Pioneer Bible Translators
Association of
Papua New Guinea,
Incorporated 

Publication Manual 

Version 3
June 2003 

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Table of Contents 

    1    Process Planning    1 

    1.1    Who needs to approve what so you can publish    1 

    1.2    How many do you print (See also Section 6, page 6)    1 

    1.2.1    Books funded by BSPNG    1 

    1.2.2    Books funded by the translator    1 

    1.3    Where is it going to be printed    1 

    1.3.1    Using a Printery    1 

    1.3.2    In-House Production    1 

    1.4    Quotations    1 

    1.5    Who is going to pay for what    1 

    1.6    How much time do you need to plan for in-town work    1 

    1.6.1    Publishing a New Testament    1 

    1.7    Who is going to do the work    1 

    1.8    How long do you have to wait for the printing    2 

    1.9    When can you plan your dedication    2 

    2    Format    2 

    2.1    Size of the book    2 

    2.2    Page Layout    2 

    2.3    Typesetting    2 

    2.3.1    Type Size    2 

    2.3.2    Typeface    2 

    2.4    Columns    2 

    2.5    Justification    2 

    2.6    Hyphenation    3 

    2.7    Headers / Footnotes / Cross References / Parallel Reference    3 

    2.8    Verse 1    3 

    2.9    Testing layouts    3 

    2.10    Number of pages    4 

    3    Content    4 

    3.1    Cover Considerations    4 

    3.1.1    Color    4 

    3.1.2    Artwork    4 

    3.1.3    Material    4 

    3.1.4    Binding    4 

    3.2    Title Page    4 

    3.3    Verso Page    4 

    3.4    Preamble    4 

    3.5    Text    4 

    3.6    Cross References    5 

    3.7    Pictures    5 

    3.7.1    Permissions    5 

    3.7.2    Consistency of Style    5 

    3.7.3    Aspect Ratio    5 

    3.7.4    Enlargements / Reductions    5 

    3.7.5    Captions    5 

    3.7.6    Placement    5 

    3.7.7    Choosing    6 

    3.7.8    Frames    6 

    3.7.9    Entry in Standard Format    6 

    3.8    Glossary or Dictionary    6 

    3.9    Maps    6 

    3.9.1    Selecting Maps & Getting Permission    6 

    3.9.2    Modifying Text on Maps    6 

    3.9.3    Allowing Time for Modifications    6 

    3.9.4    Testing Map Text    6 

    4    Items that must be checked    6 

    4.1    Responsibility    6 

    4.2    Spelling    6 

    4.3    Chapters / Verses    6 

    4.4    General Punctuation    6 

    4.5    Consistency    6 

    4.5.1    Concordance checking    6 

    4.5.2    Keyword Checking    6 

    4.5.3    Delimiters    6 

    5    The Printing Process    6 

    6    Distribution and Payment    6 

    7    Distribution Table    7 

    8    Preparation Checklists    8 

    8.1    Typesetting a Single Book    8 

    8.2    Typesetting a New Testament    8 

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PBT/PNG Publication Manual 

NOTE:  This manual is directed primarily to major publication projects such as scripture books and whole New Testaments.  We have much more ad hoc methods for casual publications. 

1 

Process Planning 

Please remember that we plan our major publishing projects months in advance. There are many things we have to be thinking about, such as holiday times for staff, other publications, other commitments, the printers’ situation, BSPNG plans, etc., when we plan a year. We suggest that you consult the ADLA as soon as you can, so we can start planning for your publication about a year before you hope to have the printed books available. 

1.1 

Who needs to approve what so you can publish 

The ADLA will oversee the process of approval to publish your book. DP&P does not approve anything concerning the publication of your book. Just what is required to get your book approved to publish is beyond the scope of this document. The approval process is covered in the Translation Manual. 

1.2 

How many do you print (See also Section 6, page 6) 

You can arrive at this number by adding the number of copies you anticipate selling to the number of copies that will otherwise be required. Of these two quantities, the ‘otherwise required’ is easily determined since it is calculated for you according to the type of publication, while the number you expect to sell might be difficult to determine. One determination is whether you will be paying for the printing of the book yourself or if it is being funded by BSPNG. 

1.2.1 

Books funded by BSPNG 

BSPNG’s policy is to ask you to estimate, as close as possible, the number of books you will sell, then if the estimated  number proves to be under the books needed, to ask BSPNG for a reprint.  BSPNG would rather pay for a reprint (at their cost) than to have extra boxes of books that BSPNG has put money into sitting in an office somewhere unsold. 

1.2.2 

Books funded by the translator 

If you are funding the printing, keep in mind that reprints are very expensive. For instance, if you have a thousand printed and three years later you have sold them all and see that you have a demand for two hundred more, you will find it very expensive to have only two or three hundred printed. You would be better off to have 1200 printed to begin with, even if you are left with 200 unsold, rather that having to either pay the high price of the reprints or leave the demand unsatisfied. 

1.3 

Where is it going to be printed 

1.3.1 

Using a Printery 

There are three main considerations affecting the choice of a printer:  (NOTE: this section and the next do not apply to entire New Testaments.  We have no real choices concerning the printer for a New Testament.  BSPNG will get quotes and decide where it is to be printed.) 

• Cost: The final cost of a book is, of course, a primary consideration. If the book is being funded by BSPNG, they will decide, from the potential printers’ quotes, which one to use. If they are not paying, then we can take into consideration other factors. 
• Quality: When we have a choice of printers, we will usually chose the one that provides the best quality, providing the price is not out of line. 
• Control: The matter of control is very important. When we have a choice of printers, we will usually choose the one that provides the most control, providing the price is not out of line. 

