In addition to traditional publishing methods — essentially printed words and illustrations on paper, there are several other ways of presenting information. These include traditional video / film, slides and overhead projections, and the more contemporary on-screen presentations (including CD-ROM), and Internet / intranet sites. Participation by viewers may range from passive to interactive.

Planning
Care equal to that required for a printed publication is necessary for visual output. In additional to style sheets and dummy pages, flow charts may be necessary planning elements. While slides, overhead presentations, and videos and films follow a linear flow, on-screen presentations and Internet / intranet sites usually offer the user different viewing options through hypertext links.

To ensure that a project meets its designed goals, rough sketches of sample screens are needed, along with templates, style sheets, and flow charts to define the flow of information. When developing Internet / intranet sites, the key is links to related information as well as links to return to decision points where the viewer is presented with alternative destinations.

Another major consideration is color, which can be a powerful ally in presenting information or a hindrance. It should complement the message harmoniously without detracting from it. In general, a very limited palette should be employed. “In your face” color, typography, and graphics overwhelm many audiences, particularly when new or unfamiliar information is being presented.

There are five general considerations in planning a visual presentation: (1) overall appearance, (2) typography, (3) graphics / images, (4) audio, and (5) writing, and two issues specific to Internet / intranet and CD-ROM; (6) navigation and (7) interactivity. Special attention must be given to material that will be presented both online and in print to ensure consistency. Although Web sites do not support the same degree of typographical flexibility as print, certain styles should be established — information hierarchy, font styles, color.

Considerations
(1) Overall appearance is determined by the theme of the presentation and the intended audience. Consistency is achieved by adopted a master design and color scheme — usually no more than two or three hues. Slides and overheads usually carry one thought each. Formats — always landscape — must match the projection-screen or monitor. Internet / intranet and CD-ROM pages should seldom scroll horizontally and vertical scrolling should be kept to a minimum.

The simple rules for (2) typography are: Use no more than two or three fonts set in an easy-to-read point size that complements the subject matter. Hyperlinked text should be underlined to indicate that it is a link. To attain maximum readability, use bold and italic for emphasis only, not as body copy.

(3) Graphics / images should have a common design and have colors compatible with the overall scheme. They always should be of the highest quality for the medium, with the added consideration that Web graphics and images should download quickly. Inclusion of animated GIFs and film clips also should follow these rules.

(4) Audio sound bites and music can enhance a presentation and, like graphics, should download quickly if they are included on Web pages. Be sure that music does not mask the spoken word.

To ensure that the message is delivered, (5) writing must be concise, friendly, and easy to understand. Faulty spelling and grammar can ruin a presentation by implying that the facts are also faulty. Be sure information is up to date and correct, including e-mail and snail mail addresses, telephone numbers, and personnel rosters. Remember: Read, revise, rewrite.

(6) Navigation aids are an absolute necessity for Internet / intranet sites and CD-ROMs. These include navigation buttons, word links, drop-down menus, site maps, and image maps. Points to remember include the number of main, sub, and sub-sub screens that spin off the home page. How many mouse clicks does it take to reach them? There should be ample opportunity to return to a given point, escape from a screen, and to move through long text blocks.

Levels of (7) interactivity can range from a button that summons the user’s e-mail or an e-mail form to response and order forms (which may be printed out and mailed or faxed in the case of CD-ROMs), customization or appearance and/or user preferences, and search engines.

A further consideration for Web site design is that it should be appealing and easy to navigate. Pages should download quickly so viewers do not became impatient and leave the site.

(continuation of the article Generating Album Pages with Visio Part 1)

Visio also creates files that a desktop search engine can index. So if I want to find the page with the Scott #200 layout I can just search for it. It makes life a lot easier now that I’ve got over 700 pages in the ‘Library’.

The Visio program itself is an engineering type drawing program more geared to diagrams than a paint or Photoshop alternative. As you can see in the layout below, it comes with the usual drawing grid and guidelines and the tool bars and menu items one expects to see in programs of this sort today.

Visio's Layout Grid.

Visio’s most unique feature is a set of literally hundreds of pre-defined drawing items organized into stencils. The ‘Basic Shapes’ stencil is view is shown. Using a stencil you can drag and drop a particular type of object onto your drawing and then adjust its size, color, line weight, and even add text.

