GeoPublish Tutorial Part 20 – First Impressions

As you likely learned long ago, first impressions are very important. In this installment we are going to create the front section of the Tutorial, including our Title Page, which has to look good, convey the topic and offer the reader a reason to look inside.

This means we must be getting close to the end of this project, right? Not so fast. By my figuring we have about 4 more sessions to go. This is installment number 20 so you must have a good idea where we are going to begin.

The Planning Stage

That's right. Before we start creating our Title Page with geoPublish (gP) we need to plan what we are going to do.

The Title Page steals a layout design I saw in a book. We'll have the gP Icon atop a shaded box on the right edge of the page. The Title, a short caption and author name will overlap this box.

The rest of the front section will contain a Short Title page, an Index Page, a few blank pages and our Introduction article. We are not going to use pages 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 or 10 in this gP file. If we printed on Page 2 the text would be visible through our Title page. We will leave a blank sheet behind the Title Page and the Short Title will go on Page 5.

Since one of our objectives is to use all the features of gP while creating this Tutorial we need to place some Special Text either Up or Down the page. I'm choosing to go with writing "GeoPublish Tutorial" Up the left side of the Index Page.

We are also going to add the gP and gP Document Icons here and the Article Index will be printed on the right side. Between the large text and the Index we will repeat the short caption describing the Tutorial.

The Intro article will go on Page 9 (we'll label this page `vii' - the Cover and inside page don't get numbered). We'll leave Page 10 blank so as not to distract from the start of our first article. You may wonder why we will leave the pages blank. If you are printing to a double-sided printer it is easier to send the document as a whole rather than having to break it up or disable the double-sided printing. There are also advantages when using PostPrint as you will see soon. But I'm getting ahead of things here with all of this printing talk.

A Picture is worth...

I said we were going to add a couple of Icons so now is the time to get them. There are a number of GEOS programs to grab Icons or portions of the screen (even a good BASIC one). For our project we'll use a simple program called IconGetdbl by Robert J.G. Norton (8/22/88 1:10 AM).

This program, which copies Icons to Photo Scraps, has a few nifty things going for it. It runs fine under GEOS and under Wheels. It uses the Icon of the program you copied as the icon for the Photo Scrap and it doubles the size of the Icon compared to the captures made by IconGet. One minor drawback is that you have to type in the name of the program whose Icon you wish to capture.

Anyhow, with IconGetdbl we will capture the Icon for TutorialPart1 as well as the Icon for gP. After you capture one Icon run Photo Manager and add the Icon to the Album you are using or it will get over-written by the next capture.

After you have grabbed the Icons load them into geoPaint and change the colors to Black Paint on a White Canvas. Copy the Icon back to a Scrap and add it back to the album. Then surround the Icon again and press the Rotate button 3 times. This will turn the Icon the way our Index Page text will go (up the page, top to the left). Save the new versions back to the Album so we can easily get them into geoPublish.

The easy part

Open gP and Create a document – TutorialCover. When the document opens, change to Master Pages mode and choose `doc setup' under the file menu.

We have already seen how adjusting the page number lets us continue on through multiple gP documents and maintain a consistent numbering pattern. You can enter a starting page number as high as 240 which allows for 15 documents chained together and a maximum of 255 pages.

We'll leave the starting page number at `1' even though we already have a Page #1 in the Tutorial. We can do this because the Page Number only matters if you actually use the PAGE special text in Master Pages or Page Graphics modes - and we aren't going to do that in this document. We also want 2 Master Pages and the Right Page will be the first one. Press OK.

Our page layout for this section is going to be simple so we'll just create it fresh instead of trying to modify a saved layout. Select the Pointer and draw vertical guidelines at the 1", 4 1/2", 6 1/2" and 8" marks. Draw horizontal guidelines at the 1/2", 2 1/4", 9 3/4" and 10 1/4" marks.

Since we aren't using the Left Pages that is all we need to do in Master Pages mode. In the interest of completeness we will look at the changes that would be necessary to have complementary Left Pages.

Our left page would just shift left 1/2 an inch.The easiest way to create this is to press the Copy button in the middle of the page. Pick up each of the vertical guidelines and move them to the 1/2", 4", 6" and 7 1/2" marks. Save these two pages to a Master Pages Library if you want.

The Cover

Change to Page Graphics Mode. Turn on Snap. In Preview select the Text Tool and open the Attributes. Set LW_Cal, 24, Black, Right, Across and Bold and create a text box at 4 3/4" and 1". Enter "A Guide to getting(space)(Return)the most out of(space)(Return)this complex software(space)". Click OK, click the text with the Pointer, line the right edge up with the 8" guideline and expand the box down a bit.

Leave the Text Attributes alone, create another text box at 7 1/2" and 1". Type "by R. Bruce Thomas(space)". Click OK, click the text with the Pointer tool, line the right edge up with the 8" guideline and expand the box down a bit.

Select the Text Tool (LW_Roma, 60, Black, Right, Across, Bold), place the crosshairs at 3" and 1" and enter "GeoPublish(space)(Return)Tutorial(space)". Click OK, click the text with the Pointer tool, line the right edge up with the 8" guideline and expand the box down a bit.

In the text we just entered we left `spaces' at the end of the lines. This ensures that the text does not bump against the side of the shaded box we are going to add next.