When we surrender this control to a distant printer, we have to accept that whatever comes back packed in the boxes is what we have to live with. If we can work with a printer where someone representing us can check on the process, we have a better chance of getting what we specified. 

1.3.2 

In-House Production 

As our equipment capabilities increase, we will be able to do more production work in-house.  At the time this manual was printed we were in the process of purchasing a new printer that can fold and staple books up to 80 pages.  In fact, all that we lack to produce finished books of any size is a method of binding signatures and covers. 

1.4 

Quotations 

DP&P will work with BSPNG to get quotations as soon as the decisions concerning the number of pages, cover style & colors, and binding have been made. If there are quotations close in cost, but varying in quality or control, BSPNG will normally let us choose the printer. 

1.5 

Who is going to pay for what 

There are two factors to consider: (See also Section 6, page 6.) 

• Funding Agency: We normally seek funding from BSPNG for scripture publication.  
• Administrative Distribution copies: For each publication we produce there are requirements for copies that are not destined for eventual sale. Some of these are paid for by the recipients and some are not (translator pays for them). This is a cost of publication that you might not otherwise think of beforehand, so be sure to make a point to find out how many of these administrative copies you’ll have to pay for. (See Distribution Table on page 7.)  Notice that the requirements vary for different types of publications.  These requirements have been set by the administration, so please don’t ask us to make an exception for your publication. 

1.6 

How much time do you need to plan for in-town work 

As we get more and more experience in the publication process, we find that the amount of time that a translation team has to spend in town to help produce the master copy generally becomes shorter. The major factor determining how long it is going to take you in town seems to be how well you are prepared. Reading, understanding, and complying with this manual will go a long way towards reducing your town time. 

Another factor in being prepared is having a ‘clean’ standard format file for us to use. This means understanding and using the format markers the way they were intended. If you have any doubts about your usage, send us a diskette with the first couple of chapters of your book, and we’ll make a test run. It doesn’t have to be finished in terms of what the text actually says (it can be an unchecked translation). We want to know how it formats and looks. This will tell us if you’re using the markers correctly. Be sure to include your picture references. 

We will produce masters and send them back to you, hopefully looking exactly as you expected. If not, this gives us plenty of time to find out what’s wrong and fix it before you find yourself sitting in town waiting for us to come up with an analysis and fix. 

1.6.1 

Publishing a New Testament 

The publication process of an entire New Testament is a different animal than that of publishing single books.  The time it takes to produce a master copy is nearly always underestimated by the translation team; it can take 4 to 6 months. About 75% of the work is pre-typesetting work, and involves the oral read-through of the entire New Testament with co-translators and running tests to check the text, making changes as a result of those tests, then reading through where the changes were made. Just checking quotation marks alone can take a week or two. To save time, some of the tests can be done while you are still in the bush. But during the entire process there are always unexpected problems that come up. If the translator is not in town during the publication process, when questions and problems arise (and they will), the process is slowed down tremendously while the typesetter is waiting for an answer, and very often it cannot be answered without the co-translator being accessible.  

If the translator sets a furlough date before he is actually finished with the publishing process, inevitably a time crunch occurs, with stress to get the work done in time.  Then mistakes are made.  Therefore, the best policy is to plan to typeset the New Testament at the end of a term, but do NOT plan your furlough until after you are completely finished with the project and it is sent off to the printer.  Printing itself can take 4 to 6 months, but you can nearly always count on unexpected problems. Therefore do not plan your dedication until after the books return. 

1.7 

Who is going to do the work 

In most cases, the actual computer work will be done by DP&P staff members. If you want to have page-by-page control over exact  picture placement and other such details, then all work involving typesetting and layout of pages will have to be done with you in attendance. This has an impact on the amount of time you must plan to be in town. 

You may be doing part of the work yourself if: 1. you want to learn how to do it, or 2. there is not sufficient staff time available to do it and you are able to do part of the work yourself. If there is some question as to what parts of the work you may be asked to do yourself, these questions will be answered at the management level (PBT Directors will decide). 

It is our desire to personally check the results with you, as much as possible.  Now that we’ve had a lot of experience, we can work more independently of your detailed input.  If you want to cut down on the time you have to spend in town (or eliminate it), talk to us ahead of time about it.  If you are willing to allow us license concerning exact placement and size of pictures, AND if your file is well prepared (references to chapter/verse for pictures), we will try to typeset it without your assistance.  If you are not willing to accept a LARGE proportion of our decisions and you are worried that you might be asking us to re-size or re-position pictures, please don’t ask us to do the typesetting without your on-the-spot input. 

1.8 

How long do you have to wait for the printing 

We generally allow two to three months for printing when using a printery. (That is if everything goes as planned.) The length of time for printing is mostly beyond our control, except when we do it in-house. 

1.9 

When can you plan your dedication 

The cardinal rule for planning your dedication is: Do not plan a dedication until you have the finished books in hand. This may sound unreasonable, but it isn’t. We have already been caught twice in jams caused by delays in printing. No matter how much effort we put into trying to get the printer to do the job correctly and on time, it is still a process that is essentially beyond our control. Please, don’t put us in this position. 

2 

Format 

At first it may seem that there are many decisions to be made concerning the format of your publication. Yes, there are many decisions that you can make, but there are hardly any that you have to make, considering there are defaults for nearly all of them. 

In fact, if you have all of your picture information in your standard format file, you could hand us the diskette and say “please print this”. That is, if you will agree to live with all of our decisions about picture placement and the use of the our defaults for other style considerations. 