The tabs along the bottom of the screen show the various pages inside the overall drawing file. In this case, the file is the collection of over 40 album pages covering 1900-29 issues. Being able to keep them all together and reorganize at will is very convenient.

The following image shows an album page without the stencil in view and expanded to 200% of printing size. Zooming in on objects and aligning them precisely is a key part of Visio’s appeal, as is its ability to embed pictures and other files generated outside the program.

Magnified Image in Visio.

The dotted line vertical in the right center of the page is an alignment guideline. Visio will let you automatically snap items to the grid itself or to the guideline. You can also glue items to a guideline, and they’ll move if the line moves.

For most of my work, the snap-to-grid method works well, as does Visio’s ability to line up a series of selected objects by clicking on each one and then selecting a shape tool for aligning them.

Reading an article by Martin Richardson got me thinking about my own efforts in creating album pages to display my collections. For some reason, I like having my stamps presented in interesting contexts as opposed to just using the tried and true stock book method. I guess it goes back to my using early Harris and White Ace albums when I was just getting started over 40 years ago.

I’ve tried a couple of the earlier page generation tools and ultimately settled on something I was more familiar with given my college summer job as a draftsman. I used Autodesk’s Autocad a decade back, but its current cost is out of line with hobbyist use. I’ve used QuarkXPress and Adobe Pagemaker for document production, and even gave Microsoft’s PowerPoint a go, but all came up short: too expensive, too hard to use, not enough typography support, etc.

I finally have settled on Microsoft’s Visio — although admittedly still not a cheap answer. An OEM copy of the not-the-latest version is available for less than $200. As Martin pointed out in his article, the graphical interface is essential; you have to see what you are going to get before you waste a print cycle. That’s what Visio gives me.

Sample Album Page Made with Visio.

After some trial and error, I’ve developed an overall approach that uses a general design style, templates, and copying pages to make life simpler. I started off by duplicating the simple format of a Scott US album to allow me to hold items that go back earlier than Scott supplies pages for. That’s worked out fine once I figured out how to deal with pages that weren’t 8 1/2″ x 11″. I’m working on my third album concept now to hold my Palestine Mandate collection.

This is an image of a standard page which is made up of two border elements, a collection title, page heading and text comments with stamp outlines and an explanatory graphic. The fonts and line colors and weights are all copied from one page to another to keep things looking alike.

Page copying may be the only hang up Visio has, in that selecting all page elements and pasting them onto a new page puts them in a “centered” position rather than at their original locations. But I’ve gotten used to doing a “select all” and then dragging them back to a known origin point. On the 10.6″ x 11.7″ size Lighthouse pages that I use, I get lots of room for stamps and images, but it does require me to keep a large format printer handy. I use an HP 9650 printer which easily handles the sheet size. I tell the printer it’s a B4 sheet size, and then adjust the Visio page margins to cope.

Sample Title Page with Images.

I also like Visio for its ability to do some more complex pages and not get into the out-of-capacity problems I’ve seen with anything except high end programs. A cover page example has several high density graphics embedded.

(continuation of this article Generating Album Pages with Visio Part 2)

Reading books and magazines means turning pages, typically in sequential order. If we reference the book or magazine’s Table of Contents (ToC), we often jump directly to a specific section or page, normally based on a page number. Using electronic media, we have greater flexibility in moving between sections or specific pages, based on hyperlinks embedded in the document.

The System
Allowing movement between pages in more than only a linear direction (‘next’ or ‘previous’ page) requires a ‘navigation system’ and that is one of the basic and more noteworthy features of a Digital Philatelic Study (DPS) – see the article Defining Digital Philately.

We should also make our ‘navigation system’ reasonably obvious and most importantly, its functions simple to use. The ‘navigation system’ becomes a constantly visible and available ToC without having to go back to the beginning of the document.

Keeping in mind we want easy access between main ‘Sections’, we’ll use embedded hyperlinks to move from one ‘Section’ to another. The hyperlinks will appear on every page so that movement is always possible using hyperlinks found in the same place each time we need them. Many times, hyperlinks are embedded in the navigation buttons we press on web sites and we don’t even think about the programming beneath the image’s surface.

Linking Sections Together.

