Larisa North
In his seminar "Making the Ideal Book for the Digital Era," Bill Kasdorf, president of Impressions Book and Journal Services, offered solutions to the costly and time-consuming process of bookmaking as we know it. The process he outlined consists of working almost entirely with electronic files, from unedited manuscript to final printed page.
Bill emphasized that the digital method of book production is only "ideal" at this point. No one is actually doing it this way yet, alhough some publishers are currently doing pieces of the process.
Moving Bits vs. Moving Atoms
Bill's main argument for "moving to the digital world" was that our current method of bookmaking, or "working with atoms," as he called it, usually means extra work and more waste. Time-consuming steps, such as keyboarding edits or entire manuscripts, inserting art twice (in pages and in film), and the recoding and often rekeying of manuscripts for electronic versions, could be reduced or eliminated by the digital method of publishing. Physical waste as a result of manufacturing, returns, and obsolete inventory could also be avoided. Additionally, the storage of electronic files would be more economical than the repeated shipping and storing of paper.
The Ideal Process
To reinforce his argument, Bill outlined the "ideal workflow for the digital era," designed to make bookmaking most efficient for both the published product and any electronic media that might accompany or follow it.
Ideally, the process would begin with a disk on which the author has keyed in manuscript, perhaps using word processing styles; this file is used throughout the process. The disk would be sent to the copyeditor, who would edit the manuscript electronically (also known as online editing). The typesetter could use the copyeditor's markup as coding for composition, then format pages automatically from structural codes. The electronic files would be sent to the printer, who would print the optimum quantity of books when needed.
The advantage of having electronic files on hand is that the typesetter or publisher can then "repurpose" them (transform them for use in another medium) or archive the files, which can then be adaptable to unforeseen future uses. In the ideal process, however, the electronic files will have been "multipurposed," or developed with multiple media in mind from the start.
Editing on Disk
Bill highlighted some of the features of the online editing process, which can be done on any PC or Mac; he advocates using a simple program such as Microsoft Word 6.0. The copyeditor first decides how revisions are going to appear on-screen-for example, inserted text might be underscored, and perhaps appear in a certain color; deleted text could be shown by a strike through, perhaps in a different color. When there is an author query, "AuQ" may be inserted into the text and numbered, and the list of author queries will print out sequentially at the end of each chapter. If the author has not entered styles, the manuscript may be coded on disk using standard composition styles; composition codes would be added after the author's review. An especially nice feature is that the author's copy of the edited manuscript can be printed out with the revisions showing, or as a clean copy of the revised manuscript with the edits already made.
A drawback of online editing, according to Bill, is that highly technical and complex books are difficult to edit electronically. The system is not yet sophisticated enough to handle heavy edits and large art programs, so for now we are limited to editing fairly simple books in this manner.
Main Ingredient: SGML
The ideal basis for composition in this digital process is SGML, or Standard Generalized Markup Language, which describes the structure of a file. In this format, each element in the manuscript receives a "tag," which defines the element and its attributes, and shows where it begins and ends; these tags can serve as composition codes when the file is converted to its final book-page format. An important advantage of SGML-based composition is that its adaptable structure converts easily into other formats, such as PostScript, which shows the appearance of the printed page; PDF (Portable Document Format) files such as Adobe Acrobat, which retains the appearance of the printed page but can also be used for CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web; and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) files, which can be published on the Web as well. SGML sets up electronic files for multipurposing, which facilitates the creation of products for other media.
This "ideal" bookmaking process is still hindered by several obstacles: many authors and copyeditors are still unfamiliar with online editing, for one; the size and scope of books that can be published this way is limited; also, printing digitally is not yet practical nor economical. However, Kasdorf believes the pieces of the process are beginning to come together.