Knitting and Typography

While lurking on the Ravelry boards, I noticed a common theme among many independent designers, both newbies and professionals… Most of us know a great deal about knitting and whatever our day job is, but we need help making our patterns look professional. While I am certainly not a paragon of virtue in this department, there are some rules of thumb that good patterns follow…

1. Clean type faces.
2. Good use of whitespace. Take it from a fellow knitter, that 1.5 or more spacing between each paragraph (row) isn’t optional. Without it, it’s hard to tell where one row begins and the other ends.
3. Consistent layouts (i.e. column usage is consistent).
4. Photos, diagrams, and charts. If you see a diagram of how your sweater is pieced together in your head, but don’t draw it out to show me what you are thinking… Well, let’s just say that I’m a knitter, not a mind reader.
5. The designer’s name and contact information. I don’t care how you include this, but if I like your pattern, I will come back to you for more. I can’t do that if I don’t have this information. Also, if there is a problem with the pattern, contacting you for clarification is much better than frogging my work. I’d rather have someone ask me a question than stop using my designs because of technical errors.
6. A Technical Editor. I know what you’re thinking, but no matter how good your eyes are or how experienced you are, you wrote the pattern. That means your brain fills in all the missing pieces without you even knowing it. Get another set of eyes…A good set of eyes…Use them…Thank them profusely.

I wish I could say that a technical editor is the most important thing/person on the above list, but as wonderful and intuitive as these fine people are, there is one thing that will make or break your pattern that they have little to no control over…typeface.

Now, I don’t personally subscribe to the notion that there are bad typefaces. However, there are some that are not suited to certain uses. For example, if your main body is written in a script or handwriting font, you either have 20/20 vision and don’t respect those of us who really do need our glasses or you have a sadistic streak and enjoy torturing your readers. Regardless, even if I bought it, don’t expect me to make it. (While I have never purchased one that was like this, let me assure that if I ever do, that will be the one and only sale you make to me. I will not give you more of my hard earned money for something else I cannot read.)

I’m not an expert on graphic design, but even I know presentation is important. Despite the old adage "Don’t judge a book by its cover", we do judge based on appearance. Therefore, I’ve dug through my links and my bookshelf and assembled a collection of resources on typography that I think you will find useful. Out of everything on this list, The Elements of Typographic Style is the resource I use most frequently.

• Articles
  • 13 Excellent Typefaces for Graphic Designers
  • On Choosing Type If you only read one of these links, this is the one to read.
  • Microsoft Typography – Features of TrueType and OpenType
  • 15 Tips to Choose a Good Text Type
  • What is a book font family?"
  • Typography Speaks to Your Readers
  • Common Fonts to All Versions of Windows & Mac Equivalents (Browser Safe Fonts
  • 10 Web Typography Rules Every Designer Should Know
  • The Non-Typographer’s Guide to Practical Typeface Selection
  • Web Typography Cheat Sheet
  • 32 Inspirational Examples of Amazing Layout and Typography
  • 50 Useful Design Tools for Beautiful Web Typography
• Article Collections
  • A List Apart – Topic: Design: Typography If anyone out there is listening at this point, A List Apart is the definitive web design resource. Before finalizing your web design, skim through this site and see if your wonderful navigation idea will confuse the h-e-double hockey sticks out of your readers or not.
• Full Sites
  • i love typography If you have an in-depth question about typography (either print or web), start here.
  • Typies
  • Elements of Typographic Style Applied toe the Web This site’s server is down on a fairly regular basis. If you get an error, look up the site on google and click the cached link.
  • designing {with} typography This site is actually a class on typography. It requires Flash Player 7.
• Useful Books – Check your local library before purchasing!
  • Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst This little jewel has a place of honor on my desk.
  • The Complete Manual of Typography by Jim Felici
  • Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
  • Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design by Timothy Samara

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“Unofficial” Ravelry Tweet Day

Mark your calendars everyone. May 21st is Ravelry Tweet Day. Copy of the Event Posting on Ravelry: "unofficial" Ravelry Tweet Day May 21, 2009 This will hopefully be a worldwide Twitter event, however the Events page made me pick a state and country on order to post this! Maybe those from other places who are interested could re-post under their home state/ country so that we can get as many Ravelers as possible to Tweet Ravelry and knitting on May 21st. Idea- On May 21st, 2009 let’s see if we can get Ravelry and knitting in the “trending topics” on Twitter. event editors: cecilyam

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Upgrading to OpenOffice 3.1

I’m not someone who normally recommends upgrading to the latest/greatest anything. If you want proof, my old Thinkpad still runs Ubuntu 6.04. Before you ask, no, I will not upgrade it. I generally stick with software that was built and tested for my OS. I enjoy experimenting, but I use my computer for work. So I hate nasty surprises, like my program crashing after I’ve written ten pages. However, there are a few programs that I will upgrade and one of those is OpenOffice.

