Book Design Software

[Martin Miller]

What software do you use for book layout and design? I suppose one could use Word or WordPerfect, but there probably are more specific solutions out there. Thoughts or experience?

[Ralph Barker]

Many magazines use Quark. I'm not sure if book publishers do as well. Once one has mastered style sheets in Quark, and have received the official black robe and wand, it should be sufficiently robust for books, too. ;)

[QT Luong]

My understanding is Quark has somehow been displaced by Adobe Indesign recently. Of course, people with many years of training on Quark may stick with it, but many new users and reviewers seem to prefer Indesign. Besides, it's fairly well integrated with PS, and can be had at a reasonnable price with the Creative Suite update from PS.

[Joe Lipka]

Adobe InDesign and Adobe Acrobat are what I use to create my online portfolios. I know that those are also some of the programs used to produce LensWork magazine.

You can use others, but these two are thought of as the "industry standard." for putting books and magazines together.

[David Karp]

I have heard that InDesign is taking over. Is PageMaker still around? I know for a while they were selling it at much reduced prices from its heyday as a consumer dtp program.

I have it and have used it to make brochures and small catalog type documents. It is really easy to use, especially if you are old enough to understand the pasteup board metaphor.

You could also try to use (gag) MS Publisher. It is just not that good compared to other dtp programs I have seen and used (Quark, early InDesign, PageMaker, PagePlus).

[Frank Petronio]

Adobe InDesign first, Quark second

[Joseph O'Neil]

I have heard that InDesign is taking over. Is PageMaker still around? I know for a while they were selling it at much reduced prices from its heyday as a consumer dtp program. .

-snip-

I still use Pagemaker myself (been using it since Win 3.1 days ), but yes, it seems "InDesign" is the "in thing". I really hate it when some young kid laughs at you for still using Pagemaker. Or you get told "oh, we cannot import PageMaker files properly into our Quark/InDesign."

I was fed up once upon hearing this too many times and asked the dumb kid if I could figure how in the days of Dos I could figure out how to import MS Word documents into WordPerfect, why couldn't he import PageMaker into In Design.

He didn't understand what "DOS" was. *sigh*

Anyhow, PageMaker is less expensive than InDesign, and great for books & brochures - anything in hard copy, printed matter. InDesign is more of a comprehensive package that looks more like a blending of various programs - kinda like merging Coreldrw, photoshop (to a degree) and Pagemaker all in one. Pagemaker handles graphics just fine, and I think it is easier to use once you get onto it. Depends on what you need. InDesing is probally better for web sites as well as printed matter if you are doing both.

There used to be an add-on for PageMaker called "PageMill" that would allow you to make web pages, but I think the new InDesign, from what i have seen of it, incorporates that stuff altogether, and since web publishing seems to be taking over from printed matter publishing, that's the popularity of InDesign.

But you are right about price, PakeMaker Ver 7 is about half the price of InDesign, and does not come bundled together with PageMill and Photoshop LE, version 6.5 used to.

joe

[paulr]

Quark has been the standard for years and years, but my first choice for a book would absolutely be indesign. I'm less comfortable with it, since I have less experience. But it offers typographic control that goes way beyond what Quark can do. If you're going to have any passages of text, there's just no comparison. Indesign sets flowing type more nicely than any other software.

There are other advantages (and some disadvantages) but the type features are the big deal for me.

Pagemaker really can't be considered a professional level publishing tool anymore.

[Daniel Geiger]

I used Quark 3 and 4, but am now on InDesign CS1/2. The main issue for me is price. Quark does not have an educational pricing, but Adobe suite does offer it ($800 vs 200, or so). I think the automatic text flow with Quark was better than the manual linking that is required for every textbox in InDesign. The anchor function in InDesign CS2 is very nice, so you can add text, and the graphics flow with it.

I would think that InDesign will work better with other Adobe files. In the past, for instance, you could not place layered PS files in Quark (now you can), and things like paths can relatively easily be converted to bezier lines etc.

I've done books (i.e, multidocument collection of files with continuous page numbering, indexing etc.) in both programs, and they work quite similarly. Indexing used to be a b&^%# in Quark 4, but that has apparently improved. I just got into indexing in InDesign, and it works quite nicely and is much more straight forward.

InDesign categorically separates text-styles from paragraph styles, so you can not associate a default text-style with a paragraph style as in Quark.

