subject: Text and Image Formatting Guidelines for Booklet Design [print this page] Text and Image Formatting Guidelines for Booklet Design
The most important things to format or design in booklet printing are your text and images. If you want a print booklet that is easily understandable and professional looking, you will have to format your color booklets precisely in a certain way. In this guide to booklet printing I will teach you how to format your booklets in that "certain way". Below is a lot of professional text and image formatting guidelines in booklet design. Follow these guides in your layout and you should never go wrong with your text and images.
1. Organize text effectively One of the key guiding principles that should rule your formatting of text content is effective organization. You should not just list down your contents via chapters. They must flow in a logical thought pattern that introduces readers to your custom booklet content with ease and style. Divide your content into chapters and sections for easier reading, and slowly add more detail to your content as you move along those chapters.
Introductions should be done first of course. Establish the framework of the booklet, the key sections people need to go to, the key definitions they need to know and then the benefits that they will get when reading the booklet. Afterwards, go into the meat of your message with all the important details the reader needs to know. Finally, you should add what the readers need to do after reading your custom booklets.
It is good to layout all that content first in that logical pattern so that you can write your text content more effective for booklet printing.
2. Use headings, sections and lists Another good tip when formatting text in color booklets is to always use headings, sections and lists. These formatting devices help chunk or divide information so that people can easily digest the text and remember them. No one wants to read paragraphs and paragraphs of text in booklets that is hard to remember after wards. Most people remember and understand booklets more if they can see headings, sections and lists. So make sure you apply them wherever possible in your content.
3. Write in the best style for your readers For writing content, it is important to always adopt a style that is ideal for your target readers. These target readers usually will have particular preferences, likes and dislikes when it comes to writing style. If you can effectively research what they like, and write in that specific style, your booklets should reach those readers on a deeper level, making it quite effective and powerful as a communication tool. So research what your readers like and write in the best style for them.
4. Use the best high quality images When it comes to images, the main basic guideline is to always use the best high quality ones for booklet printing. No web sourced images here. It is important to always use your own original high resolution images in your booklets to make sure they are clear, clean and appealing. So do not be lazy, try to create your own original high quality images for your color booklets.
5. Scale your images properly Another important guideline for formatting images in booklets is to always remember to scale images properly. In most cases, you will need to shrink your color images a bit to fit some formatting layouts. When this happens, the scaling and image ratios can skew as you change its length and width dimensions. It is always recommended that you scale those images properly so that they do not look distorted once resized. So be careful and use precise scaling tools in your design software to make sure those images look alright.
6. Balance your text and images Balance is important in a booklet layout. Especially on the inside pages, you will want a good balance of text and images in every page. A booklet page that has too much text is boring and daunting, while a page with lots of images will make it look like a full blown gallery. So unless you do want to create an image gallery, it is important for you to balance out your text and image content. 70% text to 30% image is a good ratio for most booklets, but you should vary it a bit depending on the purpose of your booklets.
7. Check and proofread three or more times Finally and perhaps most importantly, you should always check your text and images for errors. Always proofread them three or more times to make sure that there is no mistake in terms of spelling, grammar, color, composition etc. Since booklet printing is irreversible, you have to make sure that everything is perfect before you finally submit that design for printing. So do it three times or more to make sure no error slips pass.
So remember these guidelines in booklet formatting for text and images. They should help in maintaining a good quality of work from you in booklet printing. Good Luck!