The point is that it is probably easier to try not to micro-manage your publication. Except for the cover of your book, there is really nothing that you must decide about. The defaults, taking your individual language characteristics into consideration, will invariably produce a perfectly acceptable book.  We have observed that sometimes there seems to be an emotional need to retain control of the details down to the quarter inch difference in the size of a picture.  We understand this feeling.  All we are saying is that there is another approach that you may want to consider. 

Having stated that, here are the primary factors of the design of your book: 

2.1 

Size of the book 

The most popular size for scripture publication is A5, which is exactly one half the size of an A4 sheet (split across its short dimension). You probably won’t have much choice as to size, unless you get special permission from BSPNG, if they’re paying for it. If you’re paying for it, you can have whatever you want and can afford. 

2.2 

Page Layout 

The choices are basically tall or wide (See also 3.7.3, page 5.) The tall format is most suitable for  scripture publications. The wide format is more often used for literacy materials. 

Margins are not a subject that there’s really anything to decide about. We just have to make sure we do them in the standard way. The subject of columns is discussed under its own sub-heading. 

2.3 

Typesetting 

The two considerations concerning the basic text (body text) characteristics for your book are the size of the text and the typeface used (sometimes called the font, although this printer’s term is incorrectly used in computer jargon). 

2.3.1 

Type Size 

Generally we have to go with the smallest type size that a person with normal eyesight can comfortably read. This will usually be about 9 to 11 points. (The body text size of this manual is 8 points.)  Teams often request a larger type size so that those with eyesight problems can read the material. If the publication is short, we can usually get away with this, but for more lengthy volumes, the price of the book gets too high and the funding agency will ask for the type size to be reduced to reduce the number of pages. 

When publishing a New Testament, BSPNG asks that you go with 9 to 10 points, but no larger than 11 points. 

If you want to solve the problem of readers with poor eyesight, here are your options. We’ve listed them in the order of what we think is the best choice first: 

• Get eyeglasses at the chemist for those that need them. This is the cheapest option, and has the advantage of allowing better eyesight for other close-up activities 
• Purchase some cheap magnifying glasses and give them (or sell them) to those who need them. You might encourage this by showing how useful they are for starting fires on sunny days. 
• There are magnifying sheets sold as bookmarks. 
• Produce a small number of large print books. This can get pretty expensive, since they have to be done on the copy machine. What we do is to copy the A5 masters on A4 paper and have them bound either with coil binders or at a printery. The resulting print is about 1.4 times as large.
  
  This is text in 11 point type so you can see the size it would be if were enlarged on A4 paper. What we do is to copy the A5 masters on A4 paper and have them bound either with coil binders or at a printer. The resulting print is about 1.4 times as large. 

2.3.2 

Typeface 

The actual shapes of the individual characters that make up a character set are consistent throughout the set. This consistent ‘look’ of a character set is the result of the type designer’s artistic or technical goal. 

There are thousands of typefaces, each designed to satisfy some specific goal (some of them pretty silly). 

The typeface of the body text of this manual is Times New Roman. It is one of the TrueType® fonts that comes with Microsoft Windows®. It is a typeface designed specifically for readability and reproduction. These design goals mesh perfectly with our publishing goals. It is of particular interest to us because SIL provides a stylistically similar typeface called SILCharis which contains all of the special characters we need. Some teams who have recently started programs are shunning the use of non-Roman characters in their orthographies, accepting that a technically perfect orthography is not necessarily the best orthography for the people. (The reason for this is that inclusion of characters such as ‘barred-i’ and ‘eng’ guarantees that the people will never be able to reproduce their language without special technical means that may not be available to them at some point in the future.) An excellent alternative to the ‘barred-i’ is ‘caret-i’ which is present in all fonts. The Times Roman typeface, either the standard Microsoft Times New Roman font (which comes with Windows but does not contain the special characters) or the SILCharis font (which does contain the special characters) is the standard typeface for PBT/PNG publications. 

Sans-serif typefaces (those that do not have the little hooks on the ends of characters and look like THIS) are not suitable for scripture publication. They are often, though not by necessity, used for literacy material, because the shapes are simple. This same simplicity produces character ambiguities that are confusing to beginning readers (i.e., which is a capital I and which is a lower case L - I, l ?). 

2.4 

Columns 

The normal layout is two columns. This makes shorter lines so that the text is easier to read and allows for easier picture layout. The shorter lines are easier to read because the reader finds it easier to keep track of what line he is on. The only time we might consider a single column layout is if the language has extremely long words. With the two column format, a language with long words can produce a situation in which there is only one word on a line. The ultimate bad scene is when everything crashes [a forced hyphenation] because a word is too long to even fit in the full width of the column. 

2.5 

Justification 

The normal justification for most books is full. In other words, the left and right side of the column are both “smooth” (aligned). This is what most people are used to seeing in a professionally produced book. Unfortunately, it is not the easiest to read. Beginning readers find it easier to keep their place in the text if the right margin is “ragged” (unaligned). It is a good example of how we can be torn between what looks right to us (full justification), and what is probably best for our readers (ragged right margin). 

2.6 

Hyphenation 

In our experience, most translators object to hyphenation in the finished texts.  This seems to also be the right approach from the typesetting standpoint. 

Hyphenation in vernacular texts is a very tricky subject and requires a lot of planning, rule making, exception handling, and programming time, since it requires us to build a rule and exception list and then put what are called discretionary hyphens everywhere in the text.  This is difficult and time consuming and makes the source text unreadable by humans. 

