Typesetting Basics

Typesetting using the Well-Formed Document Workflow requires that certain standards should be maintained, facilitating the best use of the features available in the Scribe Tools for InDesign and the ability to export content in order to produce e-books or round-tripped Word documents.

References/Prerequisites

Preparation and File Importing

Typesetting should always begin with a scribed file that has been converted to IDTT in the Digital Hub. Do not import .docx files, as this can introduce overrides and bypasses the benefits of InDesign Tagged Text.

Text Flow

All frames (text boxes) in the main text flow should be linked. This excludes sidebars, tables, figure captions, and other floating elements. The scripts used to export content at the end of the process rely on a single text flow (what InDesign refers to as a story) in order to anchor images and other disconnected elements. It is preferable (but not necessary) that the project be typeset in one large file to help later conversions be more efficient.

Breaking Pages

There are a number of valid ways to break the pages in a typeset. The most common are building breaks into a style’s keep options, adjusting the text frames to force text onto the next page, and adding page break characters. When using a page break character, place it at the end of the previous paragraph and not on its own line. If a blank page is used, simply delete the text frame on that page and apply the [none] parent page. Do not include a text frame that only contains a page break character.

Style Use

All styles used must be compliant with ScML. If it is necessary to adjust styles for the print book, an “alt” style can be used.

An alt style is created by appending “-alt” to the end of any ScML paragraph style (e.g., “pf-alt”). You can create as many alt styles as are necessary as long as they follow this pattern.

Character styles can also be adjusted to better fit with the display of certain paragraphs by adding “-[character style]” to the end of a paragraph style name. For instance, if the sb paragraphs use a different base font than the main text, you can use sb-i to support italic in sb paragraphs. These will revert to the base character style when the project is converted to XML.

A list of all ScML styles can be found here. For more information about alt styles, see Scribe’s Typesetting Conventions.

Undefined Styles

All undefined styles should be given a definition regardless of whether they change the text’s rendering (things like ennum or tocnum may not change the look of the text, but they should still be defined). This confirms that you have checked every paragraph and character style and that nothing will display improperly just because a style has no definition.

Undefined styles are displayed with a gray icon to the right of the style name in the style panel. To ensure that everything is defined, delete all unused styles and then scroll through each menu to check for icons.

Local Formatting

In the Well-Formed Document Workflow, all rendering (how things look) is handled through the style sheets. This includes font definition, font size, alignment, and spacing. Any local formatting added without a style will not be able to be mapped for XML export. This might result in unformatted or lost text in the e-book.

The exception to this is adjusting the tracking/kerning on a case-by-case basis. As a rule, paragraph style settings should include the proper tracking settings, but you can apply local overrides to help improve the typography/layout as needed.

Vertical Spacing

Vertical spacing is always handled through the paragraph styles, never through the use of hard returns. By defining the space above and below through styles, important information about each paragraph is retained, and appropriate definitions can be set for those paragraphs in other programs.

Hard Returns and Soft Returns

Hard returns should be used for any paragraph break that needs to be retained for the e-book.

If a soft return is used, it should be for a cosmetic break that is only done to address typographic issues in the print edition, such as stacks or loose lines. If it is a necessary line break, then it should use a hard return, as soft returns are removed in the extraction process.

Apply soft returns after the space between words rather than replacing the space entirely. If that space is not included, the words will get run together when the soft return is removed from the exported XML.

Typeset Only Character Style

The tso (typeset only) character style can be used for any hair spaces, thin spaces, etc. that may be inserted to control special spacing needs. Anything in the tso character style will get deleted when exporting out to an XML file.

The tocnum character style works in a similar fashion and ensures that page numbers are removed from the file during the extraction process, as they are no longer relevant in a digital environment.

Do not apply these styles to any content that should be retained outside of the typeset.

Non-mapping Typeset Character Style

The tsnomap character style can be used in places in which a specific character style is needed for the print book, even though that style is not needed in the XML file. A common usage is to apply tsnomap to the first two em dashes in a bibliography entry in order to kern three em dashes into a solid line.

When exporting to XML, the tsnomap character style is removed while the text itself is retained.

Image Management

All images should be cropped properly before being placed in InDesign. Because InDesign is only concerned with how the images will appear in the final PDF, masking images in InDesign will only affect the PDF output. The image files themselves will remain uncropped and need to be cropped manually for the e-book.

Handling this before typesetting ensures that the work is not being done twice and prevents mismatches between different versions of the book.

If any text needs to be added to an image, this should also be done in an outside program instead of being placed over the image in InDesign.

Place images using Scribe Tools for InDesign. When coordinated with a properly scribed manuscript, this enables the inclusion of alt text.