Looking for software to manage illustrations

K1P1

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I've been searching the forums for discussions of this, but haven't found anything. Maybe I'm using the wrong keywords. Here's my problem.

I write non-fiction books that are very heavily illustrated. I submit the ms. to my publisher in a word document. Within that document, there are notes on illustrations at the point where they should appear in the text. These generally include a illustration number (5-79 would be illustration 79 in chapter 5).

I also submit scrap photos and images for them to use as references for their artist and the photographer. The filenames for these images are the image number (e.g. 5-79.jpg).

And, I submit an Excel file with a list of all the illustrations, their numbers, descriptions, notes on photopraphy, sources, etc.

It's a real bear keeping track of all the illustrations, numbering them consecutively, renumbering and renaming if an illustration has to be added (I do add suffixes like a, b, c if necessary, but that gets confusing). I spend hours assembling and updating the illustrations list and it's still difficult to make it completely accurate.

So, here's my question. Is there writing software out there that allows you to place a note in the text where an illustration should be located, and in the note you can include the actual filename for the image, as well as a caption, and notes about the image. And, whenever you want it, the software can produce a complete illustrations list based on those notes?
 

Helix

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Someone who actually knows something should be able to answer this, but in the meantime, here's my 2c worth. What about inserting all the info in comments (which automatically renumber) and then printing out those only?

I believe you can do this in the version of Word that's not on the computer I'm using at the moment.
 

K1P1

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I'm not sure how useful that would be. They'd need to go into an editable file. I'm trying to imagine what the format would look like. I could print the comments to a PDF, then I could select and copy all the text from the PDF, but how difficult would it be to put it into a table or spread sheet format.

There's the additional problem, that I think would be the real reason why your idea won't work. My editor, tech editor, and copy editor will all add comments, and I'll add comments too. So how would I select just the illustration notes to print out?
 

K1P1

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Well, I did try printing, cutting and pasting just the notes, and it's possible, but I really don't think it's practical. The amount of editing needed to reformat the notes after printing them is a drawback, plus, there's no way to include a thumbnail of the image.

I'll leave this thread hanging for a while, and if I don't get any responses, perhaps I'll try again in Tech Help in about a month.
 

Waldo

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I don't get a cut of this, but adobe software now has membership plans and if you know the program you want check ebay amazon for old versions. The new software with all of the bells and whistles are exciting but you really just need something reliable--the page is this size, the picture is this size and goes at 7.7 inches down 1.5 inches across. InDesign is the adobe software.

I know how you feel, I just had an art director and an illustrator butcher my story. I know what they can do if unguided. Is there a way to change your contract so that you get some sort of directorial/ final say on the layout?

Have you thought about cutting and pasting a dummy like they do for picture books? You just size and paste the picture where you want it on the right size paper and then draw a rectangle where you want the text. You write 'text' in the text box.

Good luck.
 

jimmymc

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Word sucks for illustrated books, can't justify InDesign. Try Serif page plus.
 

K1P1

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Waldo,

Thanks for your reply, but I'm not sure I understand it. Is the Adobe product you're recommending InDesign? It sounds like you think I want to do layout of the images and text, but that's not what I'm after. The art department at my publisher does a great job, and I always get to review what they do and make corrections. In fact, I just spent the last week marking up the first pages for my next book. We'll probably go through three more versions before we're all satisfied (author, editor, art director, and designer).

What I'm looking for is something that will *manage* my images, not that will put them in the text. I need to submit a standard format ms--Times New Roman, double spaced, etc. No images actually go into this text, just notes on what text the images relate to, so they can put them nearby when they do layout.

The software needs to track the desired location in the text, the individual image filenames, create a cross-reference between the image numbers in the text and the actual filenames, allow me to add notations related to each image, and will produce a master list of image number, filename, and notes. And if it could include a thumbnail in that master list, that would be great. Also, if it could track versions of images when corrections are made, that would be amazing (but if I were careful, I could just include that in the note).

I just looked at InDesign's features, and image tracking and management outside the text does not seem to be one of them.
 
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K1P1

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Word sucks for illustrated books, can't justify InDesign. Try Serif page plus.


