We have received the text for the articles and reviews for the Overland Journal issue, Spring 2011 and today created the galleys, which are the first round of proofs. InDesign allows us to set up templates, styles, and guides that simplify the consistent creation of galley proofs.

Step one: Character styles

First, I open the template and use the Place shortcut (command d) to grab the file I want. After placing the text in the template, I am ready to begin making changes. Find/Change has become my best friend lately. This allows me to make many changes rapidly. I use it for italics, note numbers, double spaces, ellipses, and many other errors that are common in text and need to be fixed.

Screen shot of Find/change tool

Step two: Paragraph styles

Next, I am ready to use my paragraph styles to change all text into the correct styles. The paragraph styles have already been set up, so all I need to do is click the one I want to use. The styles that we use range from basic, which is used on the majority of the text, to extracts and captions. When setting up the galleys for reviews, there are even more styles than in the articles, including ones for a reviewed book’s title, author, book info, and review author as well.

Screen shot of paragraph styles tool

Finishing up

After completing the basic steps – the ones the computer helps me with, I like to go through and manually check for any errors that catch my eye. Even though the paragraph styles and Find/Change are very efficient, every article is different and might have aspects that aren’t covered by our basic workflow.