PRESETS,PRESETS,PRESETS!

 
 
As an artist, some part of me is always rejecting the norm. What can I say, it how creativity works. If you just follow along, you lose your creative edge.
 
On the other hand, I am also aware that some things do make life easier. This is what I have found true of presets.
 
Have you ever used a publishing program and you cannot get rid of this extra space between paragraphs that has become common in magazines?
 
Well, recently I decided to stop re-inventing the wheel and us the log book I created and be more disciplined when formatting my children’s books. I have been doing that with covers however I still was slack about my books. I decided I made the log book; I might as well use it.
 
Already I am happy I have. I can see in it everything including my ISBN info, text styles with leading and even getting rid of that pesky space between paragraphs (highlight text while in text, go into paragraph styles and find spacing. I believe it is in there. It has to do with spaces between or something like that. Just play around with it, you will find it!
 
Also be aware widows and orphans is great in formatting a novel, but not in a small paragraph book with limited space. If it is checked and you forgot about it, it can be very frustrating just as linking to baseline, which can be great or a nightmare depending on how you are spacing within your writing paragraphs.
 
In the end, I have learned to preset everything I can and then write it in my logbook. This way I can physically keep it all straight. Out of my head and on to paper!
 
I mentioned last time about the DPI changing depending on how you bring your images into a document.
 
The easiest and safest way I have found to do it is to make custom presets of the document sizes that work and then in Affinity photo or some other program take it into the preset size and save it.
 
Text styles are also great. Figure out what your size font will be you want, add the kind plus anything else and make a paragraph style which will show up in your text style. You can also go in and update if you find your point size or leading needs to change.  Then, whenever you write, you click on the text style and presto! Everything is all the same each time. I have noticed
 
I cannot seem to find a way to keep the preset in Affinity Publisher so if you decide to start over and do it again in a new book layout (instead of “save as”), the you will need to make new text styles. I have found if you do it on a Master’s page, life will be much easier. Just delete it once the style is made! You can also go into Text in the top and find “delete unused styles” I find I like to get a lot of the ones I don’t use out of the way. Saves time and confusion.
 
In Affinity Photo I also customize my colour swatches. This way I can keep the colour palette used with each book cover or custom image I am doing. In the end, it makes life so much easier!
 
Another issue I have had is accidentally hitting a button that took my tools away. It usually means somehow, I hit a shortcut to” hide tools.”  When I go back to show them again, the tools and all my arrangements have changed so I made presets of my tools also. Makes life so much easier in the long run! There are many tools I don’t need so having a customized two columns tool bar on the left and only those I use all the time on the right really is much better. I haven’t tried yet however if there was a way to customize the names of the tools on the right I would. I always find myself having to think “is that “character” or is it “colour”. I don’t like that!
 
It takes time to watch videos or fool around with presets including simple things like how to name them, but in the end, it does make life easier and work go faster and I recommend it!
 
Good luck and hope things are getting easier.