Book design questions and help

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by khalleron

No applied shadows, that's just how the font is.

Looking at your PDF, I think those fancy caps are ElzevierCaps. In which case, no - they don't have any shadow by default. Double-check the character attributes. I think you have some kind of shadow turned on, and I think it would be better turned off.

(Also, the caps on the title page don't have the shadow.)

Originally Posted by khalleron

I'm learning as I go along.

Best way. What one learns when doing a project is likely to stick round.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Looking at your PDF, I think those fancy caps are ElzevierCaps. In which case, no - they don't have any shadow by default. Double-check the character attributes. I think you have some kind of shadow turned on, and I think it would be better turned off.

(Also, the caps on the title page don't have the shadow.)

Yes, they are Elzevier Caps. I'll check for shadows when I get home.

Thanks!

[khalleron]

New version:

Drop caps, with shadows turned off

Page number font changed to match text (I thought I had already done this, but I was mistaken)

Orphan/Widows turned off

en-dashes instead of hyphens

Thanks for all the help

[pdurrant]

I think it looks much better now - well done! The dropcaps look good over three lines.

If I was to quibble any more, it would be about the positioning of the front matter.

In the actual chapters you have a nice left/right margin set-up, to give a good space towards the spine so that the text is easy to read even with perfect binding (i.e. paperback binding)

But the Titlepage, copyright and dedication all seem to have symmetric margins. I think it would be better if their margins matched those in the rest of the document.

Oh - and on the title page. Perhaps make Portrait and Past bigger, and make Kate Halleron a bit smaller? But I'm really getting into matters of taste now.

Hmm... I suppose there's one other thing that was often done in older (& many recent) publications, and that was to set the first words (even up to the entire first line) in SMALLCAPS, e.g.:

TRUE TO MARGUERITE’S BELIEF, she did not go back.

But again, this is purely a matter of taste.

Originally Posted by khalleron

New version:

Drop caps, with shadows turned off

Page number font changed to match text (I thought I had already done this, but I was mistaken)

Orphan/Widows turned off

en-dashes instead of hyphens

Thanks for all the help

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think it looks much better now - well done! The dropcaps look good over three lines.

If I was to quibble any more, it would be about the positioning of the front matter.

In the actual chapters you have a nice left/right margin set-up, to give a good space towards the spine so that the text is easy to read even with perfect binding (i.e. paperback binding)

But the Titlepage, copyright and dedication all seem to have symmetric margins. I think it would be better if their margins matched those in the rest of the document.

Oh - and on the title page. Perhaps make Portrait and Past bigger, and make Kate Halleron a bit smaller? But I'm really getting into matters of taste now.

Hmm... I suppose there's one other thing that was often done in older (& many recent) publications, and that was to set the first words (even up to the entire first line) in SMALLCAPS, e.g.:

TRUE TO MARGUERITE’S BELIEF, she did not go back.

But again, this is purely a matter of taste.

Oooh, the small caps looks nice - I'll have to try that.

OO Help, here I come again.

You have good ideas, thank you!

Have some Karma!

[lene1949]

It looks great, Kate...

A few pages still have the page number in the center... - page 1 and 9 I saw..

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by lene1949

It looks great, Kate...

A few pages still have the page number in the center... - page 1 and 9 I saw..

Yes, pdurrant suggested that I center the page numbers on the first page of each chapter in order to align with the centered chapter headings, so that is intentional.

The small caps in this font look pretty wimpy, especially next to the large drop cap, but in bold they look good, so that's what I'm going with.

Thanks, pdurrant!

[lene1949]

OK... that's probably the autism in me...

[khalleron]

Moejoe, would it be possible to get copies of the covers without the type? I figured out how to blow them up to 300 dpi, and the picture looks great, but the fonts are somewhat pixelated. If you tell me what fonts you used, I can recreate the cover without having to bother you anymore about it.

Thanks for all your help, you are awesome!