GeoPublish Tutorial Part 8 – Editor Mode

For this tutorial I am providing the geoWrite files pre-formatted and ready to pour into the text regions. If you follow the step-by-step instructions in article #7 (and provided in a separate file with each successive article) you should be able to create the GeoPublish Tutorial fairly easily. This time we will look at some formatting tricks you need to know when creating your own gP masterpiece.

As you work on a publishing project you begin by writing your articles. When I write articles I have a certain amount of information I want to convey. The topic is what determines the length of the article. Of course, how much I have to say on a particular topic oftentimes has very little to do with the space I have to fit the article into once I start working in gP. This tends to result in a number of options to get my text to fit.

How can I cut thee...

The first step in paring an article down to size is to read it through. After importing and rippling your geoWrite file highlight one of the text regions then select Editor from the Mode Menu (there is no keyboard shortcut and Editor Mode is only available from Page Layout Mode).

You will find that Editor mode is almost the same as geoWrite V2.1. Scroll through your imported document and carefully read it over. Continue through each page (using 'next page' from the Page menu) until you get to the end.

How much text is left over from your regions? By this I mean that if you created 4 text regions and you have now got to page 5 in Editor Mode is there a lot of text or only a couple of lines. The answer will determine what you do next.

If there are only a couple of lines of overflow text then the first thing to do is to go over your article again and cut out any excess words. It is amazing what this can do. Especially look for paragraphs that end with only one or two words on the last line (like paragraph 2 above). By cutting or changing a word you may be able to bring that last word back onto the previous line thereby shortening your article. You will also want to look for any chances to hyphenate words to fill any space on the preceding line. Hyphenation can be a laborious process but it can pay big dividends. GeoPublish does not auto-hyphenate which is one of my big beefs with full justification formatting.

While reviewing your article check for single lines from one paragraph that flow onto the next page. Sometimes it is possible to suck those lines back to the previous page by changing the bottom gutter value in the region to '0'. Don't forget to also remove the space between paragraphs that will now be at the top of the next page.

Another gutter trick is to change the left and right gutter values for the text regions. In a 2-column layout, for example, lower the value for the inner gutters by 2 or 3 points. Lower the value for the outer gutters all the way to '0' if you want. This looks better if you are not using borders around your text regions. If you are using borders make sure you leave a gutter value of at least 5 points. After changing the gutter values and re-rippling your text go into Editor Mode again and check out the difference. You'll be surprised at what this simple change can do for your article.

Another change that works well if you only have a few lines of overflow (depending on the length of your article) is to change the paragraph spacing by making use of geoWrite's individual paragraph formatting. You may have noticed that I like to leave a blank line between paragraphs. This provides some much needed 'white space' on the page and allows the readers' eyes to rest a bit while reading. Of course, these blank lines add up over the course of an article and may be all you need to get your article to fit.

In cases like this I still like to leave some blank space - just less. A trick I have been using for a long time (including this article) is to put my cursor at the end of the first line of a new paragraph and press RETURN. This creates a 'new paragraph' complete with the indent. Since this is not really a 'new paragraph' we have to get rid of the paragraph indent. Click on the 'P' marker under the ruler and drag it over to the left edge of the screen and click to set it there. Your 'new paragraph' will look just like it did before.

The next step is to place your cursor at the start of the first line of your original paragraph (move one line up) and press the DEL key to remove the blank line between paragraphs. Now, select 1 1/2 line spacing for this single line paragraph. You have just saved yourself a half of a line in the length of your article. If you do this 4 times you will shorten the article by 2 full lines which will have the effect of pulling the excess text back from the next page. This change works best when Full Justification is not being used. If you are using Full Justification then you will have to manually insert spaces to try to get the first line to spread out.

You can use Toolkit (see article #6) to change the font size. A single point reduction (from 12 to 11 as I did with article #5) may be all you need to squeeze your article down to size.

While an earlier option was to make some minor wording changes to save a bit of space we are now at the point where serious editting may be in order. Go back over the article and be vicious with your knife. Cut excess or redundant wording and, if necessary, remove entire sections for use at a later time.

If none of these options will work for you, and you can spare the overflow space on another page, just do like we did with article #4 and create a new region on the next page to hold the overflow.

Another method to ensure you don't run out of space is to import one of our Dummy articles and just type the article in Editor Mode. This allows you to pace your writing to only use the available space.

And there you have it. As you have seen there are quite a few editting tricks that you will want to have in your publishing toolbox to improve your geoPublish endeavors.

Next time we'll analyze the different page layouts we have used so far.

Until then, enGEOy your Commodore!

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