Digest-sized books?

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Koren_nRhys
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by Koren_nRhys »

Jumping in with a stray thought or two...

I haven't looked at Chiisu's digest version in a while, but it is up to date with the current version R107. I have it on my tablet and it looks great - full-sized fonts that are easy to read on the smaller page size. Nicely re-formatted, and just some of the artwork missing, if I recall.

@bugleyman, if you have a bit of time to play, it's pretty trivial to upload stuff to Lulu for printing personal copies. You pick your format options (page size, color/b&w, paper quality, binding style, etc) upload the contents and covers and you're all set. Just be sure to set it as a private book so no one but you can find or buy it. Sometimes you need to fiddle with things to get Lulu to accept it, but I've printed personal copies of a number of things not offered in print, or in different formats. The covers will be a bit off if you just shrink down the full-sized one's and use as-is, but I'd think they'll be good enough for personal use. I'd recommend giving it a shot as it isn't all that difficult.
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bugleyman
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by bugleyman »

Koren_nRhys wrote:Jumping in with a stray thought or two...

I haven't looked at Chiisu's digest version in a while, but it is up to date with the current version R107. I have it on my tablet and it looks great - full-sized fonts that are easy to read on the smaller page size. Nicely re-formatted, and just some of the artwork missing, if I recall.

@bugleyman, if you have a bit of time to play, it's pretty trivial to upload stuff to Lulu for printing personal copies. You pick your format options (page size, color/b&w, paper quality, binding style, etc) upload the contents and covers and you're all set. Just be sure to set it as a private book so no one but you can find or buy it. Sometimes you need to fiddle with things to get Lulu to accept it, but I've printed personal copies of a number of things not offered in print, or in different formats. The covers will be a bit off if you just shrink down the full-sized one's and use as-is, but I'd think they'll be good enough for personal use. I'd recommend giving it a shot as it isn't all that difficult.
That's a great idea, but is that an acceptable use of the material?
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."

-- The Dalai Lama
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bugleyman
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by bugleyman »

chiisu81 wrote:
bugleyman wrote:What, specifically, can I do to help? I've done some technical writing in the past, and I've considered jumping in, but I'm not sure exactly how/where to get started.
Hmm, well there are many different areas that are possible to jump in and help: content creation, layout, editing and proofing, and artwork. Some of these can overlap, or someone can be good or even great at more than one thing. I personally started out just pointing out mis-spellings, grammar corrections, and small suggestions for corrections and improvements. Later on, as I learned more about working with LibreOffice and reading more and more material, I became more comfortable editing the ODTs myself and either posting or at least sending to Solo to get his feedback.

It really depends on what you think you'd be best at contributing, or maybe something you may not be very good at now, but want to improve on. We welcome contributions in all areas, and overall this is one of the friendliest online communities I've ever been a part of, so you'll get plenty of encouragement, support, and assistance, as long as you put in equal effort yourself to see it through.

If you want to dive in, download and install LibreOffice, get the fonts by PM'ing me or Solo, and then start with an existing ODT and/or the template linked in my sig. See how LO works and how our ODTs are put together. Start with basic text editing, paragraph styling, and then move on to more layout and styling work, starting to use track changes, things like that.

Ultimately, I like to see contributed new material, whether it's new rules or class options, an adventure, new monster or magic items, or artwork.
I'd like to start with proofing and editing; I think that's probably the easiest entry-point for me.

Here's what I'm still unclear on: How are changes approved/merged? Say I grab an .odt and make a bunch of updates...some good, some less so. How does one ensure that I don't introduce new errors, etc.?
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."

-- The Dalai Lama
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chiisu81
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by chiisu81 »

What I would do is:
1. Download the ODT you wish to edit or otherwise work on. (example: "DC1-Tales-from-the-Laughing-Dragon-r17.odt")
2. Open the ODT in LibreOffice
a. Go to Edit > Track Changes > Record Changes
b. Go to File > Save As, and add to the name file"-bugleyedited" or such (example: " DC1-Tales-from-the-Laughing-Dragon-r17-bugleyedited.odt")
3. Once finished editing and working on the ODT, make a reply on the relevant thread in Workshop, and attach your edited ODT to the post (using the "Upload attachment" tab below the text field where you compose your forum post/reply).
4. Once you've posted your edited ODT, either myself, Solo, AlMan, or someone else will check out your edited ODT. We can go through each of your changes and either accept/reject each one. If there's any questions, suggestions, etc. that person will reply on that same Workshop thread and we continue on from there.
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Clever_Munkey
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by Clever_Munkey »

bugleyman wrote: I'd like to start with proofing and editing; I think that's probably the easiest entry-point for me.

Here's what I'm still unclear on: How are changes approved/merged? Say I grab an .odt and make a bunch of updates...some good, some less so. How does one ensure that I don't introduce new errors, etc.?
Usually there is a thread in the workshop forum for whatever you want to work on. Download a PDF or ODT and note any edits that should be made (I use notepad). Then simply post any edits as a normal reply to the thread. Someone, usually the creator and/or Chiisu/Solo/Alman, will compile those edits into a new .odt and PDF and upload the new files to the thread.

There is no standard format for edits, but most people do something along the lines of:
page [number]:
[room/paragraph] [number]

[correction/suggestion]

Edit: This is usually for smaller changes. For larger ones do what chiisu says.
Call me Joe. Mr. Munkey is my father.
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bugleyman
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by bugleyman »

Got it; thanks, folks!
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."

-- The Dalai Lama
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Koren_nRhys
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by Koren_nRhys »

bugleyman wrote: That's a great idea, but is that an acceptable use of the material?
As long as it's for personal use, you just can't print and resell. It's no different than printing at home.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Digest-sized books?

Post by Solomoriah »

To answer your question that has been answered twice already... there isn't a "standard" way to edit.

You may propose changes directly in the thread, giving enough information for us (Chi, AlMan, or myself mainly) to apply your corrections. This works best when you have relatively few corrections and/or your corrections are large (paragraphs, entire sections, etc.).

You may do as Chi suggests, editing a copy of the ODT with the Track Changes feature turned on. This works better if you are making a lot of small changes, and works well enough for big ones as well. You do not have to sweat issues with layout that your edits cause... Chi or I will fix them up.

IF you do a lot of proofing work, and you are working in the way Chi suggests, you may be promoted to the proofing team. That would include access to the Projects folder on Dropbox, so you would be able to submit your revised stuff to us "behind the scenes," and more importantly, without a lot of fuss or effort on your end.

(Which reminds me... I need to get with AlMan about connecting him to that folder...)
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