Getting Your Journey Ready to Print

At this time, you are finally ready to start putting something together into something resembling a finished product. Prepare yourself for the fact that you will probably go through several versions before you finally get what you want. Remember, this is something you are probably only going to do this once, so take your time (people that know me personally are probably chuckling right now).

Make Backups!

I can't stress this enough. Don't tell yourself that you will make a backup after you have it all put together. Make a backup whenever you make a major change. Think of the amount of time you have invested in each revision, and compare it to how much time it takes to back it up to a ZIP drive. Also, make a seperate backup of each version. This is real helpful in case you accidentally trash something and need to recover it from a previous version (personal experience again).

Preparing the Pictures for the Print Version

You will need to decide what pictures are going to be included in the print version. You will also have to decide what size the images will be in the print version. Some pictures can be reduced in size, while others will need to be included full-size. Also, you will need to find out what format the images need to be in for your authoring software. Some packages will only accept images in a particular format, while others will accept any format. Consult your documentation and do the image conversion and resizing if necessary. Make sure you work with copies of the original images you scanned in. If you are going to do a web site as well as a printed version, make two copies of all the images. The image format and size you will use in the printed version will not be the same as the ones you use for a web site.

Assembling the Final Document

Put the whole thing together and get it ready for printing. You will be much further ahead if you put it together in sections first, and then make another version that has all the parts in one place. This is real easy to do in PageMaker and can be done inside Microsoft Office. Again, you will probably have some false starts along the way. Don't get discouraged.

Printing the Final Document

If you have a printer on your computer, use it to print the rough draft and check for layout, quality, etc. When you are ready to print the final version, have it done at Kinko's or some equivalent. The reason is that regardless of what kind of printer you have at home, it not the equal of a Xerox Docutech or Docucolor printer. There are a couple of ways you can do this. The very best way is to print the document to what is called a Postscript file and take the file to Kinko's and have them print it. If you have WInsows 95, there is a printer dirver called the Apple NTX that came on your CD that will generate a Postscript file from any document.
Another option is to take all the files that make up your final version to Kinko's and have them generate the printed version. Printing it on your printer and then having copies made is an option, but the quality won't be there. Your local Kinko's or equivalent should probably be able to help you out in this process.

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