January 2nd, 2007
PDFs: A quick poll
I need your advice. As you may know, I’m writing and self-publishing a little book on designing for the web. It will be published in two ways: initially, a pdf for download and shortly after, a printed version which you can buy from Lulu. These two media require different design considerations.
Firstly, pdfs are read on screen and can be printed out on individual sheets of paper and probably on a black and white printer. Secondly, the printed book (from Lulu) is bound and needs the margins adjusted accordingly. So, my question is this. Do you think it’s necessary for me to typeset two versions? One, a pdf with minimal flat colour (so as to not waste toner) and even margins. And two, a version which has facing pages etc for the printed book?
Mark, great question!
Obviously, if it isn’t too difficult to typeset twice that’s the best. I assume it’s a bother, though, or you wouldn’t ask your question.
At a minimum, the PDF should have normalized margins and no gutter. Ought that be simple enough to change in Quark/InDesign without requiring a change to the content size?
I’d certainly prefer to have the color version in PDF. I might print it in B&W but more likely I’d print individual pages in color for future reference. And some people will just send the whole thing to their color laser.
As for on-screen reading… I prefer to view in page-layout mode and scroll. I hate, for instance, Microsoft Word’s “Reading Layout” feature. If I only had text to read with an occassional thumbnail image it might be okay. But for anything that is truly typeset… well, it’s an abomination in my opinion. You might as well not have bothered. But I digress.
In short, reset the margins in the PDF and call it a day.
cheers,
doug.
If increases the time to market or the cost, then I’d vote “no” for the 2 versions, since even big co.s like Apple have managed to royaly mess up margins and such for docs like their Final Cut Pro app. Of course if you’re using an application like InDesign to produce the book, then you could make use of the “resize layout” feature which would let you alter the layout very easily (usually that is).
Depending on the amount of content in the book, and the actual layout, I usualy do not print out books like this. I prefer to read them onscreen as I need. I may occasionally print a single page or section. Hmm sounds like time for a mini poll :-) Best of luck.
Thanks Doug, great answer. However, it is a little more indepth than simply changing the margins.
In the design I’ve done to date, the book uses contrast (eg, black on white and white on black) to break up the content of the book on chapter opening spreads for example. The cover is also black. When 37signals released ‘Getting Real’, they also did this but there was enough reader feedback for them to change the design and reverse those pages to black text on white to save on printer toner.
Hi Mark!
Thanks for asking! I would prefect a fully-featured PDF. If I had to choose, I’d rather pick a Lulu-formatted PDF with nice colored illustrations than less colorful PDF with even margins.
The best I think is to have a colored version with even margins for download, and then it should be easy enough to reformat it for Lulu to respect their margin format.
Thanks again, and good luck! Look forward to reading your book!
It depends. If your page format is close to A5, then you might just produce that pdf as spreads…
Priit: Yeah, I thought about that. However, the best format for Lulu would be the standard ‘Royal’ size, which is 15.6cm x 23.4cm.
Ahhh…
So here’s the question, is there a difference in the audience between your book and 37signals’? I should think there might be, and that difference is why I’d say you should stick with the high-contrast design even in the PDF. If people are foolish enough to think it is cheaper to print out a PDF than to buy a book they get what they deserve.
Sorry, that sounds kind of harsh. My point is simply that designers ought to realize what it is going to take to print a full color page (in black with white text or with a full-color image). That’s why I’d only print individual pages rather than the whole thing, if I printed any at all. I think it confuses the value of PDFs to think of them as a “print it yourself and save money” proposition. PDFs let you save the file, search it later, zoom in, save paper and ink for environmentally-conscious folks, etc.
Let me ask you, if you have a design you’ve made for a client and it relied on solid background colors, would you send the client a PDF of it for review? Of course. Would they complain about it being a little hard on their toner supply when they print it? Maybe. Would that be a reason to change the design? Hardly.
People are buying a PDF of a book. You’re not making a book from a PDF. In my mind, that’s an important difference.
Having said all this, though, if your reversed black-white pages are only the cover and five chapter heads, why not reset those few pages for PDF and avoid any potential controversy, if that’s what you’re inclined to do. I just don’t think you need to do that for this project.
Thijs van der Vossen: Me too. That’s why I always print out a PDF which is what prompted the initial question. However, I know I’m not like everyone and some people would prefer to read them on screen, or like you, would prefer the content in HTML. So, I am considering offering it on-screen at some point in the future.
It’s funny reading through all of these replies, eh? Everyone’s different and prefers different formats; HTML, PDF on screen, Printed PDF. I reckon your best bet, and to make the most cash without losing any sleep, would be to type-set two versions. Go the extra mile, Mark, and do two versions. The extra day’s work will be worth it at the end of the day. Just an opinion like everyone else’s, but if it were me, I’d do two versions exactly how I intended them to look.
By the way, someone bought me a book for Christmas that was printed by Lulu and on a lot of the pages, the text doesn’t align pefectly with the edge of the pages. Only very slightly out, but when you’re being paid as a Graphic Designer, it’s the attention to detail that makes you stand out from the rest.
