Volunteer wanted

[bugshaw]

There is a TAFF report coming out soon - not mine yet, but an actual North American one! Steve Stiles! Crikey!

Geri is doing the layout in InDesign, and I am looking for a volunteer with a bit of spare time to adapt it to A4 paper (from US letter) for UK printing. 36 pages, all mono, fair bit of artwork. Is anyone interested in doing such a thing for TAFF?

Comments

[akicif.livejournal.com]

When Intersection had something they needed printing on both sides of the Atlantic, I think they designed for an intermediate size of paper: using the narrower of the two widths and the shorter of the two heights.

The drawback was, of course, that each side of the Atlantic got slightly larger margins on either the top and bottom or the sides, depending. This may not be as good, though, for something that's meant to look nice as it would be for something that only has to carry info.

Alternatively, I think I've seen a postscript/pdf tool that resizes US Letter to A4 and back (same drawbacks probably apply)....

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

They are thoughts - another option would be to get it printed in the US and shipped across...

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

I'd be inclined to just print the Letter version on A4 using "scale to fit". It only comes out fractionally smaller (I do it all the time with Letter size PDF datasheets).

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I hope there are no ducks in the report, or I'd have to shrink them.

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't get it...

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Some years ago Famous Fan Artist D West drew some ducks for Famous Fan Editor Yvonne Rowse. They were a bit big for the space, so she shrank them to fit. West was Famously Annoyed, in an "If I had meant the ducks to be smaller, I would have drawn them smaller!" sort of way.

Rowse is now known as "duckshrinker", a word which has no hits on Google.

IOW, as Steve's report will contain much art, I would like to check before unilaterally reducing it.

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

Aha. More obscure fanspeak for me to document. How's this: http://fanspeak.org.uk/Duckshrinker

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Heh! I don't know that it's been applied to anyone other than Yvonne, or that anyone would dare risk it!

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Duck-shrinking mentioned in Plokta
http://www.plokta.com/plokta/issue23/bridget.htm

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

I will do such a thing for TAFF, if such a thing is needed.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'll check first to see if the very simple PDF-shrinkage option is acceptable.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'll send you the PDF -- it's already finished -- so you can try it. Or wait, I guess I should ask first if it's okay to e-mail you a file of this size. The PDF itself is between 6 and 7 megs, but Yahoo thinks the message containing it is about 9. Dunno what that's about.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Do try; I'll let you know what happens. My mailbox is curently empty and I'm not doing anything bandwidth-heavy this evening.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

PDF, ho!

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

Having said that I'm assuming we have Indesign somewhere in work. Hmmm.

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

I have the PDF through the magic of The Internet, and will see how that works.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

If needed I can convert the PDF into a publisher file and change the layout that way, if things need jigging about. I think. This would be so much easier if I was in a)work and b)full possession of my faculties.

I think I'll just go to bed (again).

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Actually, it prints fine from the PDF. So you can sleep without having to think about rejigging!