Each hyperlink has a single function. Simply put, clicking on the hyperlink takes the viewer to a specific ‘Section’ (or page) in the study. If properly labeled, the destination should be clear – before clicking the hyperlink.

We can also embed hyperlinks within content text or images to move to specific ‘Pages’ or external documents and we’ll use this method of movement as well.

It’s reasonably easy to include hyperlinks and the greater the number, the easier it is to access all sections of the DPS and to relate various pieces of information to other relative data or documents.

Verifying Function
Let’s check how our navigation system works. On individual sheets of paper, make sample pages for each main ‘Section’ (as well as ‘sub-sections’ as desired) of your DPS. Arrange the sheets according to our pyramid layout, see the article Structure and Organization), ‘Title’ at the top, ‘Introduction’ underneath, etc.

Inter-linking Subjects Together.

Each sheet should have a ‘Section’ (or ‘sub-section’) name and the appropriate hyperlinks on it. Pretend to press a hyperlink name on one of the pages.

Done correctly, we should be able to move between any two main ‘Sections’ (or ‘sub-sections’) of the study with a click of the mouse button.

Eureka – it works. Congratulations!! You’ve just created a hyperlinked navigation system.

Body pages are just as easy to create as title pages using Publisher and the techniques we have just described in the article MS Publisher and Title Pages.

First you need to add a few pages. Use the “Insert” feature on the tool bar. A pretty self-explanatory drop down menu appears. Add the number of pages behind the current page.

How ever many pages you add will appear orange tabs near the bottom of the screen. This allows you to move from one page to the next by just clicking on the page tab.

Inserting New Pages

Page two will automatically appear on the screen when you click “OK.”. At this point it will blank. You then begin to add subheadings, captions, and other text and illustrations. Each of these things will go in either a text box or a “picture” box.

Placing the boxes exactly where you want them is made incredibly easy. Notice on the page that there is a horizontal ruler at the top of the work area, and a vertical ruler along the left side of the work area. Your cursor will create a line on each ruler that helps you place text and pictures exactly.

Just keep adding stuff until you get the page the way you want it to look. This finished page shows a pretty complicated layout of stamps, covers, text and a scan showing a die variety.

At the top of the page in the left corner I placed a tw-oline subheading. This was reflected in the plan of the exhibit that appeared on the title page. Below that is a boxed notation in red that highlights an important feature of what is being shown on this page… that the stamp is the first printing of multiple printings that will be exhibited.

Finished Page from Exhibit.

Directly below that is a scan of what the first die looks like, enlarged from the stamp so the viewer can easily see it, and then text below that describes in words what you are looking at.

Then come the stamps, from left to right. First, is actually the reverse of the stamp, so that the viewer can see the aniline ink bleeding to the back of the stamp.

Then there is a corner block, shown to illustrate the line perforations, and finally on the right is a SPECIMEN overprint.

Two covers showing first printing stamps round out this page. Each item has its own text that went into a text box.

Microsoft Publisher has many more features too numerous to mention for this article. I suggest you try it yourself. The current version of Publisher runs on Windows XP or Vista. It requires a 500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher, 256 megabytes (MB) RAM (random access memory) or higher, 1.5 gigabytes on your hard disk, a CD-ROM or DVD drive to load the software, and a video display of 1024 X 768 or higher resolution.

Download a trial version of Publisher or take an online test drive on their website. The purchase price from Microsoft is $170, but you can probably find it cheaper elsewhere. I’ve tried lots of different software to make my exhibits. Publisher works best for me.

(continuation of the article MS Publisher and Title Pages)

Publisher gives you a lot of ways to change the appearance without doing any of the hard work yourself. Publisher has built in color schemes and font schemes. I have found the color schemes to be very useful, and I enjoy playing with the font schemes, but most of the time I have to change the fonts to something more suitable and easily readable in an exhibit.

Still, it is useful to see what the Publisher designers have put together. It will give you a good idea of what font families and color groups work well together. You don’t get this sort of help from many other word processing programs.

Let’s look at the figure below. I’m working on a new exhibit entitled “Terror in the Jungle.” When it grows up it will be a display exhibit of the counterinsurgency by British troops in Malaya in the 1950s. With my title “Terror in the Jungle,” I envisioned the title page to be in “jungle” colors. I really thought I would have to do all the color customization myself, but Publisher offered me a color scheme called “Grove.”