So, assuming that hyphenation is not wanted, there are still some issues to consider.  Think about what hyphenation is actually supposed to do.  It is supposed, as nearly as possible, to allow the same number of characters on each line (not an exactly correct statement, we know, but close enough).  The purpose of this is twofold.  It allows us to do full justification, and it allows us to do that without drastically changing the space between words and the spaces between letters within words.  So, hyphenation assists in making nice, neat, even-looking text in full justified columns. 

Now, consider that we probably will not want to use full justification for our texts.  This removes one of the reasons for hyphenation. 

Even with ragged right margins, there still may be combinations of type size, word length and column width that could produce cases where there are very few words that will fit on a line (one word on a line is a disaster, but it is possible that a really long word might not fit in the space allowed for it on a line). 

So, if the language has long words, there might be fewer choices concerning how to print it.  Since column width is the predominant factor, this might force a choice of a one-column page layout.  Type size is also an important factor.  For instance, the book might look fine printed with 9.5 point body text in two columns.  However, going to 11 points might make many lines with only one or two words, therefore forcing a one-column layout. 

Our department will work with you by giving you examples of your text in different layouts so that you can see what is possible and what is not. 

2.7 

Headers / Footnotes / Cross References / Parallel Reference 

The standards that we normally use are as follows: 

• Headers: book name and chapter number at the outside of the top of the page; page number centered at the top of the page and no page footer. 
• Footnotes: inserted at the bottom of the page on which the reference occurs. We use the convention of lettering the footnotes beginning with ‘a’ at the beginning of each new chapter. The convention used in Buk Baibel of an asterisk followed by the reference chapter and verse [ex.  * (15.1) Blah blah blah.] seems unnecessarily complicated for the reader to use. Yes, it’s complete, but it’s not concise. The style of the footnote is a matter of choice. We can put a line above it or not. We can make the line thick or thin and vary the length. The type size of the footnotes can be smaller than the text or the same size. 

TECHNICAL JARGON NOTE:  There is an interesting and unfortunate problem that crops up all the time with footnotes, cross references and pictures. 

It’s called “The Printer’s Paradox.” It can occur when any design element (a footnote, reference of any kind, caption, picture, etc.) takes up some finite amount of space (which it always does) and must be anchored to some specific point in the text (which it always must). The paradox appears when the anchor point occurs near the page boundary (and sometimes even a column boundary). For example: a footnote takes up two lines and the text reference (anchor point) happens to fall somewhere in the bottom two or three lines of the page. So, we place the footnote at the bottom of the page, right? But wait - the footnote takes up space at the bottom of the page, and the anchor point is pushed to the top of the next page. Oh well, we’ll just somehow tell the computer to put the footnote on the next page also. Hey! Now there’s room on the original page for the anchor point and its text, so it flies back to the original page taking its referential text with it, leaving our footnote hanging on the wrong page again. Well - what to do? We have to do what we always do when presented with a situation in which we can’t win honestly - we cheat!. We make a picture a little bigger or a little smaller, or we fudge some extra space above or below a sub-heading or division heading to change the position of the anchor point in relation to the page or column boundary.  The footnote will then fit on the same page with the anchor point (it may be the original page or the next page, according to whether we moved the anchor point backwards or forwards). 

The same thing can easily happen between pictures and text to which they are referenced. You think “this picture goes with that paragraph” and you plunk the picture in. Unfortunately, the paragraph that should make the reader look at the picture flops over to the next page. Cheat again! 

• Cross References: placed on the bottom of the page as footnotes. The style is different from a standard footnote to differentiate further from ordinary footnotes. The text reference is bold, followed by the book name abbreviation and chapter.verse, for example:
  
               15.12 Mt 27.11     16.3 Mk 5.3, Ro 10.13
   
• Parallel References: since they normally are associated with a section heading (\sh), they are printed (usually in italic) below the section heading, centered and on a line by themselves (see Buk Baibel). 

2.8 

Verse 1 

The choices here are: (a) print the figure ‘1’ at the beginning of Chapter 1, Verse 1 or (b) leave it out.  The standard, if there is one, is to put it in.  We just have to know which you want. 

2.9 

Testing layouts 

If you are not sure exactly what you want, you can ask us to supply a few samples of different layouts so that the people can help you to decide.  While it is important to let the indigenous readers become involved in the production of the publication, there are some important things to remember while preparing to do this: 

• There are usually really very few choices.  You don’t want to be producing artificial (unusable or impractical) choices in the form of samples just to have more stuff to show.  If a choice is not usually, by standard practice or other considerations, something that we do, then you should not present it to the people as something they can choose.  They might actually choose it! 
• Remember that you are the expert on the spot, and they are looking to you to provide the technical answers as to WHY this is better than that.  They most likely don’t have the technical (or, more exactly, the techno-cultural) background to make informed decisions about some of these things on their own, so it is not fair to present matters in the form of, “Which looks best to you?” if one or more of the choices is not really something we would normally produce for one reason or another or if the choices are not explained. (Silly, but possible example:  You are a co-translator doing simple data entry on a hand-me-down computer. I hand you two boxes of Anti-Virus software and ask, “Which do you like?”  Because I haven’t explained the technical differences, you choose the bigger box or the heavier box or the yellow box . . .) 
• The main things to remember are (a) to present only real choices, (b) the number of those choices is usually very few, if you’re following our advice, and (c) to make yourself knowledgeable about the reasons for decisions about various design factors, most of which are contained in this document, so that you can explain why they should consider one choice over another from a technical standpoint, rather than making purely subjective choices based on criteria you may not even be thinking about. 