Thanks for the suggestion, Jimmy, but page plus looks like it's also just desktop publishing design software. I'm not designing anything. I'm just trying to keep track of about 600 image files and their relationship to 120,000 words in an ms. I don't want to create "eye catching" layouts or use a bunch of templates.

I want something that will make it easy to cross reference between text and image files. Surely I'm not the only one who has to do this!
 

K1P1

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At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I thank those who took the time to respond to my question, but I really think that only Helix actually read it.

:(
 

Deleted member 42

I think the real answer is not software, but procedure.

I label the images as I acquire or produce them.

I submit mss. to my publisher in Microsoft Word or Pages (Mac OS X).

Each chapter is a separate MS Word file. Each MS Word file lives in a labeled folder with a folder labeled images and one labeled figures.

Images contains the raw images, whether screen shots or photos. These are not cropped; they are named descriptively and include the chapter number in their name.

ch_01_iPhoto pref screen.tif

The publisher provides a style sheet and pre-built styles for Microsoft Word, and a template containing the styles and a custom palette; I import the styles and the palette into my document and use them as instructed in the style sheet. That is, I apply the Body paragraph styles to body text, Caption style to captions, Figure style to Figures, etc.

The books are heavily illustrated with screen shots and diagrams, and often, my photographs.

As I write I will decide which images go where, and I will if necessary crop or annotated them.

I then re-name the images and place them in the Figures folder for the chapter I'm writing.

I number the images as in: ch_01_fig. 01 iPhoto Preferences.jpg

Immediately following a body text reference to the image I insert:

[[fig. 01 iPhoto Preferences]]
This is the primary Preference setting for iPhoto.

The color and brackets make it easy to find the figures later.
The caption is italicized and usually set in a non-serif 10 pt. type.

I submit my ms. and the images to my editor via FTP.

She typically will re-name the edited chapters to indicate the edit stage (with initials, first hers, then hers and mine as I respond to her edits) and prefaced with the book-specific part of the ISBN.

This part of naming is done via the Mac OS X scripting language called Apple Script; it's included with all Macs.

She may renumber figures and accompanying captions and the images if she and I decide to not use an image or to use in in a different place.

Once the edits are done, the designer and typesetter import the MS. word file with styles into InDesign, which has the identical style names but the styles are a little different. Because the names are identical, the styles inherit the slight differences.

They have a script to process the figure names and insert the actual images in the file.

A Compositor checks the images for cropping, adjusts them for print, etc. and does a final formatting and if necessary for space reasons, edits image captions in consultation with my editor and me.

This is fairly standard in my publishing niche.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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I think Medievalist gave you great advice. It's procedure, more than software, and her method is more or less like my own.

I have no idea how it works, or how well it works, or his exact process, but I have a friend who use a combination of Word and OneNote for dealing with a heavily illustrated manuscript. He really seems to like it, but while I have OneNote on my computer, I very seldom use it for anything.
 

Waldo

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The software needs to track the desired location in the text, the individual image filenames, create a cross-reference between the image numbers in the text and the actual filenames, allow me to add notations related to each image, and will produce a master list of image number, filename, and notes. And if it could include a thumbnail in that master list, that would be great. Also, if it could track versions of images when corrections are made, that would be amazing (but if I were careful, I could just include that in the note)..

I'm sorry for stating the obvious but you are describing HTML with automated features.

I learned BASIC when I was ten years old, so HTML comes easy to me. But I just don't use coding very often anymore.

You can put notes in the HTML coding. I imagine every web based software has an HTML view. Do they still use (! for notes)? I probably have it wrong.

The illustrations just need to be numbered/named correctly.

You can make a thumbnail page yourself by sizing the images.

It may take some time acclimating to HTML but it does the job you're asking.

You can make a table of contents in HTML and cut and paste it where you like.

And your book will be ebook formatted:)

Here's a great site for brushing up on HTML http://www.w3schools.com/html/
 
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Deleted member 42

And, whenever you want it, the software can produce a complete illustrations list based on those notes?

I forgot to note: You can use the Microsoft Word (or Pages or whatever) tools for indexing or for creating a TOC to insert codes around each Figure heading and then generate the list with page numbers.