Customizing Formats

I clicked that and the color bars magically changed to three different shades of green. It was perfect. It might seem a big leap going from the figure above to the figure below, but it really only took a couple of minutes. I deleted the picture of the sunset, but that area in the layout was a good place for a philatelic piece.

Jungle colors using the color scheme Grove

Measure Twice – Draw Once

I measured the cover I wanted to go there and then used the mouse to create a box slightly larger than the cover that would eventually be mounted there. A box outline appeared on the page layout where I had put it. I clicked the “lines” box on the tool bar at the top of the screen and then clicked one of the green colors from the built-in color scheme. Pop! My box had a line around it.

Adding Text

I got rid of the big “Heading” word, and created a text box above the horizontal line for the exhibit title. I inserted another text box for the descriptive text about the cover, just below the box outlined in green that I made to accept the cover. A third text box was made for the body text on the page; and finally I made a fourth box for the plan at the lower right. I added a matching green outline around that.

The completed title page is shown above. This sounds really complicated as I write this, but trust me…. it only took a couple of minutes to make the boxes and put them where I wanted them to go. The most difficult part of this entire process was writing the text to go in the boxes, but then isn’t that always the case?

OK, great. Title pages are a cinch. What about body pages? My next entry, Body Pages in Publisher, will cover them.

Identifying and making images an integral part of the digital study requires a few rules as well. In this ongoing series of articles on creating a digital philatelic study, we’ll look at how to make images play nice in our study.

Style
Images will be called ‘figures’  (Figure 1) and have a sequential number associated with them, starting with ’1′ for the first image. Again, keeping things simple, we’ll not use sub-figure details or sub-figure numbers.

Figure 1

Every image should have a caption (description of image), in the typeface and size determined in an earlier article. The exception to the rule might be an image on the title page. I personally like captions centered under images and no wider than the image. Will we have to reword captions to get that length? You bet! Should the caption be compromised due to word length – only if you want incomprehensible descriptions. Short, sweet and to the point is the objective.

Images showing specific details of a philatelic item should be included. As there’s no restriction on image size other than page size, it’s theoretically possible to have an image fill the page. In general, it’s better to have multiple enlarged images, each showing a different detail in a reasonable size. This method is preferred to a single image with multiple details called out which are so small it’s difficult to recognize what’s important.

Images may be in color, grayscale or black and white. Color images display in Red-Green-Blue (RGB) on standard computer screens and personal scanners default to that mode. We’ll stick with RGB as we won’t need this study printed professionally.

Image Resolution
Although I typically scan originals at 800 dpi, image resolution in this study will be 150 dpi. 150 dpi provides some ability to increase the on-screen magnification (zooming in) without breaking the bank for file size.

If resolution is less than 150 dpi, the image quickly becomes blurry as the viewer zooms in for a close-up. 150 dpi also provides better reproduction should viewers decide to print the study.

Incorporating images larger than 150 dpi is possible and produces better quality when zooming in or printing, however the overall file size increases quickly. Large file sizes equal slower loading speeds on the viewer’s computer screen and limits the ability to transfer them via e-mail.

Image Formats
Original images will be saved in a ‘tagged image file format’ (tiff or tif) for everything other than vector line art. The tif format produces better reproduction quality when printing and it can be converted to all other image formats that we may require, ie. ‘joint photographic experts group’ (jpeg or jpg), ‘graphics interchange format’ (gif) or ‘portable network graphics’ (png).

For display on the web, you may wish to use jpg format and that’s fine. Remember however, that jpg is mainly for displaying color photographs with many different colors and shades. It also compresses the image and reduces the final quality although for our purposes, it likely makes little difference in most cases.

The gif format is also frequently used as it is good at displaying line art, single color or multi-color images with few colors and shades, while also maintaining smaller file sizes.

Lastly, png is a newer format similar to jpg and employed occasionally for its ability to include transparency.

Gif image for graphics with few colors

Image format selection really boils down to the type of image you are using and the file size or level of quality you desire.

Image Borders
Images will have a 1 pixel border applied in black on all four sides to provide basic delineation from the page.

Clip Art
Don’t use clip art. Striving for a professional look is completely destroyed by including ‘cute’ cartoons or line art.

