Memories of crashes past, Part II
Knowing your software can prevent disaster on deadline
Second of two parts
by Gary Clites
Originally published in the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund's Adviser Update, Spring 2001
One of the most frustrating things about creating publications in the era of full desktop publishing is the constant crashes which seem to accompany the process, especially since the number of such crashes seems to increase the closer you get to deadline. In the last issue, we looked at how memory issues contribute to such crashes. This time, we’ll focus on the way staffs use a few of the most common programs in layout and how software can cause systems to go down just when you need them most. A few changes in the way we use our software can minimize the incidence and impact of crashes on deadline.
The most basic thing to remember when dealing with desktop publishing is that the graphical files we create in the process, both photo files and page layouts, are huge in computer terms. Handling them is the most complex job most computers ever do. One two-page newspaper spread takes up more memory space than literally thousands of text files, and the larger a file is, the likelier it is to overtax your system. Therefore, graphical publishing files are far more prone to create a crash than anything else on most school computers.
A number of good desktop layout programs exist, but most of us in school publishing use PageMaker and Photoshop because of the deep educational price discounts Adobe offers on the software. We’ll focus, therefore, on the Adobe products, though the basic principles discussed here should apply to Quark and other programs as well.
One simple way to lessen crashes is to keep PageMaker files as small as possible. Some staffs, especially those who have only one or two computers available, create a single file to hold a whole issue of their newspaper. By the time the paper is completed, this file is huge. It is much better to create a separate file for each two-page spread. One for pages 1 and 20, another for pages 2 and 3, etc. These smaller files will be much less prone to crash.
Another way to keep PageMaker files small and manageable can be found in the way you handle photos. Every time you “place” a photo or other piece of art on a page in the program, it brings up a dialogue box telling you the size of the graphic you are about to import and asking you whether you want to place a copy of the whole graphic in your file. The natural answer is “yes,” because you want to import the picture. But answering yes causes the program to create a full copy of the graphic in your page file, making the file that much larger. Importing full copies of graphics can make even a two-page spread file ten times larger.
What should you do? Click the “no” box. When you do, rather than copy the whole graphic, the program will create a link to it, and draw a slightly fuzzy copy of the photo on your screen. Don’t worry, when you print the file, PageMaker will link to the photo file and print the highest quality image on the page possible. (To make this work, it is important that you place all graphics for one issue in a photo file with the page files and leave it there.) The net effect of handling photos in this way will be to make files much smaller and, therefore, less prone to disaster.
Another thing that can crash computers a lot during the layout process has to do with the way PageMaker works. If you handle your pages as separate files (as just suggested) you cannot close one page and then instantly open another page. Why not? PageMaker continues to work with the page you are closing for several seconds after you are finished – saving and recording the links to photos, etc. When you try to open another large page file right away, the program cannot handle working with both and crashes. This may account for 90-percent of crashes at deadline. I use Macs, but I know from colleagues that this occurs with PC's as well. The simple fix is to teach staff to wait 10 to 20 seconds after closing one page before opening another. To a lesser extent, the same problem can occur with other programs, so showing a little patience when moving from one file to another can pay off in the long run by saving you a lot of restart time.
The same principle of keeping files as small as possible extends to photos. Most of us shoot our photos digitally these days. The photo files we download, though, are often much larger than necessary for good photo reproduction. The photo files our good Canon digital camera creates are in color and, when downloaded, are almost 18 inches by 14 inches in size. It is important before photos are uploaded for use in layout that they be resized to work most efficiently with the program.
How? In Photoshop, under the “Image” menu, go to the “Image Size” command and fill in the size you’ll likely actually use for the photo. In the same box, you’ll have an opportunity to change the graphic’s resolution (in dots-per-inch or DPI). Contact your printer and find out what resolution they print at and downgrade your photos to that resolution. You gain nothing working with a photo at 600 dpi if your printer prints at 150 dpi. Making the adjustment, however, will shrink your files and lessen the risk of overloading memory when working with it.
If you use Macintosh computers, one major crash creator is that many students, used to exiting PC programs by clicking the little X-box used in Windows applications, leave programs in the Mac by clicking the small dialog box in the upper left corner of the page. This closes the window, but leaves the program and all its sub-routines running. I often find that my students are working on PageMaker – a memory eating program – with Internet Explorer, Photoshop and AppleWorks all running underneath. This creates a massive brain drain on the computer and leads directly to crashes when a memory-intensive PageMaker sub-routine like importing a graphic is executed. Teach your staff to quit programs properly on the Mac, and this will no longer occur.
What else can contribute to crashes? The computer’s system is the software that actually runs the machine. All computer systems slowly break down over time. Be careful to save system disks and, when problems begin to arise on a computer, reinstall the system. This takes 10 to 15 minutes and solves many problems. Beyond that, buy a good utility program like Norton Utilities and install it on all computers. When problems arise, you can diagnose the computer’s system and find and repair the problems. If you don’t have such a program available, reinstalling the system may be your only option.
Over two issues, we’ve covered a lot of problems that can lead to crashes. Knowing what might be the problem can make all the difference. A little preplanning and staff education can go a long way toward making those final hours before deadline a journalistic challenge rather than a technical one.
© Gary Clites, 2001