Cheers and good luck.
Looking froward to Flow, also ;-)
15.6cm x 23.4cm. ? So it IS close to A5 — spread would be 31.2 x 23.4 and A4 is 29.7 x 21 — I think every pdf program can scale to fit that without much trouble, or are you such a perfectionist, that this is not allowed?
Priit: Yeah, that would be ok I suppose. I’m not precious once it’s in the users hands — they can do what they like with it. I do want to make it easy for people though.
Kurt: This is what I’m currently thinking. It wouldn’t be too much extra work to reset the margins, remove the facing pages and reverse the toner-heavy pages.
Kurt raises a very good point. The print quality you get from Lulu is not that great…
I haven’t seen the print quality from Lulu to be honest. Is there a better alternative which distributes as widely as Lulu though?
I would say that if the PDF is going to represent a significant portion of sales (anything from 15% upwards), then design two versions.
Some thoughts on the PDF version:
* Definitely dark on white, not white on black. Not only will it save on toner, but loads of printers don’t print solid black very evenly.
* If it’s a significant number of pages, people might want to staple it (either manually, or automatically via office printer). You might want to think about giving some extra margin on the left to allow for this.
* A4 portrait full width text, or A4 lanscape two columns of A5?
* Leave in colour, but with enough contrast between colours so that it looks okay in B&W.
The printing from Lulu tends to be a little light sometimes, don’t expect deep black or really vibrant colors. Also, I’ve seen the misalignment Kurt talks about in at least 2 out of 5 books I’ve ordered.
It would be nice if the pdf had a minimal flat colour so as to use a little less ink, but either way I am still going to print it out because I hate reading pdfs on screen.
I say just typeset one version — printing the pdf will still be cheaper than purchasing a printed book.
I always print pdfs and only browse them briefly on screen to verify the contents before I hit the toner hard. So, optimisation for printing would be fantastic.
I have also seen the alignment thing with Lulu. However, I have also found that the issue is attributed to the fact that most of the people on there are using Microsoft Word and then having it converted to PDF by Lulu. Since you’re doing it in an actual layout program, you should have no problem.
As for the two versions of the book, it makes no difference to me. When I buy the PDF, I just read it on screen. If I want in print, I’ll just buy the book (I’m kind of lazy like that).
I found this article really interesting when I read it, and I think it relates to your situation. Could be an interesting solution.
http://alistapart.com/articles/boom
I would encourage the use of InDesign to create two versions. I personally like the ability to create a searchable documentwith Acrobat Professional. We often have students who will save a large PDF file for future reference, but want to quickly find information and print just that page. As we move more towards digital repositories, the extra features of a PDF are appealing to librarians.
I don’t know if anyone mentioned this already but if you are going to increase the left margin for binding via Lulu might it not also be useful for users printing it out to have the same, increased left-margin, so that they can stick in a folder/binder?
Just a thought.
Without really reading any of the previous comments, my answer to your question is “Yes.” Emphatically.
I strongly disagree with Graham Sanders suggestion to drop the downloadable version.
1. A PDF download was promised; stick to your word
2. Sales of the print product will be a tiny subset of the downloadable product. Downloads are more ‘accessible’ to those of us who live in parts of the world that make posting kilograms of paper prohibitive.
3. You’ll make more money off a downloadable product (if 37signal’s experience is anything to go by)
I would suggest that you hold off on the print version for a few months, because:
1. Early readers are going to give you some great feedback that you’ll want to incorporate in to an updated publication. Better to get the errors fixed and the updates done before you commit them to the more permanent print medium.
2. If the downloadable version is successful, publishers may want to take up the print project with you: way better quality than Lulu.
That said, the downloadable and print versions need to be treated differently. The title of your book seems to assume that each medium requires it’s own design treatment … you’ll get the most out of each medium by designing to it’s strengths.
Maybe I’m in the fringe, but I tend to read my PDFs onscreen. This is a side effect of continually getting the largest monitor that my desk/budget will allow. An apple cinema 30 is even big enough to comfortably read a weekly trade rag side-by-side. My preference would be for a PDF file over print (easier to find, and doesn’t take shelf space), but I would want the PDF to be the same as the print book is going to be.
I’m based in Australia and by the time your book arrives in specialty design shops here it will be incredibly expensive. So I’m thrilled to read that you’ll be releasing it in PDF format.
Larger margins in a printed documentalways make me happy—they provide space for marginalia. It does look a bit weird when you flip a page and the wider margin changes sides, but I typically print large documents in 2-up format to save trees.
Have you considered building the PDF with Prince, so you can easilly supply PDF and XHTML versions from one layout? I am not particularly familiar with it, nor how much of PDF’s features it can take advantage of, but it could be worth considering if you decide to produce a HTML version too.
Prince is at princexml.com.
Hey, very interesting por
My view, don’t be bothered about wasting people’s toner. Obviously, fully deep background coloured pages might be a bad idea, but otherwise don’t be too hung up about it.
If people are willing to pay for the download and they want it on paper, they will likely be okay with shelling out about £1 of printer supplies for the print.
I know I will :D