Re. Writers and page layout

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

 I'll weigh in on the "don't send it to the DTP people and
 forget about it" side. I've worked with the whole spectrum
 of graphics people, from incompetent to astonishingly
 skillful, and there's one constant: they don't read what
 you've written. No time, no subject expertise, no desire.

 Without reading the text, it's rarely possible to do an
 adequate job of layout, at least not without very clear
 instructions about the function of each component of the
 text. For some jobs, where the format is so standard that
 there's nothing to explain (e.g., many of our current
 scientific reports), you don't have much to explain or
 discuss, but even then, someone (guess who!) has to
 proofread the final design for missing superscripts,
 subscripts, incorrect tab spacing, weird line breaks,
 orphaned hyphens, incorrectly formatted text, etc.

 My most effective designs have always resulted from a close
 collaboration with the page layout folks, in which we
 discussed and compromised on the design. My closest brushes
 with disaster have always come when I lacked the time to
 provide clear instructions and had to fix something (or
 several somethings) at the camera-ready art stage. Stay
 involved to whatever extent is required, right until the
 text goes to press!

 --Geoff Hart    @8^{)}
 geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

 Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
 reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.