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| Summer
2004 Vol.5,No.2 |
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| The ABCs of PDFs BY JAMES LINK
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Adobe's Portable Document Format ( PDF) is one of the most widely used file formats in the publishing industry, yet it's also one that is most likely to be misunderstood—or not understood completely. That's because there are so many types and purposes for which this format is used. Composition vendors and printing houses are enjoying friendlier relations since the maturing of this format because PDF offers a stable, robust environment totransfer files. If you're not familiar with the variations of PDFs, here are some ABCs. IMAGE PDF FORMATS The PDF format that you see most often is called, strangely enough, PDF Normal. PDF documents that are made by desktop publishing applications such as Quark-XPress, InDesign, and LATEX are in this format. You may not be aware that there are other PDF formats. What if you need to produce a new edition to a book that no longer has electronic files? One answer is optical character recognition (OCR) scanning. You may be familiar with using a scanner to produce electronic files from photographs. The OCR process starts out in the same way: A text page is scanned—this can be done using an ordinary scanner, although ICC Macmillan uses a specially designed high-speed scanner—and saved as an image file (TIFF or PDF). If you merely want to reproduce the book precisely as it was, you need go no further; but, if you want to revise a previous edition or provide documents to end users, you need to take additional steps. Image file formats are just bit maps (like photographs)—they are images. If you're producing a new edition, you need to capture theinformation as text. If your book is reference material, you need it to be searchable by keywords. How do you convert an image file into something that can be searched? This is accomplished through the " magic " of OCR. The image is analyzed for words and converted to text. But what if the design of the book is important to you? You don't want to lose the layout and be left with just text. The answer is to create a searchable image PDF. The OCR process can be applied and the text is hidden behind the page image. This way your layout remains intact, but your users are still able to search the documents. CERTIFIED PDF Your old high school buddy, crazy Eddie, may be certifiable, but Certified PDF is a bird of a different feather. Is it really a PDF? Certified PDF is the term used by Enfocus Software for its processes that implement the industry standards PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-3. The purpose of PDF/X is to provide for reliable interchange of data. This is not an extra feature of Acrobat PDF format, but rather a restriction, allowing only those features that are fully supported in the process of converting electronic files to the printed page. ICC Macmillan is working with clients who have agreements with their printers to provide Certified PDF files, preventing bottlenecks due to problem files. This streamlines the workflow for everyone involved. PDF REFERENCE DOCUMENTS If you want your PDF document to stand alone - that is, exist only in electronic format - you will probably want to make it easily navigable by your end users. This can be done in several ways, most notably by creating bookmarks and links. BOOKMARKS Like the piece of paper you slip into your library book, bookmarks are shortcuts to finding your place. Unlike the piece of paper, a bookmark in a PDF file is a permanent marker that you can't lose. In Acrobat the bookmark appears in a frame or panel on the left side of your document. It acts like a type of table of contents; just click an entry to " jump " to that location. One marvelous feature of bookmarks is that they can mark locations in any number of a set of documents. For example, if you have a fifteen- chapter book, your bookmarks can have an entry for each chapter; each chapter can have subentries for each section (or figure or table—your choice). LINKS Links within an Acrobat PDF file are much like links on Web pages. Like bookmarks, they allow you to jump to another location within the same or to another document. They can also perform actions outside of Acrobat by opening Web pages or even launching programs. For example, you can create a link to a table that can open an Excel spreadsheet (as long as you have that application on your computer). |
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| ¿Habla Español ICC Macmillan? ¡Si! Et Français? Oui! Und Deutscher? Ja! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BY KERRY BEEAKER | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ICC Macmillan has long been known as a technical
compositor that excels at setting chemical equations, computer code, mathematical
theory, and so on. But are you aware that ICC Macmillan is also adept
at handling foreign language texts, from manuscript to final files? You say you have a German grammar text that needs to be copyedited? A book written in French that will need proofreading? A "learn to speak Japanese " guide, complete with phonetic pronunciations, kanji characters, and culturally specific illustrations? ICC Macmillan can take on these assignments for you. In fact, we have recently worked on books authored in German, French, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian. We are also capable of handling Italian, Hindi, Portuguese, and more. The first step in a full- service foreign language project is the copyedit. We have a pool of editors fluent in various languages. However, before our editorial project manager approves them for assignments with ICC Macmillan, our freelance vendors must pass our recently updated online editing test. New freelance vendors hired by ICC Macmillan must also provide examples of foreign language titles they have handled, as well as references from publishing professionals. The next step in the process is composition. ICC Macmillan has evaluated and purchased the software and fonts necessary to compose foreign language texts. For example, ICC Macmillan uses Quark's specialized version for typesetting Japanese and Russian. We train our compositors in the nuances of typesetting in a language that is most likely not their own. Let's not forget about the art. Our staff of more than thirty trained artists can render culturally appropriate illustrations, set provided photos, and revise previous line drawings. Next, the text must be proofread. Our proofreading and quality control departments are skilled at comparing the manuscript to the typeset page. They are trained to view each page and spread as a whole, checking for composition and accuracy. Last, as always, ICC Macmillan will provide you with a complete archive (files, fonts, art, specifications, and other documentation) so that the integrity of your book is preserved. Then, when your foreign language text comes up for revision, there should be no hesitation when reassigning it to ICC Macmillan. |