Select the Rectangle Tool (Square, No Frame, Transparent, 5 clicks up from blank) and draw a rectangle from 2 1/4" and 6 1/2" to 10 1/4" and 8". Copy the gP Icon (not the rotated one) to a Photo Scrap, change to Zoom and place the Icon at 1/2" and 6 1/2". Stretch & Scale it down to 2" and 8".

Select the Line Tool (Square, Narrow, Transparent, Black) and draw a line across the page at the 4 1/2 " mark from 1" to 8".

The rest

Create 4 new pages so we are working on Page 5. In Preview set the Text Pointer (LW_Roma, 60, Black, Center, Across, Bold) at 3" and 1" and enter "GeoPublish(Return)Tutorial". Click OK, click the text with the Pointer, line the right edge up with the 8" guideline and expand the box down a bit.

Select the Text Tool (LW_Cal, 18, Black, Center, Across) and create a text box at 9" and 1". Enter "Files available at http://members.shaw.ca/cue64". Click OK, click the text with the Pointer, line the right edge up with the 8" guideline and expand the box down a bit.

Turn Snap off. Create another text box at 9 1/2" and 1" and enter "geoPublish discussions on the COPS mailing list(Return)http://cbm.videocam.net.au/mailman/listinfo/cops". Click OK, click the text with the Pointer tool, line the right edge up with the 8" guideline and expand the box down a bit.

Create 2 new pages so we are working on Page 7. Change to Page Layout mode, turn Snap on, select the Open Region Tool and draw a text region using the 4 1/2" and 8" vertical guidelines and the top and bottom guidelines. Select the Pointer Tool and click on the text region you just made. Select the Text Placement Tool, choose the Index article and ripple the text after the import. If you open the Index in Editor Mode you will see that it uses Decimal Tabs for two of the tab stops.

Change to Page Graphics Mode. Select the Text Tool (LW_Roma, 120, Black, Center, Up and Bold), place the Crosshairs at the 9 3/4" and 1" mark and click to place the text. Type "GeoPublish(Return)Tutorial" as the text and press OK.

Select the Pointer and then click on the text we just entered. You'll see that the text goes right to the top of the page. We want it centered between our top and bottom guidelines so click on the Move button and Snap will force the top corner to jump to the 1/2" and 1" mark. Click to place the text. Now click on the Size button and move the bottom corner down to the 10 1/4" and 4" mark and click to place it. This will cause the text to center the way we want and also allow expansion room for printing.

We could have done this without the 9 3/4" guideline but I wanted to show a different method for text placement. If we had to move the text down more than the 1/4" we did this time it is possible that we would have to use the Size button first and make the text box smaller before we could re-position it. It just makes sense to make it smaller first, get it positioned, and then line up the bottom corner.

Select the Text Tool (LW_Roma, 24, Black, Center, Up), place the crosshairs at 9 3/4" and 4 1/8" and enter "A Guide to getting the most out of this complex software." Press OK and then select the Pointer. Click the text and use the Move button to line it up with the 1/2" top guideline. Use the Size button to place the corner at the 10 1/4" & 4 3/4" mark.

Select the Rectangle Tool (Square, Narrowest width, Transparent, Click the up arrow 7 times from the blank pattern). Draw a box from 1/2" and 4" down to the 10 1/4" and 4 1/2" mark.

Copy the rotated gP Document Icon (NEWS) to a Photo Scrap and Paste it onto the page at about 5/8" and 2 1/2" while in Zoom view. Set Attributes for Stretch and Scale. Click on the Icon and expand it to be 1" across the page and 1 1/4" down the page. Use some temporary lines to help position it if you want. Move to the bottom of the page so you can see the `T' in Tutorial. Copy the rotated gP Icon to a Photo Scrap and paste it on the page at 2 1/4" and 8 5/8". Stretch it down and over to about 3 3/4" and 9 7/8". Select the Text Tool (LW_ Shattuck, 12, Black, Left, Across), place this at 10" and 7 1/2" and enter "X" for our end of article Splat.

Create 2 new pages so we are working on Page 9. We are still in Zoom view in the bottom right corner of the page. Select the Text Tool (LW_ Shattuck, 12, Black, Left, Across), place this at 9 3/4" and 7 1/2" and enter "X" for our end of article Splat.

Place another text box (LW_Zapf, 14, Black, Left, Across) at 10 1/4" and 7 3/4" and enter `vii'. Expand both of these text boxes. Change to Page Layout mode. Draw a text region from 1V to 4 Z. Select the Text Tool and pour the gPIntro article into this space. Create a new page and our document is complete.

New Web Page

The ISP where the Tutorial has lived has gone under so we need to make some changes. Open TutorialPart1 and change to Master Pages mode. Goto Page 1, Zoom to bottom of page and change the footer to "files available at http://members.shaw.ca/cue64". Adjust the size down a bit to allow for print expansion.

From the file menu choose `library', click on our `RightMaster' entry and press the Save button. Close TutorialPart1 and open each of the other Tutorial files (except for TutorialCover), goto an odd numbered page, change to Master Pages mode, open the library function, select the RightMaster library and press the Open button. Click OK on the warning box that pops up. This updates the footers in the other Tutorial files.

I have updated the GPIntro file and geoPub4 to reflect the web site change so download the new versions of these files to keep your Tutorial up to date.

Next time we are going to create our Appendices.

Until then, enGEOy your Commodore!

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