Experience on DTP project management

Recently, I am responsible for a long-term DTP project. At the beginning, the job seems very difficult for me and I even don’t know where should I begin with for that project. After dealing with some of them, now I am feeling much familiar with it. And Here I would like to show my experience with it:

Firstly, keeping calm when job come. Analyze the requirements for the client, and know what they want you do.

2: Collect all the files and listed them clearly in different folders;

3: List the requirement from client and explain them to DTP engineer in a simple but correct way.

4: Show all the files to DTP Engineer. Actually they are the expert and they know how to perform the job once you explained the requirements from client clearly.

The workflow to deal with the DTP in word files:

1: Read carefully on the requirement of client and collect the files;

2: Check the sets of files for DTP and see if something is missing;

3: Send the files and Requirement to DTP engineer;

4: If something unclear, be confirm with DTP engineer first, if the problem can not solved, then have a further confirm with client;

5: Then job could start once every query is sure.

6: When the job is done by different team, to keep consistency, you should send the job to one first; and then sent their finished files to the other person for reference.

7: It is inevitable to met the missing texts, you should ask the DTP engineer collect them into a separate word file with bilingual texts.

The QA key points after DTP:

The GENERAL DTP QA GUIDELINES are introduced below:

General Layout:

  • Page size
  • Margins
  • Colors
  • Headers and Footers

Pagination:

  • Consecutive
  • Page Position (start at an odd or even side)
  • Avoid ugly page breaks (widow/orphan lines)

Text:

  • Same fonts as in the source (except for non Latin Script languages, e.g. Central European, Turkish, Cyrillic, etc.)
  • Font size, type and weight
  • Excessive kerning/line spacing
  • All fonts must be correctly embedded in the PDF

Images:

  • Quality (resolution, color, etc. at random check)
  • Texts are localized
  • Callouts, arrows, lines and text boxes in the right position

Table of Contents (TOC):

  • Entries are not broken, but they are correct and aligned
  • Check links work correctly (at random check)

Index:

  • Entries are not broken, but they are correct and aligned
  • Check links work correctly (at random check)

Do not hyphenate product names or trademarks (at random check)

Buttons and symbols should not overlap with the text

Check bookmarks and links are correct and equal in quantity (at random check)

And finally, do not forget to check through the requirement from client. For example, the Font, the layout, the file name and etc.

When everything is ok, the final files (PDF and Word) could be delivered to client.