Special Effects
Shadows make images or text appear to hover above the page, effectively giving a 3 dimensional look by adding depth. This is a nice accent, but application of it will be limited to graphics.

Jpg image with shadow

No other special effects will be part of this study.

Using these guidelines, all of your images will look similar and the cohesiveness of the study will benefit.

What is Microsoft Publisher? Publisher is software that enables the user to create professional looking publications. It is easy to use (trust me). Publisher has many features you can customize to the way you work, and it is perfect for making stamp exhibits. Best of all, you can try it for free with a trial download from Microsoft.

Why use Publisher for making exhibits? Publisher has ready-made templates that make dandy title pages. You can add your own templates for pages, too. Horizontal and vertical rulers help with text placement. Unlike Microsoft Word, when you place text or an illustration on a page in Publisher, it stays where you put it. All essential Word features are still there, such as spell check, fonts, tables, etc. And they are easier to use.

So let’s look at what we can do with Publisher.

Title Pages

Publisher has a large variety of “canned” templates. One was used to create the title page illustrated below.

Title page for a one frame exhibit.

The author changed the fonts and colors, added a graphic of a POW camp guard tower at the top right and a scan of part of the inside of the POW letter that had been censored.

Title pages can also be made from scratch, without using any of the built-in templates, allowing the exhibitor to design the entire look and feel of the exhibit. Text can be placed anywhere on the page using text boxes. The boxes can be sized and placed precisely. Subheadings, captions above below or to the side of the philatelic material are easy to do.

Text can be placed anywhere with ease.

Scans are easily imported into “picture boxes” that can be resized by dragging handles, and then placed exactly where you want them. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? So how does it work? Let’s look at a few screens when you start up Microsoft Publisher.

This shows a blank page startup of Microsoft Publisher. From here, select “Publications for Print” from the column on the left.

Blank startup page of Microsoft Publisher.

From here, you click “Publications for Print” on the column at the left. This accesses a large selection of pre-formatted designs that can actually make nice title pages. Take your time and peruse them all. Do any of them appeal to you?

Maybe the one you like isn’t perfect for your needs, but it has “good bones.” Not to worry. You can customize any of the choices just the way you want. Do not be fearful to just play with these things. Make a bunch of title pages—even for exhibits you don’t have. Learn by doing. “Trial” and “Error” are both great teachers. That will provide a selection of formats that make great title pages! Look through all of them and find one that you like.

A Selection of Formats.

Click on a page that you like. The blank page on the Publisher screen will transform to the page you have just clicked. Clicking on the pre-formatted design will pop that design where the blank page used to be on the Publisher screen. Now you can begin customizing it to fit your needs.

Customizing Formats.

Once you have selected a page design you want to use for a title page, you can change it to meet your needs. Look at the title page shown in Figure 1. This used the same pre-formatted page shown in Figure 5, but I “tweaked” it.

(continuation of the article MS Publisher and Title Pages 2)

Choosing the right typeface for the digital study is a big step. Remember, we’re developing for a computer screen, so things are a little different than producing printed media. Your viewer should not struggle reading the text. The best typeface is the one that no one notices.

Style
Typeface is important for quick comprehension and in print, a ‘serif’ style is normally used for text in the main body. Serifs are the little flares on letters that make printed documents easier to read – on paper. On screen however, a ‘sans-serif’ typeface (without the little flares) is better as it eliminates much of the serif style’s clutter and results in easier-to-read text. That’s not to say you can’t use a serif typeface for your main body text, the choice remains yours.

Titles, sub-titles and section headers should be differentiated from the main text in style as well as size. In this instance, we’ll use ‘serif’ styles for these elements.

Staying with the clean and simple approach, we’ll restrict the number of typefaces to two; one serif and one sans-serif. (OK, three if you use a special typeface on only the title page.) Our two choices for this exercise will be Georgia for the ‘serif’ style and Verdana for the ‘sans-serif’ style. Why those two you ask?

These two typefaces were developed specifically for display on a computer screen. They are also available on both Windows and Macintosh machines and even print reasonably well.

A plain (regular) style typeface is recommended for main body text. For a title, sub-title or section header, bolding is allowed (don’t feel obligated) and for a rarity statement, an italic style may be used.

