Starting 300 pg manual from scratch - need advice

[doodler22]

I have to put together a 300+ page manual from scratch. Text will come to me in Word. Very dry content -- procedural stuff. Lots of bulleted items and tables. Some forms that are pdfs and can not be edited.

I will need a color version to be burned on thousands of CD's - which will be done by outside vendor. Document will be exported as a pdf and burned on CD.

Also need a B/W version for print - very few copies to be printed (less than 100). I do not want to have to do this twice as changes are made up to the last second. Can I use layers - make some elements that don't change - like headers and footers - in color?

Manual will have about 12 chapters. Will need a TOC - and will need bookmarks linking to each chapter.

What's the best way to go about doing this? I'm used to using Quark, setting up master pages, etc. Should this be built using the book feature? layers? I'll need to add hyperlinks - there will be a lot of

http://www sites

listed throughout. Also will need bookmarks and buttons.

I need to come up with 2 or 3 layouts by Wed. I did this same project last year but it was a mess. Thanks!

 

[garda09]

So you just want to output a greyscale version of your colour work for print?

Have you tried printing the whole book to a local host printer (using PDF settings) as a composite greyscale output. This will give you a .ps file which you can then distill at whatever resolution you want. That will give you greyscale version.

Hope that helps.

David.

 

[doodler22]

The greyscale part is only 1 part of the whole project. My only concern with that is if I make any of the text in color, will it print lighter if I just turn it to grayscale?

If I create separate docs for chapters and then put them together in a book, do the paragraph and character styles carry over to all chapters if I make a change? That was a big problem last year. If I made 1 change to a style sheet in 1 chapter, I had to go thru all the chapters and change them all.

 

[jimoblak]

Assuming your text is colored via Word and is not an element in a placed RGB image, all you need to do is look at your swatches palette.

Locate any swatch used for text that is RGB. Double-click and change that swatch to CMYK and color as black.

You might also delete the RGB swatch and assign black when prompted.

 

[doodler22]

The color will be done in ID. I was thinking about making it a paragraph style - one of the headers. I had thought about using a color that won't be part of any placed graphic and then deleting the swatch and assigning black when prompted as you suggested. Thanks for confirming my thinking.