Handover of Book Design and Layout Department [Buke Printing]

Handover of Book Design and Layout Department [Buke Printing]

Some publishing houses now have independent typesetting departments, but these typesetting departments are actually disconnected from editors. They are only a part of the internal editing process, and the publishing department of the publishing house is responsible for the connection between them and editors. Even if the publishing house does not have its own typesetting department, most typesetting work is now done by typesetting companies specializing in layout design and typesetting business in society, and printing factories rarely complete this part of the work. In this case, the publishing department of the publishing house is also responsible for coordinating with these typesetting companies, handing over the tasks of manuscript submission and proofreading.

Manuscripts are carefully created by authors, especially manuscripts, which are generally not kept by authors. Therefore, they need to be properly kept and must not be damaged or lost. After the manuscript is sent by the editorial department, the printing management department first needs to count the manuscript, illustrations, and all attachments, and review them item by item according to the records on the submission form, and then check whether their content meets the requirements of "completeness, clarity, and accuracy". In the era of movable type typesetting, a large number of changes to manuscripts can bring great trouble to typesetting work, so the required manuscripts are "neat, clear, and finalized". In this case, the requirements of "uniformity, clarity, and determination" will not be so strict, but a certain degree of "uniformity, clarity, and determination" is also a prerequisite for reducing waste of manpower and material resources. Because no one wants to have a situation where a large amount of text is inputted and then deleted by the editor with a big stroke of the pen. The more the manuscript (including illustrations) meets the publishing requirements, the smoother the typesetting of the book manuscript can proceed. Especially when the typesetting department is not under the publishing house's own preparation, "neat, clear, and finalized" manuscripts are easy to hand over to the typesetting company, and it is not easy for the typesetting company to misunderstand that "neat" refers to complete and flawless original manuscripts. The author should arrange the pages of the manuscript in order from beginning to end without repetition or omission. After receiving the manuscript, the printing personnel should check whether the preface, introduction text, postscript, appendix, index, references, and all drawings are complete according to the items and order listed in the table of contents, in addition to the title page, content summary, and table of contents.

Clear "refers to the entire manuscript being written clearly, without difficult to distinguish handwriting, with clear outlines of modifications, clear annotations in the illustrated manuscript, illustrations that meet the requirements of plate making, clear chapter hierarchy, and consistent formatting.

'Ding' refers to the content of the manuscript. It is best for the editorial department to send the final approved draft without significant changes during the sorting and proofreading process. Failure to meet the final draft requirements will result in significant rework.

The requirements of 'Qi, Qing, and Ding' are not absolute either. For a small number of large or multi volume manuscripts, in order to speed up the progress, they can be divided into batches for both the typesetting department and the publishing house to work on. However, great care should be taken to prevent inconsistencies in layout between the previously published and later designed manuscripts. Clear handwriting is only required to make it easy for typesetting and proofreading personnel to recognize, not to prohibit alterations. As long as the changes are clearly outlined, the requirement of "neat, clear, and definite" is conducive to shortening the publishing cycle and reducing errors. Therefore, the publishing department should develop specific requirements for publishing articles that are "complete, clear, and finalized" based on the characteristics of the department.

Handover of Book Design and Layout Department [Buke Printing]