Hello All, I'm setting the type in a book for the first time and am unfamiliar with the conventions of the process. The author has said that he would like me to set the entire book before the final proof read. As far as I can tell, this is inefficient since changes made as a result of the final proofread could make any manual adjustments I've made to eliminate widows orphans, etc not only redundant, but a pain in the neck to fix. Is this standard procedure? Is there a set of features in InDesign I should know more about to make this sort of thing less labourious?
Yes, this is standard procedure. The proof reader will be looking at line breaks, among other things, so the text has to be "done." If you haven't finalized the text flow, the whole thing would have to be re-proofread for line breaks after edits.
In the old days, only lines after an edit would reflow. With InDesign's paragraph composer, though, lines above an edit can reflow, which proofreaders and editors aren't used to watching out for. Because of this, it's a good idea to mark the page proof manuscript to show which lines have reflowed after edits. Reflow can also cause a problem if the author has to pay by the line for changed lines. They won't want to pay for 24 lines of reflow if they changed onlyone word but InDesign's paragraph composer was able to adjust the whole paragraph for a better look because of that one change. To stop InDesign from reflowing lines above the edit, you can use a soft return at the end of the line above the one you change. (This type of reflow doesn't always happen but I thought I'd mention it.)
You can have InDesign highlight all lines with custom kerning so you can see where they are. That option is in Preferences under Composition, I believe. You can avoid widows and orphans by using the Justification settings for paragraph styles: you can tell InDesign to keep 2 lines at the beginning and end of paragraphs together.
Your questions raise many others: Are you a typesetter by trade? What is your background, your experience, your training? Why are you setting a book—of all things—for the first time if you have never typeset one before? Is your client aware that you have never typeset a book?
I wonder how you managed to find yourself in a situation for which you seem so utterly unqualified. I’m a professional typographer, with nearly thirty years of experience and extensive training on the Linotype. I wish you luck. You’ll need it.
Thank-you for taking the time to type out an answer to my post and also for the quality of your advice. Really appreciated - and soon to be applied. Thanks a lot!