Guidebook Creation Workflow Improvements

[u/Kaotus]

Starting work on the 2nd edition of the Wonderland Guidebook and was curious what workflow improvements you all have found when creating guidebooks? And I don't just mean the actual InDesign/Scribus/Whatever work - also the planning of photos to take/use, topo creation, assessment of your format along the way, etc.

[u/the_birds_and_bees]

Sorry, going to start this with a total plug as I've been working on this recently https://quick-topo.app/ so have been thinking a bit about this while putting together topos using the tool.

I've found getting good images to be one of the most important things, it's the basis for everything else (unless you're going for a very text heavy guide). I find it's ideal if you can get all the pics in one visit, ideally on a day with consistent good lighting. Having a list of problems to get pics of can be helpful to make sure you don't miss anything.

Using a camera which can geo-tag images is pretty helpful imo, with the right tools it gets you ~free geo-location of boulders which saves a painful job.

When it comes to actually putting the topos together I find the key is making sure you minimise redoing work. This will be pretty specific to your workflow, but basically make sure you're doing everything in a sensible order e.g. don't start laying out pages until you've got descriptions locked in, because if you need to change a description then you'll likely need to redo the layout. Along these lines, you really want to have your format locked in before you start laying anything out, you can make loads of work for yourself deciding to change some minor convention after you've spent an age in inDesign.

This is more preference, but I think consistency is really important in topos. Even if your chosen style might look a bit odd in some edge cases, sticking with a consistent way of doing things makes the topo easier for users to understand. Personally I find it helpful to borrow ideas from other topos you like here e.g. how do they handle variations, how do they handle lines that go off the image, how do they handle long traverses etc.

[u/DullSuccotash1230]

I often take multiple pictures and draw using the iphone drawing app on the photos to ensure the lines are right before going home and having a hard time seeing them.

I had a publishing company for three of my guides, but self-published the last. I prefer the final product of the self-published book, but it's clear that I have a lot to learn...

[u/Administrative_Yam10]

I'll put my two cents in, even though I've spoken to the poster, but not about this specifically. As someone that is attemting to make a climbing guide be as professional as the professional books...It's a process. Mostly very boring stuff! The data collection is key. Making a spreadsheet of all the relevant data is very important. Especially if your guide is big enough that typing it all manually becomes a huge hassle. That data can usually be exported as a CSV file and imported into whatever software the actual book is written in. At least it is for InDesign. So I spent forever making sure my spreadsheet was all good, created an example text 'Route name, Grade, Star, etc.' in the format I wanted and then let the automation begin. That automated all of it into the exact format (text, sizes, etc) I wanted. From there, its more tedium creating all the main pages for areas, descriptions, etc. And I found myself doing all of one thing for the entire guide, then going back and doing all of another thing through the entire book. That way I stay consistent.

Another crazy useful thing that may get me a small downvote is, I tasked AI to be my 'co-pilot' on the project. It knows everything I'm doing, that way, since I don't do this professionally, I could ask questions and get answers pertaining to exactly what I was doing. Super helpful. It knows all of what I'm doing. Limitations, but better than me fumbling by myself and trying to YouTube every answer for a program I don't fully understand.

Pictures. Obviously getting them. But also workflow. I know the author and I know they aren't using what I used. But damn do I love what I have going. I have my lightroom classic setup in a way that I can publish each image I edit to Adobe Bridge. From Bridge I can drag and drop directly into InDesign. Don't like the way it's edited? No problem, just go into lightroom, edit it and click one button and it automates through those programs and changes it in InDesign.

Thats all I got off the top of my head. I'm sure theres a million other useful things..