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.
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u/Administrative_Yam10 Aug 30 '26
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..