Acrobat questions

[ParagonofVirtue]

Hello,

I have some novels and game products which I am trying to convert into pdf's but there are some things I am not aware of how to do:

First of all, background images... If I want to make the pdf with two different "book-like" backgrounds, so when you print it, it can be assembled and look like a book, how do I do this?
I'm thinking along the lines of the Core Rulebooks, where the pages have borders that fit to the left side, then the right side etc.

Secondly, is there an easy way to control margins of fx. text in a pdf? If I want to have a wider margin, but only for some text, is this possible and how?

Thanks for your time.

[HellHound]

Just about anything is possible wiht a PDF, but the problem isn't with Acrobat, its with your layout software.

First of all, background images... If I want to make the pdf with two different "book-like" backgrounds, so when you print it, it can be assembled and look like a book, how do I do this?

Your layout software should handle this for you, just requiring that you create the master page set as a 2-page spread instead of a single master page.

This gets a LOT more difficult if you are not using actual layout software and are trying to do this using a wordprocessor.

Secondly, is there an easy way to control margins of fx. text in a pdf? If I want to have a wider margin, but only for some text, is this possible and how?

Again, margins are set during layout, not in Acrobat. Thus whatever margins you have set in your layout software will remain the same when you distill the file with Acrobat.

Personally, I use Quark XPress primarily for layout work, but also do some using Adobe InDesign. With Quark, I 'print' the file using Adobe Distiller, whereas with InDesign, it exports directly to PDF. Some other companies have released products created entirely in MSWord and other programs and then distilled using Adobe Distiller, but this is generally a LOT harder to make (a) stylish and (b) easy reading.

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Layouts aren't as complicated as some might have you think when using something like MS Word rather than publishing software like Quark Xpress or Adobe PageMaker or InDesign.

The secret with Word is to place your background through the header or footer using an anchored, formatted image. It is the only place in the document where Word won't fight your decision to place an image that will bleed off the edge of the pages. This also allows you to set a different header/footer for left and right pages, as well.

Publishing software allows the same thing, but utilize a pair of master pages for this instead, where you place all the repeating images, margins, backgrounds, headers, and footers.

Anyway, before diving into the world of publishing software, be aware that beyond the basic word processing capacities of that class of software, they can have a pretty steep learning curve, and by their very nature, they can be quite a hassle when it comes to content dynamic content management. Do your writing in a regular word processor, with your basic formatting/layout ideas integrated with that document, and when you're sure you won't be changing the content any further, then move onto the publishing software to do the extensive layout work. Publishing software is also expensive. You can get Office XP for less than half the price of Xpress, Pagemaker, or InDesign.

But one more thing you have to consider is this: How does it look printed? The Malhavic PDFs look gorgeous on screen, but they turn pretty damned lame once your printer scales the pages down to force a 1/2 inch margin around the edges because the manufacturer never designed the printer to handle margin bleeds.

[Cergorach]

*wards of the evil eye called office xp*
You'll need Acrobat (or other pdf maker) and Office XP to make pdfs with Office XP.
To make pdfs with Indesign you'll only need Indesign (native pdf support, which is pretty good btw). If your using something like Indesign (or god forbid Quark) use a simple text editor to write your stuff, wordpad should more than suffice.

If your really into publishing, get the Adobe Design Collection value pack, it includes Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator and Indesign for only $1200 (which is a bargain for these four great products).

[ParagonofVirtue]

Thanks for the replys everyone, I'm using Adobe Acrobat 6 for now, and don't have a lot of other tools other than Office and Paint Shop Pro.

There are some good ideas here, and lots of useful advise.. I'll update this thread again once I get around to the next batch of (more specifik) questions.

Thanks!

[ES2]

To those of knowledge: Are there any good websites that have tutorials for using these programs? Or something like hints and guidelines? A FAQ even?

Of all the programs mentioned above the only one I'm not interested in is Quark.

[Cergorach]

Originally Posted by ES2

To those of knowledge: Are there any good websites that have tutorials for using these programs? Or something like hints and guidelines? A FAQ even?

Of all the programs mentioned above the only one I'm not interested in is Quark.

For Adobe products take a look on the Adobe site, it has a couple of usefull tuts for each of its apps. I found it also very usefull to buy a book about Indesign, although i was already working with it for a couple of years, it showed me a couple of very usefull tricks (the book is dutch so it's not very usefull to post the title). Reading the supplied electronic manual/helpfile is also very usefull.

[Arnix]

We have been using Publisher to do our layout work. It comes with Office XP SBE (small business edition). Fairly affordable, especially if you look around pricewatch.com, and a decent program.

You will still need acrobat, but they seem to work well together.


Cameron (Arnix)
Alea Publishing Group
AleaPublishing.com
co-Author of "Question of Honor: A Guidebook to Knights"

[Arnix]

ack site lag double post.

[Arnix]

bad bad triple post....oh to wish for a way to delete these.