I’ve mentioned in a past
post that this didn’t happen for the March edition; a timing error
prevented us from reviewing the paper before sending it out. We crossed our
fingers and let it go. We were lucky that there were no major oversights.
The April issue, however, was
a different story. It was twice as long as the March edition.
Twice as many opportunities
for mistakes.
We had learned from the previous
debacle and given ourselves plenty of extra time. The editor-in-chief and I sat
in with the graphic design student on a Friday afternoon, taking care of
problems as they arose. I put a few pages together on my own to save time.
The graphic design student
came in on his own that Saturday to finish. He sent the PDF the same afternoon,
a full two days before our deadline. We had an ample chance to review the
proof.
On Sunday, I gave the pages a
once-over to see if there was anything egregious I could catch.
Indeed there was. The page
numbers had not been set correctly – they were on the outside of one page, the
inside of the next. One photograph had an incorrect cutline. Another photo had
not been resized to fit within the frame.
These and other minor
mistakes are not unusual for a proof. They add up, however, and can
significantly detract from the readability of the paper.
After I marked up the PDF, I uploaded
it to the folder in Google
Drive we share with graphic design. I texted the student to let him know that
it would be there for him when he came in Monday.
He texted me back to let me
know he wasn’t at the college Monday.
I flew into contingency mode.
The current editor-in-chief is not familiar enough with Adobe InDesign, the
layout software, to make the changes on his own. Professor Karyn Smith had
never used the program. I was the only person around with the required skill
set.
I called Smith to let her
know what had happened. I asked for her blessing to miss the Publications class
so I could spend the time Monday on reworking the paper. She agreed it was the
only viable solution.
Next I called the graphic
design professor, Andy Pinto. He didn’t pick up his phone, so I left a message.
I explained the dilemma and asked him to open the design room so I could access
the InDesign files.
Finally, I texted
editor-in-chief Dave Weidenfeller to give him an update and tell him my plan.
He was on board.
I spent the next afternoon
fiddling with borders, creating lines and frames, and rearranging text. Pinto came by a few times and answered any
questions I had. InDesign is a complex program, and it had been about a year
since the last time I had used it. The experience was a little like trying to
pick up bicycling after a long period on foot: you don’t forget how to peddle,
but you ride more slowly for the first mile or so.
The last time I used InDesign was to create this newsletter in early 2012.
I ran into some rough terrain along the way. The graphic design student had linked the text boxes containing the headlines with the boxes containing the bodies of the articles. For a while, I couldn’t figure out why adjusting a margin would throw the whole article out of whack.
Eventually I ferreted out the
problem. I could correct it by deleting the box for the headline, creating a
new one, then cutting and pasting the text into the right places. It took more
time, but it had to be done.
By about 4 p.m., I’d finished
tweaking the paper. I sent it out to the printer and texted both Smith and
Weidenfeller to let them know it was out for publication.
As Pinto and I closed up the
design room, we talked about some of the close calls we’d had getting the paper
laid out in the past. He remarked that we’ve been working together for years
now.
I was surprised and
flattered. Surprised because it hasn’t seemed like such a long time. Flattered
because he phrased his remark as if I were his colleague.
Maybe someday I will be. It
would be a joy to come up with contingency plans several times a semester.
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