Book preparation and typography blog

Raphaël FreemanSep 17, 2026 · 12 min readSep 1712 min read

RENANA TYPESETTING · CLIENT GUIDE When you receive your typeset book, use PDF comments to show me the corrections you want. This guide takes you through the process in Adobe Acrobat Reader, from saving your copy to returning the finished corrections. You can use the free desktop version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. You do not need a paid editing subscription for this workflow. If you prefer a demonstration, the PDF-markup videos are still available. Five essentials Use comments to mark...

Raphaël FreemanApr 24, 2022 · 2 min readApr 24, 20222 min read

instructions on how to mark up pdf for hyphenation

Raphaël FreemanApr 30, 2020 · 8 min readApr 30, 20208 min read

This checklist will help you review a typeset book, whether you are reading the first draft or a later revision. It explains what to check now and what to check after the final page layout is settled. Before balancing: check the text, completeness, formatting and content of the book. Finish any rewriting and agree the wording. After balancing: check the final page layout, page numbers and anything that depends on where material appears. Balancing is the final adjustment of facing pages,...

Raphaël FreemanDec 28, 2018 · 2 min readDec 28, 20182 min read

Optical sizes are designs for different sizes of text. How caption cuts and optical sizing can keep footnotes clear and the page balanced.

Raphaël FreemanDec 21, 2018 · 2 min readDec 21, 20182 min read

Purpose-drawn superiors, inferiors and fraction figures keep small numbers clear and give footnote references the right weight.

Raphaël FreemanOct 28, 2018 · 3 min readOct 28, 20183 min read

True small caps are drawn to work with the surrounding text. How to use them consistently for abbreviations without the thinness of reduced capitals.

Raphaël FreemanMar 25, 2018 · 1 min readMar 25, 20181 min read

However, if the quality of the image is not good enough for press, then the image will be imported as large as possible such that it will be

Raphaël FreemanMar 2, 2018 · 2 min readMar 2, 20182 min read

Why carefully drawn ligatures help letters sit together naturally, and when standard or discretionary combinations suit a book.

Raphaël FreemanFeb 26, 2018 · 3 min readFeb 26, 20183 min read

Choosing old-style or lining figures, and proportional or tabular spacing, to suit running text, capitals and numerical tables.

Raphaël FreemanFeb 2, 2018 · 2 min readFeb 2, 20182 min read

Good kerning starts in the font and is checked on the page. How I combine font editing, scripts and individual adjustments for consistent book typography.

So there was a recent post on InDesign Secrets on how to find Ḥanuka in a document since it is spelt in so many different ways. One of the challenges of typesetting multilingual texts is that often special characters such as the Ḥ in the title above can be used. Not only is the ḥ common, but also ẓ, ṣ, ṭ, ḍ and even ḳ! The video below demonstrates how to create a custom ḥ in the correct font using the IndyFont Pro script. If you have a manuscript that has special typographic characters...

Raphaël FreemanDec 6, 2017 · 1 min readDec 6, 20171 min read

When the manuscript is complete and there are no more corrections, the next stage is the final one of “balancing” the book. This is the process whereby the recto and verso (the right- and left-hand pages in a left-to-right book) of each spread are adjusted to be the same length. The exception is the last page of a chapter, and also when a new section head starts on the recto. This is accomplished by three methods: Shorten or lengthen the spread by up to a line (ensuring that there isn’t more...

Raphaël FreemanSep 29, 2017 · 5 min readSep 29, 20175 min read

History It’s worth taking a step back to see how the process worked not that long ago. You would have typed up your manuscript on a typewriter. The typesetter would then have rekeyed your entire manuscript using specialised hardware or a computer system, changing your typewriter quotes to typographer quotes (or curly quotes), fixing your double hyphens to the correct dashes and so forth. The typesetter would then have printed out the galleys. These were strips of bromide (they were very...

Raphaël FreemanJul 19, 2017 · 1 min readJul 19, 20171 min read

One of the services we offer at Renana Typesetting is printing your book. For trade books, we work exclusively with Old City Press in Jerusalem. Old City Press prints black, full colour, offset and digital. When choosing between offset and digital printing, the economical option depends on the run length and the book’s specifications. There is no universal 500-copy threshold, and digital printing can produce excellent quality. Compare the printer’s quotation and samples for the particular...

Raphaël FreemanApr 12, 2017 · 3 min readApr 12, 20173 min read

A widow is the last line of a paragraph at the top of a page. An orphan is the first line of a paragraph at bottom of a page.

Raphaël FreemanMar 28, 2017 · 3 min readMar 28, 20173 min read

In the above video I show the best way to indicate in your manuscript where pictures and captions need to go and also show you what happens

The change of typeface has improved the situation overall, but it hasn’t addressed the biggest problem – spacing. In picture 3 we have taken

Raphaël FreemanMar 2, 2017 · 3 min readMar 2, 20173 min read

There are various systems in calculating the margins around the page. My favorite is the above. The top and inside ( i ) margin are 1/9 of t

Raphaël FreemanFeb 15, 2017 · 3 min readFeb 15, 20173 min read

In a previous article, The Anatomy of a Book, I discussed the various elements that exist in a book. Essentially the prelims, the body of the book and the end matter. The half-title page, also called a bastard title, normally gives the book’s title without the subtitle or author’s name. It usually comes near the beginning of the prelims, though praise pages may precede it. A second half-title can also appear before the main text. These are not competing definitions of “half-title” (Chicago...

Raphaël FreemanFeb 14, 2017 · 1 min readFeb 14, 20171 min read

For quite some time, I would fiddle with the values until they were just so, but I decided that there must be a better way of doing this. I