Book Cover

[gwpriester]

I just finished a book project entirely in Designer Pro X9. The book is a fictionalized collection of stories of Chinese women who used a secret alphabet called Nu Shu (which is real) to communicate with their woman friends. They sewed the characters into garments and painted them onto objects such as fans. The Chinese men did not know it was an actual alphabet and could not read the characters.

The cover illustration is based on a 16th century portrait of a Chinese woman.

I formatted 175 pages using the 1-column format and styles and the process went a lot faster than I would have thought.

I had to add the page numbers manually however, because the automatic page numbering cannot be modified and on a spread starts with the odd number on the right which is backwards for book numbering. And page 1 does not occur until 11 pages into the book.

I am hoping this short coming will be addressed soon as Designer (or Page & Layout Designer) are perfect for this kind of work.

[Rik]

I love the cover artwork.

The one thing that has always caught my attention, is what the nose looks like, at the tip.
I have no idea what I would do to finish it differently?!
But, it always catches my attention.

The cover is clean, beautiful and simple.
Or should I say 'simply beautiful'?!

[edm3]

Nice cover! And I'm impressed that you did 175 pages - good test that isn't too transferable if it kacks out at p 171...

I trust your voice on this matter is pretty loud with the developers, so I'm glad to hear it speak of auto page numbering!

Thanks for sharing!

[gwpriester]

Thanks edm3 - Maybe you can add your support for page numbers here http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...e-page-numbers

[wizard509]

I like that very much Gary. Well done.

[mwenz]

...I had to add the page numbers manually however, because the automatic page numbering cannot be modified...And page 1 does not occur until 11 pages into the book.

I am hoping this short coming will be addressed soon as Designer (or Page & Layout Designer) are perfect for this kind of work.

Why not do the cover, the front matter and the body as separate XAR files? Seems that would solve the page numbering issue until such time as Xara decides to have some sort of sections where numbering can be restarted.

...and on a spread starts with the odd number on the right which is backwards for book numbering.

Odd page number should start on the right-hand page in a book. Or am I misunderstanding what you wrote? I know for traditional Chinese folios, it begins on the left page of a spread. But for all things Western, traditional page numbering begins on right-hand pages.

But...You do know you can make the following in XDP (and so in P&LD), right? Seems like at least then when one gets into the two-page spreads, left is even numbered, right is odd-numbered and it will look as in the print version.

[gwpriester]

Even on the left and odd pages on the right. If I communicated otherwise that was my mistake.

You cannot have a single page and then spreads. I tried this already, Mike. It has to be one or the other.

I got around this by making the first left page blank, then I output the book as PDF, opened the PDF in Acrobat and deleted the first page, then re-saved the PDF.

[mwenz]

My XAR file shows a single page, followed by spreads, followed by a last single page. The numbers are XAR auto page numbers.

[Crow Haven]

Just want to say I really like the book cover, Gary. The story within sounds fascinating also!

[gwpriester]

Thanks Maya.

Mike (SMACK UPSIDE THE HEAD) It helps if you turn off All pages in document are the same!