Formatting a book in Designer Pro X9 (or Page & Layout Designer 9)

[gwpriester]

I am starting a new topic since my Book Cover topic turned into a book publishing discussion.

One issue I had when art directing a book for a novel, was page numbers. If you work in reader spreads, the first left page is an odd number and all right pages are even numbers. This is backwards from how books are numbered.

Mike Wenz suggested un-checking All pages in the document are the same, then flowing in the text into spreads, but then making the first and last page single pages. This starts the numbering for the first page on the right and all subsequent pages are numbered correctly.

I output a test PDF file to CreateSpace and used their Interior Reviewer tool to see if indeed this method would work.

It did.

[mwenz]

Great result, Gary. Thanks for testing it.

[gwpriester]

Two things that would have made formatting and assembling this book easier.

1. The ability to start numbering (and stop numbering) on a specific page.
2. The ability to edit the position of the left facing pages and right facing pages separately.

I worked in Designer Pro X9 64-bit and even at 175 pages there was not a significant lag time. And the ability to apply and then edit styles and have them update globally is great.

With the ease and interest in self publishing books, I think that Xara is in a great possition to offer a viable alternative to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. But there are still some features that need to be added such as the page numbering and separate page text area edits.

I would like to hear from other members if you think this is an area that Xara should focus on.

[Gamerprinter]

Hand placed page numbers is certainly an added step, but it's what I do. I prefer the page number to be centered at the bottom of the page, rather than to either side as placed by Xara, then I don't have to worry about which side of the page the page number is located. At center, it's always correctly placed, no matter which order are the pages.

[zaphodeist]

Create a text box, right click and select page numbers, centre text, with select tool position where you want and make it a repeating object

[angelize]

I think this is an interesting discussion and yes this is an area where Xara should invest some time. A book format option that would automatically set up double page spreads with all pages the same unchecked, the numbering and editing abilties that Gary suggested and presets available for a few page sizes, column layouts etc would definitely be helpful. And I have mentioned this many times before Auto Hyphenation should be an included feature. If need be get rid of the strikethrough text, it's really not a needed feature.

I regularly produce print documents in XDP laid out in folios(arranged so that when pages are printed and folded they are in the correct order) for printing and after the file is sent for print I change the double page spreads to single pages and then because each double spread is numbered as one page I have to manually rearrange the pages in the page and layer gallery for either pdf or html online distribution. This works for me because I have a small number of pages but for a larger document this would not be feasible so I would suggest a way to some how do this automatically, perhaps a specific auto numbering system for spreads that could be set to either standard or folios and when the spreads are broken down into pages it follows the selected numbering. For example if standard is selected it works the way it currently does and the first spread is broken down into page one and page two, and if folios is selected the first spread would be broken down into the last page in the document and page one.

[jclements]

Using steps provided above and the shading style of CreateSpace Interior Viewer pages ....

[tonylondon]

I would like to hear from other members if you think this is an area that Xara should focus on.

Very much so. After graphics Xara have concentrated in the past on web design and photo manipulation and so they are late starters in DTP, but for me, after graphics it is the one area I am very much interested in. PLD shows great potential and I use its functions a lot, but as Mike and others have commented, there is along way to go before they can be considered an alternative to Indesign and Quark Express. I hope Xara will be willing to put that effort in.

[Albacore]

Sorry even though Gary's book was a success in its publishing I can't see people ignoring Serif's Page Plus. It is around the same money, it has master pages with page layers, import Word docs and will maintain layout, output PDF's to vers. X-3, can use all types of fonts, produce and style tables from csv files, mail and photo merge, end to end CMYK control, advance find & replace including style and colour. Up and down this programme is aimed totally for DPT not a vector + programme that can do short stories/books. On the negative points for Page Plus it has an awful user interface they have various designing tools which are poor which I never use bar the image cutout studio and when you compare the designing tools to Xara, Xara wins hands down. Here I am agreeing with Tony' in part if they want to be considered against P/Plus they have a lot of work to do and I don't think they will ever have full end to end CMYK colour control which is a must for print.

[gwpriester]

So, Pete, do you think it would it be a good idea for Xara to add some or all of these features that come with Serif Page Plus into Page & Layout Designer and Designer Pro X?