My main desktop is an Ubuntu 8.04. Honestly, I like this operating system and I have everything customized exactly the way I want it and all the necessary drivers installed. Me swap to 9.04? Never… Well, alright if you’ll give me that Asus motherboard I’ve been drooling over and the processor to go with it, I’ll switch when I do the upgrade. Otherwise, it’s not coming near my trusty desktop (a 2.8 ghz Pentium 4 Northwood chipset, which is more than a little gray at the temples).  (Now might be a good time to mention that the motherboard/processor combo is the only original part remaining on my old computer…)

Canonical freezes the programs for their distributions well before the official release date and OpenOffice normally releases its official release a few weeks after Canonical releases the latest Ubuntu. This means that whatever version of OpenOffice was available when they did the freeze is what version of OpenOffice you have on your computer. The moral of this little tidbit… if you want the latest version of OpenOffice, download it from their website.

When I installed OpenOffice 3.0 on my Ubuntu 8.04 back in October, I didn’t think I would upgrade it again until they released version 3.2 in November. Then I saw Sun’s OpenOffice 3.1 announcement and the word "anti-aliasing". (Perhaps I should put that in CAPS…) The more I read about the major graphics improvements and the new collaborative features, the more my brain went into gotta have it mode. So I hopped over to OpenOffice.org and grabbed a copy of the latest version.

Let me say that I am impressed. The interface looks the same, but a quick test of the collaborative features, the new graphics, and the improved grammar check integration (I use LanguageTool’s plugin for this. Like most grammar checkers, it’s not useful for much other than checking spacing.) make this a worthy upgrade.

Before the Upgrade	After the Upgrade
The left rib chart from my Girly Mitts Pattern before the upgrade.	The left rib chart from my Girly Mitts Pattern after the upgrade.

Upgrade How-to

Note: These directions are specific to the Ubuntu linux distribution. They should work equally well for Debian and Debian/Ubuntu derivatives. For Windows, uninstall your previous version of OpenOffice. Download the new version from OpenOffice.org and install it exactly like you would any other program. For Mac, see OpenOffice’s wiki for instructions. RPMs are available from OpenOffice.org in addition to the DEBS. I haven’t tested this under OpenSUSE yet, so I make no promises the RPMS will work. As with any upgrade or program installation, you should backup your files before you do this.

1. Uninstall existing OpenOffice installation. (Even if you just upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04, you should do this.)
   1. Open Synaptic Package Manager (Administration > Synaptic Package Manager). In the search bar, type OpenOffice. Right click on each OpenOffice package and check uninstall. Click Apply.
2. Download OpenOffice from here. (The default download doesn’t always give you the right file type.) Scroll through the list until you find your language in the DEB column. Note: If you aren’t sure if you have a 64-bit or 32-bit system, grab the version from the Linux DEB column. This is the 32-bit version and it will run on both 64-bit and 32-bit systems.
3. Once the compressed file is downloaded, double click it, which will open it with your Archive Manager. Select the folder. Hit extract. Now, select the Desktop as your file location. Under Files, click the button next to All Files. Click extract.
4. Now, open Terminal. (I apologize for this. You know I try to use graphical interfaces whenever possible, but in this case, Terminal will save your sanity.)
5. Navigate to the folder you extracted to your desktop. (The folder name might change from the OOO310_m11_native_packed-4_en-US.9399 used here. If it does, substitute the new name for this one.)
   cd ~/Desktop/OOO310_m11_native_packed-4_en-US.9399/DEBS
   Translation: cd = change the current directory to …. ~ means you are in the logged in user’s home directory…/Desktop/… gets you into the actual folder where the .deb files are located.
6. Install the multitude of .deb packages needed for OpenOffice with one command.
   sudo dpkg -i *.deb
   Translation: sudo = I am the god of this Linux installation and have the authority to install software if I can remember my password… dpkg -i *.deb= Install (-i) all (*) files in the folder (but not the subfolders) ending in .deb (i.e. all .deb files in the DEBS folder) using the Debian package manager (dpkg).
7. Close your terminal. And double click the OOO310_m11_native_packed-4_en-US.9399 folder on your desktop. Go to DEBS/desktop-integration. Double click the .deb file (openoffice.org3.1-debian-menus_3.1-9393_all.deb on my system). This installs the final .deb file with GDebi. Note: The final .deb adds icons to your Applications menu. It isn’t necessary to run OpenOffice, but it is desirable.

