navigate. Its a good general purpose and powerful word processor.

As to production - everything begins in college rule spiral notebooks. The transition from page to processor is where much of the major revision comes in, as well as the initial formatting. Generally, I set up the chapter/sections that I need first, then go back in and fill stuff in - quite often the headers appear before the text. I do tend write in the columns that will be in the final product, rather than trying to reformat the document later. The little (F-11) styles box is almost always open so I can just highlight and click to set things as headings, automatically indented text and so forth. For longer works this also included an automatically cataloged table of contents.

Since I'm not much of a graphics artist, my layouts tend to be very clean and technical writing oriented. Gangland and its offspring are written in a 1/3 -2/3 column arrangement of sidebars and single column text, while everything else is fairly plain two column with occasional tables.

I've considered doing stuff by section or having info boxes, but really I try to keep my writing clear enough that I can avoid footnotes and shout boxes. Something for the 1.4 version of Dead and Back I'm working on is that I've got a lot of things referenced in character creation that don't come up until later. (like Altruism Points, Lucidity, and SDI)

Generally a play-test or review needs to come before I start re-arranging sections, but I also try to avoid widowed text and wasted space.

Also of note, the rules of my games come first in the final document, and are treated as a document of their own until then. At least with D&B the rules and world info are separate so you can either have just the rules for the players, or the secrets of the setting for the GM. Its a quicker download that way.

[lastres0rt]

FWIW,PagePlusSE is free, and I've used it for both my books so far. I hear the full version isn't too pricey either.

My main tip is in knowing that when the print company says where the full bleed is, what they REALLY mean is "and double that width unless you like seeing bits of text and page numbers chopped off". I've got the $20 wasted on a proof copy to prove it, too.

Most professionals will go even further in on the sides to avoid getting words swallowed up by the spine --the average recommendation is 1" all around, but smaller trim books don't always have that luxury.

[madunkieg]

Because games tend to have so many sections, I've started using RoughDraft during the writing process. It allows a lot of rtf files to be kept open at once and has them all on tabs so I can jump back and forth between them. That makes it pretty easy to move ideas around from one section to the next.

Once things are pretty well done, I switch to an old version of Quark XPress. I used to use it professionally. It lets me be as fiddly as I like. Trying to do the same in a word processor would drive me up the wall, even if I'm not doing anything fancy. There's certain tricks I use that word processors don't do, or don't do easily. An old version of photoshop gets used for my graphics editing. On my most recent project I used Bryce to do the graphics. I'm not much of an art guy, so using software to replace coordination with math really helps, even if the programs are limited in other ways.