Chapter #7 Creating a Bound History - Read this First

Supplementary Information

Here's the Abbreviated Solution

Preparing a family history - Things you should do now.

It will take a little planning and it's not that hard to do. However, do it now or before you go any further with your journal or book. If you don't do it now, it will be harder to do later.

1. Make Several Chapters or Files. Break your writing into sections. Do not make any chapter or sections that contain more than 15 or 20 pages. Why? Later when the text is edited and photos are inserted only 15-20 pages will have to be reformatted instead of 150 pages each time a change is made.

Use file names that start with a zero (0). 0001Chapter - 0002 Chapter - 0003 Chapter. This will cause your chapters to be listed in alphabetical order making it easier to find and work with a chapter. It's easy to insert a chapter by adding a letter to the file name such as 0004a Chapter.The file names will also indicate the correct order for printing the chapters when the book is created.

3. NO Text Formatting. Do not format any of the text in your chapters. Just use a blank line or hit the Return key to make a line break between paragraphs. Text will be formatted after you take your book to the professional desktop publisher.

4. Proof Reading is the Next Step. All interested family members should have read your final draft and made the necessary corrections BEFORE it was taken to the desktop publisher. You will do yourself a big favor if you circulate ONE draft so you will not translate corrections to the final draft and then they all have to read it again after the last set of corrections have been made. So you may need to do two drafts.

Make all the corrections, print it out and then have everyone reread and sign the last draft. This will not make any difference later but it may make it easier if anyone comes back with complaints so that you can remind them that they signed the final draft and show it to them if necessary. Keep the draft for reference and to take to the desktop publisher. It is also helpful to have the draft wire bound or put into a three ring binder.

5. Put Photos in LAST. Note where the photos should be added in the printed draft. Use a red pen or yellow highlighter to make it easy to find and insert photos into the body of the text.

6. Editing the Draft. Work From the Back (last page) to the Front. This tip is worth it's weight in gold! I wish I had figured this out years ago. Why? Just think for a moment. If you start making corrections at the beginning of the book or chapter, everything moves down. As a result, you will not be able to easily find the corrections when you compare the computer draft to the printed draft because all the spacing has moved.The corrections will be located somewhere else in the line or on a different page.

If you start with the last page and work forward (in each chapter), it will not matter that the text will bump down because the corrections will have already been made. Your printed draft containing all the corrections will be easy to follow. However you may still need to check photo locations.