We’ll not use any fancy text decoration styles, again keeping the example simple. Underlining text in electronic documents has come to signify a hyperlink, so we’ll not use underlines as text decoration but only to indicate hyperlinks.

Size
Type size is important and normally, printed pages use a 12 ‘point’ size for body text. ‘Points’ (pt) are a printer’s measurement for type size and rather than get into a detailed discussion, let’s simply substitute the computer screen type size measurement of pixels. We’ll use a size 12, but in pixels rather than points for the main body text. Other text elements will be either larger or smaller depending on the item we’re working with.

For the sake of clarity and simplicity, we’ll choose 28px for the title (26px if bolded), 20px for the subtitle, 16px for section heads, 12px for body text and table titles, 10px for table column or row titles, item descriptions or captions, and 8px for footer information.

Table, column and row titles may be bolded and centered.

Individual words in our title, sub-title and section heads will be capitalized.

Rarity descriptions will use an italicized typeface.

Warning text for forgeries and similar information will appear in red.

Footer text will be included, but not prominent.

Formatting text in your digital study.

Text Spacing and Justification
Spacing is also a factor in making text easier to read. Distance between lines is critical in many instances, so we’ll designate a standard distance of 1.25 times the normal distance. That will open the text up and allow it to breathe.

Spacing between sentences in modern electronic documents is different than in older typewritten text. We’ll use a single space between sentences.

White space between paragraphs can also provide a sense of clarity and calmness, so a break between paragraphs will be used in our example.

Our text will be justified to both margins. We could also allow the right margin to fall where it may (ragged right) or make it so the text is aligned on the right (ragged left). Right aligned text makes the text difficult to read so it’s not advisable unless there’s a special circumstance. Your preference is the determining factor in text justification.

The only rule I personally have is to ‘never-ever’ center body text as it becomes unreadable or very confusing at best.

Caption lines of text are distinct and complete pieces of information, so centering will look fine and remain comprehensible when they appear as descriptions under images, tables, etc.

Text length is also a concern and very long passages of text should be avoided if possible. Shorter sentences express ideas quickly without confusion.

Tables
Tables will be called ‘tables’ and be sequentially numbered beginning with 1. Each table may have a title, but each should have a caption.

As tables generally contain data points or compare numbers, they should contain clearly legible and appropriately titled columns and rows.

It’s easier to follow the flow of a table if sections are delineated in some fashion. Lines are simple. Strings of little ducks are not so helpful, so we’ll stick to lined tables.

Following these criteria, our text should be readable.

In page design and layout, we can do many things right, but we can do a lot of things wrong. The viewer will either not notice the layout (we did our job well), or they will feel something is not right. This often results in less comprehension when reading the information or an uncomfortable feeling as they know something’s wrong but can’t put their finger on it.

The First Big Issue

All pages should be laid out in a consistent manner unless the subject demands specific treatment.

To help achieve consistency, avoid too much information on one page. Additionally, horizontal scrolling to view content not in the window is undesirable. Vertical scrolling is fine. Remember the ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ (KISS) theory of design. Some of the items to think about as you’re laying out your study include the following.

Header and Footer Placement

Ensure the viewer knows where they are in the document by including header/footer information. Headers, footers as well as the information (ie. page number) in them, will be located in the same place on every page.

Headers should appear at the top of the page and footers at the bottom. (I realize that might sound strange, but you never know how inventive someone might be in this new medium.) Lastly, allow for margins and white space around text in the header and footer.

Backgrounds

Overall illustrated backgrounds are often used in PowerPoint presentations. Using them can be useful under certain circumstances, but in the main, it’s simply a distraction for the reader. The same logic applies to using textured background patterns.

Therefore, overall illustrated or textured backgrounds should be approached with caution and we highly recommend thinking twice before incorporating them into your study. Maintain the same background (color or graphic) on all pages within sections.

Clean and Simple Layout

Color Schemes

Something to think about when determining a color scheme for your study is coordinating the color with the subject. All subjects have an associated color, so here’s an opportunity to be creative.

Harmony between text, graphics and page colors is a good thing. Subject schemes should match throughout the document and not change from page to page. PowerPoint has a series of built in color schemes we can use.