I think the biggest problem is switching from Quark to InDesign, because some of the language/terms is just a tad different, but sufficiently different that you can not find it in the help menus. That should not be a problem if you start in just one program. I STRONGLY recommend that you read the manual, and possibly one of the third party books. Quark/InDesign are quite different from putting a picture into a Word document, or doing webpages.

I hope you have a really big monitor or two decent sized ones. There are even more palettes than in PS. I use the apple 30 inch LCD and that works fine for page spreads. I may still want to get a second monitor just for the palettes.

[Michael Graves]

My computer books are all laid out in Quark, but my fiction has all been done in Adobe InDesign. But as Daniel put it so succinctly; if you're just getting started, pick one, learn it and stick with it if you're doing your own layout. Chances are extremely good that when push comes to shove, should you find a publisher, the best you can hope for in that respect is to have "creative input". Which generally means you get to whine about the cover and they ignore you.

[Henry Ambrose]

Unless you simply must do the design yourself I suggest that you mock up your book in whatever program you are familiar with (or even by hand) and then pass it off to someone with book design and production experience. There's lots and lots to learn about laying out and typesetting your book that you really don't need to know. (unless you really, really want to learn this)

If you give the designer your electronic text and good directions about where things go and what they should look like you can probably have it done for less than you can buy the sophisticated dedicated software. And then there is a lot to learn. (I wrote that once already but trust me its worth hearing twice at least)

And it wouldn't hurt a bit to discuss the project thoroughly from start to finish with your designer or an experienced publisher - even so far as who is going to print it, what paper, what binding and on what kind of press and finishing equipment.

As others have written, Quark was the standard with InDesign taking over these days it seems. If you find an old copy of Quark (v3 or 4 or so from someone who has dumped Quark) you can run this and do your book without spending loads. Older versions works just as well as the latest for all but the very most specialized tasks. A lot of the "whiz bang" features of the new versions and packages really aren't important to getting your book done. For now the older version files are not an issue as there are plenty of "legacy" users out there. This could change, but slowly I suspect.

[Frank Petronio]

Henry is right, if you are at the point that you would even consider using a Word Processor to layout a book then you really aren't thinking like a book designer and the results will show. Even for an academic "self-published or perish" title that nobody will ever buy, you still should apply the same level of craft to the design, production, and typography as your imagemaking...Right?

It's like asking a great photographer which camera they use and then expecting to buy the same camera and get similar results.

I've designed/produced several coffee-table type books and other kinds of books. The choice between InDesign or Quark is whichever one your friends will help you learn. They both are capable and complex programs. But learning a program is only one of the things you need to learn.

Probably the best tool is a sketchbook and a long table or floor so you can lay out work prints to sequence the images and pages. And a fast laser printer. And a big monitor so you can see what you're doing. And a library of other, well designed books so you can steal the best ideas.

And please get this book regardless:

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works, Second Edition (Paperback)
by Erik Spiekermann, E.M Ginger

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201703394/103-0454650-2705460?v=glance&n=283155

OK, over and out and good luck!

[Bill McMannis]

I previously ran a small business that produced an annual catalog of just over 100 pages. We did our layout in MS Publisher. Granted there are better programs out there, but Publisher 97 was what we had at the time (it came bundled with an HP PC) and really did an acceptable job. We would have upwards of 400 book covers (scans) or photographs and lots of written descriptions. We could toggle in and out of Word for text editing. The printshop we contracted with would take the file and did a wonderful job.

We are now in a completely differnet business, but we continue to use Publisher XP/03, but not for jobs of that size. Typically we now produce say a 20 page booklet that we print ourselves and then bind with a comb binding machine. Publisher still does an okay job and no learning curve. We may move to InDesign later this year. Our biggest reason to making a change will be to better control color reproduction. If there is a way to manage color profiles in Publisher, we have as yet to find where or how to do it.

[paulr]

Henry is absolutely right ... software quibbling aside, the best option is to work with a talented book designer. Or work toward becoming one. It's a wonderful craft, with traditions as deep as photography and painting. Similar learning curve, too ;)

[Martin Miller]

Thanks to all for their input. Sounds like InDesign is as close to a unanimous choice as is likely to be had in this forum since I am starting with a blank slate. (Nice portfolio, Paul. This was another application I had in mind for the dtp software.)

[Frank Petronio]

Martin, nice work on your website, I liked the tanks very much