Anyone in their right mind must think that this e-Storybook is some kind of Urban Legend. God knows I'm starting to wonder myself. Every step along the way I think it's done only to discover I was wrong. I've given up presuming to know anything at this point.
Well, here's were we stand. Since the last post, I've gone over Volume Three at least four times, installing the Lost Gnomic Tales and correcting the page numbers. Now I discovered the page numbers to be off again by two pages. How that happened is a mystery, but here is what needs to be done to correct that.
The main documents are written in MS Word, making them . docx files. There are nearly eighty files that make up the seven hundred pages which equate to Three Volumes of the Storybook Collection.
There are eighty files, because each Scene must be done in both right and left gutters. Now, some people will say that the computer can determine the gutter for printing, but in this case that is not so. The text and artwork on the page must be adjusted to the background, as the background page, being right or left, determines the spatial relationships. If you look at some of the sample pages that I have posted, you will see what I mean.
Those eighty files and the pages therein, need to be matched to each other in many ways, including page numbers.
After being written, edited, indeed crafted in DOCX, the file goes to PDF, which then needs to be inspected, before going into a PSD file. Once again, all the pages need to be inspected for shifts that occur when the file is converted.
You would be surprised to find out how many elements are not stable throughout the various digital conversions. Some people will tell you that there are no changes, but they are wrong. I can assure you, there are changes, not only in registration, but also in density and color balance. With eighty files, cross referencing and eliminating those changes is both time consuming and frustrating. Add to that that I am now up to Revision 214.
Now in some instances, I skipped numbers for clarity's sake, but there are literally; hundreds of file versions of those eighty (plus) files. You can begin to see the extent of this project.
In addition to this, there have been countless files, and indeed hard discs, that have been corrupted along the way, forcing me to try to recover files and redo the work dozens of times.
I have redesigned the Basic method of operation numerous times, until I now have the components in multiple backup renditions. Quite literally, there are hundreds of files in each Revision. It is very extensive.
Keep in mind also that, one basic file has gone through hundreds of artistic adjustments to both the compositions and the digital parameters to get it to be what it has now become. This, in addition to creating the original story, artwork and music from scratch.
OK. So where do we stand? Well, now that I have installed the Lost Gnomic Tales, I have turned to inspecting Volume Two for the page numbers, but now I realize that my method of achieving the final page layout in Volume Two is different than that used in Volume Three. The method used for Volume Three is superior and not only offers me greater flexibility, but also file security and a greatly improved ability to upgrade the layout. The ability to upgrade the layout in this way is essential for integrating animation into the project.
With that said, I am upgrading Volume Two to match the page layout used for Volume Three, and ultimately I will need to do the same for Volume One. But mainly, I am doing Volume Two, to assure that the page numbers are correct.
An interesting consequence of that; is a change of the relationship between the background and the page content, because I moved the layout into a newer version of Word that allows better adjustment capabilities. And so, with those adjustment capabilities I am refining the font presentation on the earlier work to match the improvements made in the later work. This is a consequence of improving the background and checking the page numbering. Also, this improved method of backgrounding also allows easy alterations in that becomes necessary to match the parameters required for the printing press.
That is an important consideration. There are distinct differences between the hard copy and digital versions and a full range of adjustment capabilities must be maintained, including the fact that the size of the e-Storybook, although very close to that of the published hard copy, is different, because of the capability of the most efficient printing parameters.
So there is an update, with some other information. I may continue this later.
AG 🎭🇺🇸
Addendum;
So, I returned to my office the next day (yesterday) only to find that half of the files I was working on were gone. Just not there. So either Works did not actually save them, even though I clearly did save them, as evident by the recent files list, or, as I suspect, the hard disc they were saved in is failing. This is a recurring problem. I bought two arrays as backup and after backing everything up to one of them, poof, the array disappeared from the desktop with all the most recent files. Oh yes, and I bought a new Seagate Backup disc, twice, and twice the new backup discs failed, once before I loaded it up and once with a full collection of my files. Not a backup collection mind you, copies of all my original files, after I transferred them and cleaned out my boot discs, before I could duplicate them, the new Seagate failed. I sent it back to Seagate and they could not revover my files. Just great. I had to rebuild everything over, again, from old files. Years upon years of working and reworking this stuff. No wonder this is, quite literally, driving me crazy. Even when I go to extremes to duplicate and backup, current files still disappear on me. My collection of work files can only be defined as a laberinth. I have gotten to the point where I need to convert to PDF as I go, which poses difficulties when changes are required (like correcting page numbers) well, I'm in the home stretch. Maybe I should burn a set to CD. Duh, why didn't I think of that before? 🙄