Black letters on a white sheet of paper are typically what we see in the print world. On a computer screen, black on white is also very common, but it’s quite harsh on the eyes if it’s read for any period of time. One of our goals is we’d like our viewers to view our study comfortably.

One way to minimize glare and retain contrast is to change the shades of the black text and/or white screen slightly. Muting the background color is the quickest way to reduce glare. Rather than pure white, use a light base color. We’ll use a very light gray color for our background.

The same idea goes for type, although that’s a little more difficult to define properly.

We’ll leave the text pure black for this exercise. Black on gray will not tire the eyes as quickly. We may also use red text, but it will be used very sparingly to point out a warning, caution or perhaps rarity information. Otherwise, only one additional color, red, will be used for text.

The Bottom Line
Visualizing what you want your study to look like – and documenting the details before assembling it, will allow you to build it with confidence and ease. Making sure your study is clean and presents your materials and information clearly is a key to ensuring viewers enjoy your work and get the most out of it.

Classic style, formatting and reference publications may be of assistance when building or publishing your digital philatelic reference or study. Three of the best, the The Chicago Manual of Style, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and the Random House Webster’s College Thesaurus will prove essential.

As is often said, but rarely practiced, “Planning is Everything.” In developing a DPS, that quote is an invaluable piece of advice. If suggestions in the preceding articles have borne fruit, you now have a reasonable subject, goal and outline. Our planning process can continue with some basic formatting concepts.

By incorporating this basic set of formatting rules, designed to complement each other from the beginning, your study is much less likely to end up as a non-functional collection of electrons.

Please note: Rather than experimenting and possibly coming to the same conclusions as outlined hereafter, the following criteria are suggested as a starting point for your new DPS. There’s no requirement to follow every detail strictly, or even at all, but points in this portion of our ‘DPS Cookbook’ may save you time in getting your study up and running quicker.

Rules of Engagement

We’ll begin with a guiding principle for our DPS:

• The DPS should be ‘viewed comfortably’ on computer screens (this is what digital is all about).

So, how do our ‘formatting rules’ ensure our DPS is viewed comfortably and available to most everyone regardless of computing platform?

To realize comfortable viewing, our DPS must have consistent presentation.

Consistency quickly provides viewers a feeling of ‘familiarity’ and the document’s ‘ease of use’ factor increases. To develop consistency, we’ll define a common layout, text and graphic styles for headers, paragraphs, etc. for use throughout the study.

Page size and viewing area.

Physical Size

Beginning with a physical format often helps me to ‘see’ what I’m doing. To help you ‘see’ what you’re doing, take a standard sheet of writing paper and turn it horizontal so it’s 11 inches wide by 8.5 inches high.

In general, computer screens are capable of displaying horizontal documents better than vertical documents. We’ll take advantage of that real estate and develop our ‘Formatting Guide’ with this in mind as it’s also a common format for PowerPoint presentations.

I’m going to get a slight bit ‘techie’ here, so please don’t let your eyes glaze over immediately.

Computer screens use a display measurement known as pixels per inch (ppi). You may have also heard the term ‘dots per inch’ (dpi) which is a printing measurement. Although not precise, let’s simplify things and use these terms interchangeably.

Windows computer screens display a standard of 96 dpi and naturally, the larger the screen, the more dots are displayed. To accommodate most everyone’s computer monitor we’ll use a presentation size of 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high. 1024 pixels wide is approximately 10.6 inches wide and 768 pixels is 8 inches high. (Macintosh screens display at 72 dpi. The 1024 x 768 screen equals approximately 14.2 inches wide by 10.6 inches high.)

Page and Screen Size

Thinking in terms of that writing paper we used previously, we see we’re dealing with a screen display roughly the same size as our sheet of writing paper turned sideways – electronically!

Super. Now that we can visualize the screen area we have to work with, we can even sketch some things out by hand or make notes to remind us of what belongs on which page.

Page Margins?

To keep it simple as well as getting the most space out of our computer screen real estate or 1024×768 pixels, we’re not going to use fancy colored or graphic page outlines in our study. They can reduce the available area quite a bit and we need that area for our overall page.

The page margin will be a minimum of 0.5 inches on all sides, ensuring headers and footers are within the main content area. This gives us a working area of roughly 9.5 inches wide and 7 inches high.