Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
ghrt wrote,
Another issue is with spacing. There is a lot of waste space on
pages. Big headings, big pictures (sometimes only 2 fit on a page).
350 pages is a direct consequence of this. I mean, I don't care about
it, but this GSG isn't that really big, only looks big. There are
things that I felt I had to add, like changing page format (we use A4
here) and a few of other explanations.
IIRC, there was some discussion on OOoAuthors about this a few weeks
ago. I admit I didn't pay much attention to the details. Gary has made
some changes (reducing font size and removing the indentation for
OOoTextBody; perhaps other changes), but we may be able to do more
to save space without sacrificing readability. I have not looked at
Gary's latest version of the template to see just what he has done.
I've been concentrating on content, not layout -- but as you pointed
out, if I'm concerned about the number of pages, I do need to consider
layout and spacing... and the pictures.
The pictures are definitely a problem; we don't want them too small to
read, but some are very large and some need to be cropped to show only
the part we're talking about (though I think most of the pictures in
the book are pretty good now). We may need to be more selective about
what pictures to include. I've also started putting some of the
smaller pictures beside the text instead of between paragraphs; that
should help save pages too.
--Jean
Recently, in addition to the above, I instituted other text controls,
such as not requiring entire paragraphs to occupy the same page (with
2/2 widow/orphan control). Little to none of those white-space reducing
functions should be experienced yet in our guides because they have not
been applied to the older material and won't be until the guide chapters
are substantively technically edited for newer OOo compliance.
There are other page-layout functions not installed in the evolving
OOoAuthors template, such as allowing hyphenation, using justified
alignment, among others that I know Jean does not personally like (and
would resist). However, my freelance clients usually either already
employ or want justified text (eliminating the ragged right edge) or do
not care one way or the other about them. But yes, the former page
layout and text controls forced a much lower word count per page.
Gary
--
Gary Schnabl
2775 Honorah
Detroit MI 48209
(734) 245-3324
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