Here is an example of a presentation and explanation of choices.  Take the matter of columns (1 or 2), justification (justified right or ragged right), and hyphenation versus word length.  (NOTE: Keep in mind that this is a hypothetical presentation.  We have included hyphenation as a possibility only as an illustration.  We would normally not consider hyphenation as a real choice.) 

First, it should be explained that a two column layout is usually preferable because it’s easier to read.  A reader can more easily keep track of what line he’s on if the lines are shorter.  OK, so we say we like two columns. 

But in testing two columns, we find many cases in which there are only two or three words on a line.  In a few cases, only one long word will fit on a line.  Obviously, going to one column will solve this, but at the cost of readability, because the lines are getting too long.  Are there any other options? 

Hyphenation is a possibility, if it seems logical to the target readers.  Keep in mind that the hyphenation algorithm can be pretty complicated, must be well thought out, and can, even if carefully designed, have a lot of exceptions.  If we can hyphenate in an acceptable way, we can maintain the two column layout. 

Another thing to consider is that a ragged right margin will help a lot in the case of lines containing two or three words.  The right justification of such a line tends to pull the words and letters apart so that the line looks funny and the reader will stumble. If we leave the right margin ragged, the words, even if there are only two or three, will have their normal inter-letter and inter-word spacing, and will still be easily readable.  The right ragged style has the additional advantage of helping the reader to keep track of what line he’s on, since there is additional ‘clue’ information available from the uneven lengths of the lines. 

If, however, we find more than an extremely rare case where only one word will fit on a line, then we have to either use hyphenation or a single column layout. 

As you can see, there is nothing in the line of thought above that is difficult to explain to an indigenous reader.  Your ability to make such explanations removes the subjectivity from the decision making process and allows the people to keep in mind explanations of why they made the decisions.  Then they can explain their decisions in a similar manner to those who might question them in the future. 

2.10 

Number of pages 

The number of pages is determined by: 

• Size of each page:  This would normally be A5 (one half of an A4 sheet). 
• Size of margins: We don’t normally depart from standard book practice. 
• Size of the type: The range of choice is limited by what’s readable on the low end to what’s affordable on the top end - usually only about a three point spread (9-11), except for shorter books. 
• Number of Pictures:  There are some funding agency factors involved in determining the number of pictures you can have.  Of course, it would be nice if we could see a picture, on the average, anywhere we opened the book (a picture/page ratio of .5 or higher). We can approach this picture density on single New Testament books without making the price objectionable to the funding agency, especially if the pictures are kept a reasonable size. For larger books, such as New Testaments, the picture/page ratio will have to be lower to prevent the book from becoming too expensive. Single books of the Bible can normally have a ratio of about .5 pictures per page (you see a picture, on the average, at any point you open the book).  New Testaments will probably have to range from .17 (one picture for every six pages) to .33 (one picture every three pages) pictures per page to keep the finished book affordable. 
• Size of pictures:  Normally a picture should not cover more that 1/3 of a page, usually about 1/8 to 1/4 of a page.  Good places to sneak in a bigger one are at the beginning of a chapter and at the end of a chapter, to fill in the last space on a page so that the next chapter can start on the top of the following page. Pictures that mark an important event and are “landscape” pictures are good for stretching across the top or bottom of a page occasionally. 

A final consideration which will affect the number of pages is the method of binding.  Because of the way that the book is made of big sheets of paper that are folded several times into a series of little booklets (called signatures) there may be several blank pages at the end of the book.  You have to pay for them whether they have printing on them or not.  We usually calculate the number of blank pages that will remain from an unfilled signature and try to find something useful to put on them.  Usually it will be maps, which require time to prepare.  Just keep this in mind.  It’s helpful if you already have two or three items in mind to put on these otherwise blank pages. 

3 

Content 

3.1 

Cover Considerations 

Whoever said that you can’t judge a book by its cover obviously had something else in mind other than accurately describing human nature.  The simple fact is that we do judge books by their covers, at least at first, just the way we judge people by their appearances, again, at least at first. 

If you care what potential readers think of the book when first seeing the cover, then cover design suddenly becomes very important. 

A very attractive and durable cover doesn’t cost significantly more than a poorly designed, cheap looking one. 

If the attractive cover costs 10% more, and it causes 20% more people to buy it, is that a good deal, considering the time and money you’ve spent over the last ten or fifteen years producing it? 

3.1.1 

Color 

When choosing the cover color, in addition to cultural considerations, you should also consider the matter of dirt.  Some colors look particularly bad with only a bit of handling.  Others will still look good.  We have samples of cover stocks that are available. 

The other color consideration is the number of ink colors used on the cover.  Proper use of shading can produce a very attractive cover with only two colors of ink (the base color of the cover paper adds a third color).  If you look at the cover of the Mbore Luk 2 scripture portion book, you might not at first realize that there are only two colors of ink used.  (You may or may not like the design of the cover, but it was carefully crafted with specific design goals in mind and is stylistically in tune with  the busy-ness that is typical of the art of the Mbore.) 

We can also produce single ink color covers, but it takes very careful design work to produce an attractive cover with only one ink color. 

Four color (full, or ‘natural’ color) covers are also possible. (Teams are free to do this - and even encouraged to do so -  if they want, but they will be required to pay from their own pocket the extra costs above what a “normal” cover would cost.)  We actually produce the separations for these in the computer room.  This is a tricky process, and costs more, because the cover has to go through the press four times (for the Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black inks that make up the printer’s primary colors).  We have done one such cover -  the Ap Ma Luk.  There will undoubtedly be more discussion, both pro and con, of the use of four colors for covers. 

