You are on page 1of 4

Harvard International Review Media Department

Initial Layout Guide


Revised 2/25/2007 Jue Wang
Overview
Initial layout is the first step to creating a finished article for the HIR. It
involves creating the InDesign file for the article, copying and formatting
the text of the article into the file, and inserting placeholder objects for the
photos and visuals. Because you are only doing the “initial” layout, portions
of the text and certain visual elements may need to be modified or
removed later on. Your job is to facilitate future edits by making reasonable
decisions on the number, position, and size of design elements, i.e. photos
and visuals.
Step-by-step Instructions
Open up the HIR folder
If you’re in the IRC office:
1. Log on to a computer.
2. Click on the “HIR docs” icon on the desktop. Alternatively, log on to the IRC
server as explained below.
Logging on to the IRC server (works on any computer with an internet
connection):
3. Make sure you’re connected to the internet.
4. In Windows, go Start menu > Run and type in “\\140.247.182.60”
without the quotes.
In MacOS X, you need to download the remote desktop client at
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remo
tedesktopclient and follow the instructions to connect to the server
140.247.182.60.
5. Once you see the files on the IRC server, go to the folder docs \ hir.
Create the InDesign file for the article
1. Find out which article you need to layout. The “look” of an article depends
on what section of the magazine it is in.
2. Open the Word document containing the text of the article, which is stored
in
hir \ Issues \ <current issue> \ Copy
This means click on the folder Issues in the hir folder. Then click on the issue you are
working on (the quarter followed by the year number, e.g. Winter 05) and finally, the
folder Copy.
3. Open the InDesign template for the type of article you have. This is stored
in
hir \ Issues \ <current issue> \ Layout \ Indesign Libraries
For example, if you are laying out a World in Review article, you would open the file wir
(or wir.indd) in the Libraries folder.
4. Now, BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE, SAVE the article. Go to
File > Save As (NOT Save) and put the file in the Layout folder using the
name <author>.<section>
If you were laying out a World in Review article written by Joseph Luna, then you would
save it as luna.wir (or luna.wir.indd).

Format Text
5. Copy the article text from the Word document into your newly created
InDesign file.
Go to the Word document. Select the entire body text of the article (omitting title,
author, etc) and Edit > Copy, or Ctrl-C. Then, in InDesign, double-click the body text
box, remove all existing text except for the colophon (black square at the end), and
paste the article text with Edit > Paste or Ctrl-V.
6. Select all of the article text and put it in the “Body” style.
Find the tab on the right side of the screen that says “Paragraph Styles.” If the tab is
closed, click on it once to open a box of choices of paragraph styles. If the box is
already open, simply click on the entry that says “Body” to set the style of your
selection to body.
7. Put all subheadings in “Subhead” style. Review articles do not have
subheads. If an article does not have subheads, let Editorial know.
8. Put the first paragraph in “Intro Para” style. Check that the first letter
becomes a drop cap when you do this.
9. Make sure every paragraph is only indented by one tab and that there are
no extra lines in between them.
10.Make sure there is no highlighted text within the article (sometimes some
of the text appears in pink or other various colors).
11. Change double spaces into single spaces. Some authors put two spaces
after the period in their sentences. We want only one. Go to Edit > Find/
Change or press Ctrl-F, type two spaces into “Find What” and one space
into “Change to” and hit “Change All”
Tip: In general, the Find/Change command is very useful when you need to fix an error
that occurs repeatedly throughout the text. Rather than going through and making
every single change by hand, simply type in what you need changed and what to
change it to. This saves time and ensures you don’t miss any occurrence of the error.
12. Make sure the colophon (the small black square with a white capital “H”) is
there at the end of the text and that there is only one space in between it
and the end of the last sentence. It’s a good idea to hit Ctrl-S at this
point to save your progress.
Title, Author, Position
13. In the text area for the title, subtitle, author, and position (of author), fill in
the respective information from the Word document for the article. The
author’s name should be in all caps. If any of this information is missing,
make a note in the text area (e.g. type in “BIO MISSING” where the bio
usually is) and inform editorial of the missing information.
Footer (Document Master)
14. Make sure the footer of each page indicates the correct issue of the
magazine, e.g. “Summer 2007.” Edit this area by going to the drop down
box on the lower left (showing the current page number) and selecting
Document Master. This takes you to a view of the “master,” which
contains design elements visible on every page. Now you should be able to
edit the footer to reflect the correct issue. There should be one space each
between “Harvard International Review,” the black dot, and the issue. Go
back to normal view by selecting any page number in the drop down box.
Place Visual Elements
15. Import photo and visual objects. From InDesign, with your article still open,
go to File > Open (Ctrl-O) and open Photos 1 (or Photos 1.indl), Pull
Quote 1, and Visuals 1. These are found in the Layout \ Indesign
Libraries folder. You should see a box appear with three tabs with the
names “Photos 1”,
“Pull Quote 1”, and “Visuals 1”.
16. Place photos. First make sure you are using the Selection Tool (keyboard
shortcut V) and that you are on the desired page for the photo. Select the
photo object you want to place, then click on the right-pointing triangle at
the top right corner of the visuals box. From the menu that appears, select
Place Item(s).
The photo objects that are provided comprise all possible positions and orientations of
photos that can be used. Make sure you scroll through the entire list to see all the
choices. The naming convention for the photo objects is straightforward: for example,
Left R M V indicates a photo on the left-side page, in the right column, in the middle of
the column (as opposed to B for bottom), and oriented vertically.
Note: We always put a photo (vertical or horizontal) on the right-side page, in the right
column, usually at the bottom. So the first photo you should place should be “Right R
B H.” We never use this page for visuals or for pull quotes. Always a photo.
17.Place photo credits. For each photo that you place, use the same procedure
as above to place a photo credit object on the same page as the photo.
18.Place pull quotes/visuals. Using the same procedure as above, place visuals
and pull quotes as necessary.
When you put in a visual, you will need to check again that the footer on that page
reflects the correct issue (see step 14 above). The reason for this is that the visuals box
covers the document master, so a new footer needs to be inserted as part of the
visual.
When placing a visual, you also need to adjust the bottom of the article text box
upwards, so that the text can flow past the visual instead of behind it. Do this by using
the selection tool (the pointer) to select the text box, then adjust the bottom side of
the box until it is inside the black title bar of the visual. Make sure the text box is
unlocked (Ctrl-Alt-L, or Object > Unlock Position) before you do this and re-lock it
when you’re done (Ctrl-L, or Object > Lock Position).
19.Save the document.
FINAL STEP: Fill out the Initial Layout Checklist to notify other media
members and editorial of your progress. You will be sent a copy of this as an Excel
or Google spreadsheet during each production cycle.

You might also like