If you're new to typesetting it can be very overwhelming. But it doesn't have to be. I've recently been asked by several student designers to elaborate a bit more on Typesetting procedures and best practices.

Overview:

• All books should be typeset and gathered using InDesign’s “Book” feature. (No books that contain “chapters” (including Slims and Minis) should be set up as a single flowing document).
• All books should follow a standard “style” labeling schema for both Paragraph and Character styles as detailed below.
• All elements within a document SHOULD be utilizing paragraph styles.
• Master pages should be utilized as much as possible.

Let's face it. Being successful as a designer often means we must be everything to everybody. Need business cards? No problem. Need an event banner? Got it right here. And thus is the life of design. To me, that's the best part. I love learning new techniques, new ideas and new technologies that increase my 'value' as a designer. We've already talked a little about ebooks and the new opportunities emerging for designers in this area.

But, I realized that we can't talk intelligently about ebook design until we really get the basics of book typesetting down. Today we are going to cover frequently asked typesetting questions. Feel free to leave comments below with your own questions about the trade and we will address those as well. What program should I use to typeset a book? To create a professional book typeset you will need to use a page flow software.

Today's show is brought to you by the letter "P".  Enjoy! Smashing Magazine issued a challenge to designers for the new year, and I’m on board! I tried to decide what type of design I’d want to do and could stretch my boundaries as a designer. So in answer to this Challenge, I will be designing and posting a new Bookmark design each day on this blog. The Designs will link to a downloadable file that you can feel free to download, print out and share as desired.