If you are producing a New Testament with a vinyl cover, only one color of ink can be used. 

3.1.2 

Artwork 

Our covers have mostly been a collage of clip art, with some original design elements to make it all fit.  You can choose any cover illustration from the same list that  you used for the text. 

3.1.3 

Material 

You should use a cover stock that is designed for book covers.  Generally speaking, this will be a thick, shiny paper that  resists tearing.  With perfect binding (the kind we most often use), it is mostly the cover that holds the book together. 

3.1.4 

Binding 

For short books, saddle stapling or coil binding is cheaper.  Over a certain size we use perfect binding, which involves making standard sized sections and gluing them to the cover. This is fairly sturdy, even though it doesn’t sound like it would be.  Larger books (more pages) will require a more expensive method of sewing combined with gluing to keep them from falling apart.  The choice of binding is not really much of a choice.  It is more dictated by the number of pages. 

3.2 

Title Page 

The title page has basically the same information as the cover page. If you choose to have a picture on the title page as well as the cover, you need to know which picture you want to use. 

3.3 

Verso Page 

The verso page is the page on the back of the title page.  It contains information about the printing of the book and credits for work done by those other than the publisher.  Most of what is on the verso page is not under your (or our) control, but is assigned to the book by the funding agency or required by publishing conventions or law.  Some publications will require an ISBN number.  If this is the case, the department will provide it. 

3.4 

Preamble 

You might be able to include a preamble in English if it’s appropriate and the funding agency allows it.  This is more appropriate for scripture portions or scripture story books which are shorter, and likely to have copies that are used for promotional purposes.  For a good example of this, see the Mbore Luk 2 scripture portion book. 

3.5 

Text 

Text must be in standard format according to our Scripture Standards Manual.  We can provide empty shells for each book that provide all of the required markers that you will need to fill in the text. 

The single most important point to keep in mind when thinking about publishing your text is it must be all right.  There are points of accuracy that are not normally the translator’s highest concern as he is going through the long process of generating the text, which become more important as the time to publish nears.  For a discussion of these points, see Section 4 - Items That Must Be Checked on page 6. 

When the layout of the text begins, a copy of the original Shoebox file is converted into Ventura Publisher format, and this is the text we use for typesetting. Therefore, you must keep a notebook handy  to write down every change you make to the text, after it has been loaded into Ventura, in order to later revise your original Shoebox file with the same changes.  Or bring your laptop along and revise the Shoebox file at the same time any corrections are made to the Ventura file. Either way, for future use both texts are identical. 

In our experience, we’ve found that it highly probable that you will find some textual errors during the typesetting phase.  It is extremely important that the corrections be also recorded in your source file (a Shoebox database).  Remember that the printed output is not your ‘real’ translation.  Your Shoebox file is.  You’ll want to be sure that any corrections made in the typesetting phase are also made in the Shoebox database so that the two are in agreement. 

3.6 

Cross References 

Cross references are really no work at all to insert, if you use our standard format scripture shells to enter your text.  The cross references are already there.  The cross references appear at the bottom of the page as specially formatted footnotes. 

3.7 

Pictures 

The section on pictures is a bit lengthy.  It will hopefully answer most of the questions we’ve dealt with over the years. 

3.7.1 

Permissions 

Any image that goes into a publication has to have been permitted by someone.  There are generally four kinds of permission. 

• Images you draw:  You’ll probably be asked to sign an artist’s release.  Since most of our publications are actually published by BSPNG (usually in association with PBT), you’ll need to give permission to BSPNG to use your work and list your name on the verso page under credits. 
• Images drawn by a village artist:  We have an Artist’s Release System that is administrated by the ADLA.  We need a release signed by the artist, preferably covering all his images for all of our publications.  He probably should receive at least a token payment for this, even if he says he doesn’t want it.  We don’t want to get into a situation where we have to have a release for each image each time it’s used.  As you are thinking about your images, make sure you are consulting with the ADLA to comply with our policies concerning Artist’s Releases. 
• Images for which we have obtained blanket permission:  We have several image sources for which use we already have permission, and we just have to send copies to the image owner when the book is published. We prefer that you select your pictures from these sources. (These sources are Knowles, Lear, BSPNG, and Wade. We also have blanket permission from the International Children’s Bible, but ONLY to use the cover picture.)  PLEASE NOTE: We do not have blanket permission to use Cook illustrations.  We have had a lot of difficulty getting permission to use them.  We ask that you do not use Cook pictures unless you seek permission on your own and agree not to ask us to publish your book until you have permission in hand. 
• Images for which we must obtain specific permission before the book is printed:  If you plan to use these images, permission must be obtained before we can do the layout.  It is likely that you will be asked to write letters, etc., in order to obtain the permission. 

3.7.2 

Consistency of Style 

It is always better if you choose all of your images from the same artist and the same series.  The finished book will have a more pleasing appearance.  Some of the different styles of artwork available to us definitely do not fit comfortably into the same book.  If you have to select two different styles, make sure you do not plan to put them on facing pages. 

3.7.3 

Aspect Ratio 

This is one aspect of picture choosing that people might not think about until it is time to lay out the page. 

Every picture has an inherent SHAPE that you can envision by placing an imaginary frame around it.  Generally you could describe it as square or tall or wide.  Computer geeks call tall pictures portrait, wide pictures landscape, and square pictures, well, OK . . . square. 

