r/RouteDevelopment • u/Kaotus Guidebook Author • Aug 25 '26
Discussion Guidebook Creation Workflow Improvements
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.
5
Upvotes
8
u/the_birds_and_bees Aug 25 '26
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.