Congratulations! You’ve upgraded your OpenOffice. Note: Java was already installed on my system. If you don’t have it, some OpenOffice wizards might not work. If that happens, go back to the page where you downloaded OpenOffice and click on the link that reads "Java and OpenOffice". Alternatively, open Synaptic Package Manager and search for Java to install it. In addition to the standard Ubuntu java installation, my system had sun-java6-bin, sun-java6-jre, and sun-java6-plugin installed. I do a lot of work with alpha and beta Java programs, so I might have installed these for some other reason. I’m just throwing them out there so you know.

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Scrivener for Linux?

Hello, Mac Addicts have I got a deal for you! It’s secure, completely customizable, has lots of programs available… Did I mention free? Yeah, I’m once again hawking the Linux OS. Uh oh, I see you’ve decided that you love your Mac specific programs and are reaching for the back button. Hold on a second because I was once a Mac addict like you.

I do a lot of writing (both here and in my professional life) and the one program I really missed (and I mean “missed” as in got down on my knees and begged the manufacturer to use Cocotron for the next version so I could run it on my Linux) was Scrivener. Just so you know, Scrivener is a very addictive program. Once you use it, it’s really hard to go back to using a “real” word processor because Scrivener is clutter free, organization as you write. Word and Open Office just don’t cut it after that. Did you notice I said was? Yes, I have completely replaced Scrivener and I am very happy with my solution.

After trying every “writing” software trial available for Linux and Windows and still not finding something I liked, I sat back and really thought about how I used Scrivener. What was it about this one program that made it work for me? It came down to three things.

1. The pages were all organized under nodes. Children and grandchildren were grouped under a parent.
2. There was a full screen view that completely eliminated the clutter of the desktop and tool bars. For someone like me, this feature doubled my productivity. Loosing it was almost a deal breaker.
3. Each node was saved in a separate rich text file, meaning if the program crashed or a file was corrupted you still had the bulk of your work. (Writer’s Cafe is a beautiful, well-thought out program except for this one thing.)

After defining it, I realized Scrivner is a desktop wiki with a decent WYSIWYG editor. Please spare me the arguments about how clean wiki syntax is and how easy it is to learn. I will not learn another language just to take notes. End of discussion. (See Wikipedia’s Personal Wiki entry for more information on desktop wikis.) I tried different wikis to no avail and then I tried Zim.

This little jewel was a perfect fit and soon I migrated all my notes for all my different projects into Zim, which saves data as text files with a little wiki markup that you can easily edit with any text editor in a pinch. Zim runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Unfortunately, installing it under Mac isn’t for the faint hearted, so backup your system first and have a little fun.) Zim just works. It does everything I did with Scrivener except write in a full screen view. Since I write most of my outlines in a notebook first and then type them up, I don’t have a problem with using paper while I write or minimizing a screen on occasion so I can go back to Zim. Thus, I have multiple choices for my full screen view.

LyX and OpenOffice both have full screen views. Lotus Symphony has gorgeous tabs and gets the formatting out of my way. I personally love both LyX and Lotus Symphony. (I’m not quite an OpenSource fan girl. I will use and recommend products that aren’t free and aren’t open source. However, they must be well thought out and run on my Ubuntu 8.04 desktop. WINE is permitted.) LyX lets you open up two documents side by side, which is useful if you’re relying on an outline. Lotus Symphony and LyX both use tabs for swapping between documents, making them more user-friendly than OpenOffice. Still, these are all full-blown word processors and I prefer to write now and worry about formatting later. (Of the three, LyX is the only one that renders equations properly. It’s LATEX type setting is hard to beat.)

After experimenting with multiple clones of Write Room, I found TextRoom. Text Room is only full-screen text editor I found that allows rich text. It’s archaically simple and does everything I need without distracting me. (In theory, you can install this on a Mac, but I haven’t tried it and there aren’t Mac specific instructions.)

Scrivener Replacement

Zim + TextRoom = One Happy Writer Enjoy!

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