So, you’re at the end of a chapter, where you wanted a picture as a nice visual recapitulation of the last pericope.  You have just enough space across the whole width of the bottom of the page - about two inches high and five inches wide - a nd this nice picture of Jesus on the cross. 

Get the picture?  If we make the ‘tallness’ of the picture fit the ‘tallness’ of the space it won’t be wide enough to look right.  The pictures are different shapes.  The basic shape of the picture cannot be changed. 

Well, actually we can do it.  We just use our software magic (we call it ‘rubber paper’) and stretch the picture out sideways to fit the space.  Unfortunately, it makes Jesus look like a fat man with very long arms — probably not a good idea. 

We can usually still use the picture you want by applying a bit of imagination to the page layout.  In the example above, we would make the columns uneven and place the ‘tall’ picture in the right hand column so that the bottom of it was even with the bottom of the text in the left hand column.  There might be a little space still left at the bottom of the page, but it’s a small price to pay. 

We can also gently massage the shape of a given picture to coax it into a shape slightly different than it would like.  We can usually go up to about 20% change in either the width or height without getting obese or emaciated people. 

3.7.4 

Enlargements / Reductions 

Generally speaking, we can enlarge and reduce pictures as long as we are not talking about the shape of the picture (see Aspect Ratio above). 

What needs to be considered is that most of our pictures are made up of lots of little dots and are not really lines at all.  If we try to enlarge a picture too much, the dots begin to look like floor tiles, and the picture gets ‘bumpy’, ‘chunky’, ‘lumpy’, ‘jumpy’, or ‘jagged.’  Other less technical terms may also be used to describe the appearance of such an overly puffed-up picture, but it remains, nevertheless, ugly.  There’s no way to get around this.  We cannot, no matter how much we would like to, blow up a picture the size of a quarter and make it fit a half a page. 

The converse problem occurs when we try to reduce a picture too much.  The thickness of the lines is reduced proportionally as we reduce the overall size of the picture.  Eventually the lines become thinner than the thinnest line that the laser printer can produce (or thinner that we can see, anyway) and parts of the picture begin to drop out (vanish).  No way to get around this one either. 

Most of the pictures we want to use are now available on CD-ROM.  The quality is actually better that what we can get by scanning them from the catalogs. 

3.7.5 

Captions 

Remember that your pictures need captions, and this is best done in the village so you can check them with the people.  Use the Scripture Standards Manual to find out how to include the captions in your SFM file, using the method shown.  It’s the easiest way to do it. 

Captions that run two lines or less work best. If it takes a lot of caption to explain the picture, then you probably don’t have a picture that really fits the text to which it belongs. The text, not the caption, should describe what is in the picture. 

Remember to include the text reference chapter.verse in your caption (See Buk Baibel). 

3.7.6 

Placement 

(See also Technical Jargon Note on page 3.)  Placing the pictures on each page is usually the final step of preparing your book for publication.  

This process (it used to be called paste-up or pagination) is the most time consuming and potentially irritating part of the pre-printing process.  For various technical reasons it must be done from front to back and each page must be as nearly perfect as is possible before going on to the next page. (At this stage, before ANY placement of pictures, ALL text changes have been made by the translator.) The main reason for this is that any change to the amount of space taken up by a design element on the current page affects the placement of every design element on every page after the current page.  This is pretty heavy when you stop to think about it.  You’ve got 198 pages all nicely laid out and you decide you simply must have a new picture on page 2.  You just seriously messed up the placement of every design element on pages 3 through 198 (or 199, as it may now be).  You now have to go through these pages and re-check everything, moving many things according to the new space requirements. 

3.7.7 

Choosing 

The time to choose your pictures is while you are still in the village so you can get input from your eventual readers.  There is a catch to this, however.  In order to choose your pictures, you need to have the catalog(s) containing them.  The DP&P has only its own copies of these catalogs.  Therefore, we can’t let them out of our hands.  We suggest that you decide from which artist you wish to choose pictures, and then obtain your own copy of the picture catalog for that artist.  Most of them come from BSPNG.  Goods & Supplies sometimes has some of them also.  At any rate, start thinking about pictures early enough so that you can have your own copy of the appropriate catalog in the village.  You’ll be able to use it later for subsequent publications. 

3.7.8 

Frames 

The standard is no picture frames.  There is no particular reason that we know of for not using frames.  It’s up to you. 

3.7.9 

Entry in Standard Format 

Please use the method given in the Scripture Text Standards and Scripture Tools manual for placing references to your pictures in the file. 

3.8 

Glossary or Dictionary 

There is a good example of a glossary in Buk Baibel.  We can just use the glossary with no change to text, or we can indicate by some means that each word, each time it occurs in the main text, can be found in the glossary.  The most common way to do this is by making each word that occurs in the glossary italic.  This works fine, if you’re not using italic for anything else (you shouldn’t be).  If we cannot for some reason use italic, we can mark it in some other way such as a superscripted asterisk* or another symbol that does not intrude on the reader’s attention. 

3.9 

Maps 

It is a good idea to start including maps at the end of your publications from the beginning.  Although there is a bit of work involved in the preparation of the maps, the value to the users certainly makes it worthwhile. 

3.9.1 

Selecting Maps & Getting Permission 

The most common maps we’ve used are those found in Buk Baibel: the two at the back, one in Mark, and five in Acts.  There are countless other sources of maps, none of which we have yet checked to see what we need to do to get permission.  Generally speaking, Christian literature publishers seem inclined to grant permission, so if you see maps you like in another publication, let us know so we can try to get permission to use them. 

