Think of all the things you want to say, and separate them into discrete components-- say an index card full of notes. So, you collect a bunch of index cards full of your ideas. Each index card has several components-- all of them optional. First, there's a title for the card, then there's the text printed on it. It can also have clipped to it a picture, and/or a file. The text can optionally be html. The picture can be uploaded at 2 different resolutions (1 for website and 1 for print). The file can be any file including multimedia files and Flash SWF files.
Of course you'll want to be able to organize all of these 'cards' so we've created 'folders' to put them in. Cards can be copied and moved between folders until you've got them organized how you like. These folders are special in a couple of ways. First of all, you can name the folder and optionally write a description on it. You can also create 'virtual folders' which are folders that link to other things. You can find out more about them later, but for now we won't be using any 'virtual folders.'
As you may have guessed, we now need a way to organize the folders. We put them in file drawers. You can put as many cards in a folder as you like and as many folders in a file drawer as you like. This is the basic schema for organizing content. Oh, one last thing. You can also, at any time, place file drawers in a cabinet. This is called 'linking' or 'stitching' and we'll cover it in a later topic.
Items, Sections and Webs
We need to change our vernacular here a bit. Let's call index cards, "Items". Let's call folders, "Sections" and let's call file drawers "Webs." Finally, we can call a file cabinet, or collection of "Webs" a "Website."
Outlining
Back to our word processor, think of creating a basic outline for each chapter you wish to write. If you're writing a small amount, say 20-30 pages, you can consider each chapter a folder or Section. If you're writing more than you may want to consider each chapter a file drawer or Web. For now, let's keep things small and think of chapters as Sections. You should know, if you need to expand later and 'promote' your chapters to Webs, it's easy to do. It may also help for you to think of each Section as a separate web page when rendered using a web template. Though a small few templates can render all sections to one page or create individual pages for each item, the majority of templates render a single html page for each Section.
So, start by writing the Title of the project. Next, in your outline, you'll create all the chapters in your book. If you like, you may also enter a textual description for the chapter (Section Description). Then fill in each chapter with the index cards or Items. For each item, you can (optionally) give it a title, some text, a picture or a file. At this point you may wish to provide a numbering scheme for each chapter (Section) and index card (Items). Remember, each index card can only have a single picture and/or file associated with it.
For Instance:
(Web) How to Build a Tree House
(Section) 1. Introduction
(Section Text) Some Introductory Text for this Section...
(Item) a. Why a tree house?
i. Well, because when I was...
(Item) b. My favorite tree house
i. When I was a kid, my best memory...
ii. (picture)
(Item) c. Getting Started
i. Let's get started now, for interactive files go to URL http://www...
ii. (Link to File)
(Section) 2. Find a Tree
(Item) a. Things you should know about trees.
i. The bigger the better...
(Item) b. (no Item title because we want to insert a picture in the paragraph)
ii. Here is a picture of a great tree to start with. (fig 2) I recommend...
iii. (Picture)
(Section) 3. Create a Design
(Item) a. Guidelines
i. Your design should fit your tree. It should be no larger than...
ii. (Picture of nice design linked to a bigger picture)
(Item) b. Where to get Blueprints
i. Here's a good design. You can download it from...
ii. (Link to web page with files to download)
iii. (Picture of the design)
(Item) c. Other Resources
i. Other designs you may wish to consider...
ii. (Link to links webpage)
There are some things to notice in the outline above. Section 2 Item b has no Item Title. Typically Hemingway templates will create a separation line between items, but if no Item Title is present (the checkbox for Item Title is OFF), then the items will appear to 'run' together better. This is a handy way for adding more than one image and/or file to an apparent item.
Also, Section 3 Item a has an image linked to a larger image. This will display the smaller image on the website and the larger image in the PDF rendering.
Of course, you don't have to be so strict in your outlining. In fact, sometimes it's easier to write your copy, then organize it later, either directly in HemPC, or in your word processor.
You probably want to have files, links and perhaps even videos available on your website and/or CD-ROM. But, you certainly can't embed them in your PDF document or your printed book, so create a Section or two which has only your interactive content. You can also add dynamic forms and comments to these Sections. Later, when we create a PDF document, we will exclude these Sections from being rendered.
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Download this entire Website as a PDF document with indexes.