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ICC Macmillan—Your Full-Service Art Studio
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| BY ROSE RUMMEL-EURY WITH KAILASH SHARMA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Scenario One: Your author receives the first round of pages of her engineering textbook. ICC Macmillan set the text, but a separate studio created the art. The first thing the author notices is that the minus signs in the graphs were set as hyphens and that the font for the Greek nu looks slightly different from the nu in the text! As the production editor, you must ask which style of Greek letter was used in the text, send the art files back to the art studio to be fixed, send the corrected art back to ICC Macmillan to set… and you've lost valuable time on your schedule. Two weeks later, you receive the new art and notice that the art studio never informed you about the outstanding author queries on the manuscript. Another week gone! Scenario Two: Your author or copyeditor makes some edits to the art manuscript and some edits to the art traveling with the text manuscript. Generally, the art studio works only with the art manuscript and never receives the text manuscript. The art arrives at ICC Macmillan where the missing edits are discovered. Once again, the schedule is set back. Scenario Three: Your author receives the first round of pages of her engineering textbook. ICC Macmillan set the text, rendered the art, and thoroughly proofread all of it. The art matches the text. Everything is consistent. We proceed to the next round… on schedule. Interactive Composition Corporation is proficient in creating any type of art for print media and then reproducing these for advanced media. Everything can be completed—from typesetting to animation—under one roof, which is both cost and time effective. The list below will provide you with an idea of ICC Macmillan's broad scope of expertise. PRINT MEDIA
ADVANCED MEDIA
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| A GIT's Guide to Publishing Speak |
| BY GINA GORDON |
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Ever feel like your co-workers are speaking a foreign language? Perplexed when your vendor asks you how many SPUs should be included in the PDF of the DES? Baffled when your proofreader tells you she QC'ed the PPT, but the PU art is missing, text still needs to be OCR'ed, there is a missing ZIP file of the CAS, and—horror of horrors—there is one piece of TE art that is RGB? Go ahead—be a GIT (geek-in-training). Refer to ICC Macmillan's guide to publishing speak. |
| ACRONYMS/ABBREVIATIONS | QC | quality check | |
| AA | author's alteration | RGB | red, green, blue |
| AIE | annotated instructor's edition | RPU | revised pickup art |
| Anno | annotation | SE | student's edition |
| ASCII | American Standard Code for Information Interchange | SGML | Standard Generalized Markup Language |
| CAS | color accurate sample | SPU | straight pickup art |
| CMYK | cyan, magenta, yellow, black | SVG | Scalable Vector Graphics TE teacher's edition |
| CO | chapter opener | TEX | typesetting program for math, pronounced " tech" |
| Comp | composition/compositor | T/K | to come |
| CRC | camera-ready copy | TUG | TEX Users Group |
| CSS | cascading style sheets | URL | Uniform Resource Locator |
| CTP | computer to plate | VPN | virtual private network |
| DES | design element sample | W3C | World Wide Web Consortium |
| DNS | Domain Name Service | WYSIWYG | what you see is what you get |
| DRM | Digital Rights Management | XHTML | Extensible Hypertext Markup Language |
| DTD | document type definition | XML | Extensible Markup Language |
| EA | editor's alteration | XSL | XML style language |
| EM | endmatter | XSLT | XSL transformations |
| FM | frontmatter | ||
| FPO | for position only | FILE EXTENSIONS | |
| FTP | files to printer | ||
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol | .cls | class file (LATEX) |
| HT | halftone | .doc | Word file |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language | .dvi | preview in device-independent file format (LATEX) |
| HTTP | Hypertext Transfer Protocol | .eps | Encapsulated PostScript file |
| IE | instructor's edition | .gif | images in Graphics Interchange Format |
| JPEG | Joint Photographic Experts Group | .jpg | images in JPEG format |
| MS | manuscript | Portable Document Format file | |
| MSP | manuscript page | .png | images in Portable Network Graphics format |
| OASIS | Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards | .ppt | PowerPoint file |
| OCR | optical character recognition | .ps | PostScript printer file |
| OEB | Open eBook | .rtf | document in Rich Text Format |
| PA | publisher's alteration | .sit | archived file (Mac) |
| PE | printer's (or compositor's) error | .sty | a style file (LATEX) |
| PO | part opener | .tif | images in the Tagged Image File format |
| PU | pickup art | .zip | archived file (PC) |
| QA | quality assurance | ||
 Erika Kauppi, Editorial Project Manager |
INTERACTIONS… with ICC Macmillan
Staff Meet… Erika Kauppi, Editorial Project Manager Erika Kauppi joined ICC Macmillan in 1999 as a proofreader and copyeditor. She was thrilled to be able to edit and proofread such a wide variety of texts and claimed to be " literally giddy" when going to work in the morning. Over the last four years Erika has proofed books at every stage of production, from samples to reprints. She is adept at online and hardcopy editing, and loves the challenge of finding a simple solution to make an awkward passage clear. In June, Erika became our editorial project manager and now coordinates the editorial aspects of full-service and other projects—including assigning copyeditors, proofreaders, indexers, and others whose skill sets, experience, and expertise complement the demands of each project. Because she works closely with freelancers and ICC Macmillan's project management and production teams, Erika helps ensure that each project runs smoothly throughout the production cycle. In 1997 Erika graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in anthropology, a minor in Spanish, and a whopping student loan repayment plan. (She admits to switching majors from theatre arts to English to anthropology before concluding " it's all about human nature anyway, right?") Erika enjoys traveling to far-away places, writing, and finding out quirky things about words—for example: Did you know the word cleave has two synonyms that are antonyms of each other? |