3.9.2 

Modifying Text on Maps 

We have scanned the Buk Baibel maps and turned them into bit-mapped image files, erasing all the old captions. We use CorelDraw to put in the new ones. If you are using the Buk Baibel maps, we have them ready for either the translator or DPP to modify the text by typing in the correct names. 

When you are getting ready to publish a book, upon request DPP will send you blank maps to write in appropriate place names. You will need to compare map names with the most recent scripture word list to make sure place names are consistent between maps and scripture text. Discrepencies need to be ironed out when they are village checked (see Testing Map Text below). 

3.9.3 

Allowing Time for Modifications 

The process described above is labor intensive and can take a day or two to get right. 

3.9.4 

Testing Map Text 

You should allow time for us to prepare maps for you for village testing.  In other words, don’t wait till you come to town for publication preparation to decide that you want maps.  The text on your maps needs to be village checked just like any other text.  You need to select your maps and allow us  time to modify them so that you can check them in the village before you come to town for publication preparation. 

4 

Items that must be checked 

After the rigorous checking that you must endure to get this far, you might be forgiven for feeling that there could be nothing left to check.  Since this is the very last chance to make sure everything is right, we want to provide you with as much help as you need to make these final important checks. (It will be standard procedure for most or all of the following tests to be run on all scripture files before being typeset: final word list check, chapters/verses check, punctuation check, and delimiters check. Translators must also check cross references, captions, and footnotes.) 

4.1 

Responsibility 

Though we’ll help as much as possible with tools and training, you have to remember that we can’t read a word of it!  The accuracy of the final copy that goes to the printer is completely your responsibility.  This matter of ultimate responsibility is why we require each page to be literally signed off.  Here is how that works: 

When we agree that the stack of masters is ready to go to the printer, you make a copy of the stack (for which you will not be charged).  Keeping the originals and copies separated so we don’t end up sending the copies to the printer, you sit down with the copy stack and scrutinize and agonize over each page as much as you like, and put your initials at the bottom of each page.  When we agree that the two stacks are the same except for your initials, we deliver the masters to the printer. We keep the signed-off copy as a record of what we sent to the printer. This process gives us all the best shot at discharging our respective responsibilities and feeling good about it. 

4.2 

Spelling 

The matter of vernacular spelling is problematic.  We cannot supply a spell-checking solution.  As far as we know, no automatic method is available (like the spell check in Word).  We can supply word lists or a concordance to help you to find spelling errors. 

4.3 

Chapters / Verses 

We have a program that checks to make sure that all chapters and verses are included in a given book. 

4.4 

General Punctuation 

We can provide a little help in this area in the form of a simple- minded program that finds what it thinks might be sentence terminations and looks for some kind of terminal punctuation.  It would be a good idea to run this, since it is fast.  It is not foolproof, nor can it find all the problems, but it’s better than nothing. 

4.5 

Consistency 

If you have made some error in a consistent way, we can usually come up with a way to correct it throughout your text.  For example, spelling mistakes that are consistent can be changed automatically. 

4.5.1 

Concordance checking 

We can prepare a concordance for you.  Don’t expect to do a concordance of a whole book in the village.  It is just not practical, at least for the bigger ones, given the length of time it takes the computer to generate it and the number of pages that need to be printed (one line for every word in the book). 

4.5.2 

Keyword Checking 

We have a keyword extraction program to help you with this. 

4.5.3 

Delimiters 

Delimiters are characters that are used in pairs to set things apart from other things.  Quotation marks are the most common delimiters, but you may also have parentheses, or others. 

• Quotations:  If your language uses quotation marks, we have a special program that will help you to check that they are all in place and matching correctly as pairs. The program works for both single and double quotes. Please remember that ‘real’ quotation marks must never be used anywhere in scripture files.  We must use the convention of the angle brackets to simulate quote marks (<Sally said, <kiss me!> >)  This is because Word and Windows will always make unpredictable changes to any ‘real’ quotes that are used, no matter how many automatic features you have turned off. 
• Other delimiters: At the same time we’re checking for quotes, we can check for other delimiters — (){}[]. 

5 

The Printing Process 

Once we have the master copy and the initialed back-up master in hand, we send the master copy to the printer. If possible, we will check on the progress of printing and keep you informed. 

6 

Distribution and Payment 

You need the following information to help you to determine how many copies to print. 

The column marked Translator Pays Village Sale Price in the following Distribution table is based on funding by BSPNG.  If the translator is funding the publication himself, then this column is removed and the X is moved to the column titled Translator Pays Invoice Price. 

• If BSPNG is the funding agency, here is how payment is worked out: 

Initially, BSPNG pays the invoice from the printer. Then a check is sent from PBT to BSPNG for the total of the following amounts: 

(A) Number of copies available for village sale times the agreed upon sale price. 

(B) Number of remaining copies times the printer’s invoice price. 

The component parts of amount (B) are charged by internal transfers to the recipients’ accounts or to the translator’s account, as noted in the chart above. 

• If the translator is funding the publication, then the printer’s invoice is paid from the translator’s account, and internal transfers are written to charge any recipients’ accounts for their copies. 
• If a prior agreement is reached at the management level for a disbursement from the Scripture Publication Fund to defray part or all of the cost of publication, then that fund account will pay the portion of the printer’s invoice agreed upon, and the remainder of the printer’s invoice will be charged to the translators account, with charges for other recipients’ copies handled as described in previous paragraph. 
• If another funding scheme is employed, a letter of memorandum describing the scheme will be prepared and distributed to the appropriate individuals and agencies.  This letter should include signatures of any who are financially involved (either as funders or recipients). 

7 

Distribution Table