Bob Space

So beware, any friends who live with Mac OS X and who wish to publish on Lulu.com. Lulu.com will not take files made by iWork Pages. Lulu.com will not take PDFs made from iWork Pages (via the print-to-PDF feature OS X feature). Documents made with iWork Pages will need to be changed to PDFs using Adobe Distiller or Acrobat Pro.

Also, if you like to design your own cover (and who doesn’t), it needs to be in an image format (for separate front/back covers) or PDF (if you design the entire cover as a wraparound).

So, I’ve pretty much had to undo all my design work from the revival of this project. No rewriting, thank heavens, but I do have to rebuild the covers so they’re in image formats. And I have to tweak the layout from front to back so the pictures are still as they need to be. Joy.

“Go” for Launch: Model Rocketry Basics is now back on my “active project” list.

Why?

Because someone I admire and respect gave me positive feedback on my rough draft.

So this weekend I’ve reactivated a LuLu account, planned the release to be on the “publisher grade” paper in 5.5″ x 8.5″ digest format, redesigned the front cover, designed the back cover, reformatted the draft document to the smaller page size … and begun the process of editing and re-layout out the book. It’s a much higher page count now — into the 120 range — but it’s a kid- and range box-friendly size, written to be a fast page-turner, and illustrations will actually be easier to lay out in the smaller size. Cost to produce: about the same as the letter-size.

I’m not sure why I feel better about this project. I’m no better at illustration. I still have a long way to go, including taking step-by-step photographs of my next rocket build. But somehow, I can just see the road ahead better now.

Only 15,000 words later, I’m retiring the idea of publishing a guide to basic model rocketry. I can’t bring it the production values it needs, there’s never going to be a market given the availability of free information on the net, and my perspectives on good practice are nothing new.

So, I’m going to capture the unique bits I was bringing and put them into a series of booklets or essays. “Decoding the Model Rocket Safety Code,” for instance, showing how EVERYTHING in model rocketry is captured in the Safety Code. Or “Which Glue Do I Use?” Or “Fin and Dandy.” (Sorry.) And I’ll buy or print some Estes Model Rocketry Technical Manuals for my rocketeers. (The Quest Astra Mini-Manuals are cute, too, but just too small.)

I did finally get an answer from the Special English staff at Voice of America: no, they use no special software tools. Drat.

So it’s off on the road to explore OpenOffice.org, for which I can get a dictionary that corresponds loosely to the guidelines for the Simple English version of Wikipedia: Ogden’s Basic English, plus a few hundred more words to embrace the 1,000 most commonly used English words, plus another few hundred to gather in VoA Special English.

I have a nice blue notebook. In that notebook I have collected information on different forms of “controlled English”. “Controlled English” uses shorter sentences and a much reduced vocabulary. Most controlled English vocabularies are around 1,500 words, and each word is restricted to only one usage and meaning.

So far I have word lists for:
Basic English (the original, by C.K. Ogden)
VoA Special English (developed for radio and EFL learners)
Simplified English/Simplified Technical English (developed in Europe for the global aviation industry)
Specialized English (a variation of VoA Special English)

And I have a “Plain English” writing guide published by the U.S. Government. (You, there in the back, stop laughing.)

I would really, really like to teach one of these to my word processing program. Then I could select the “Simple” dictionary, type all I like … and where I’ve used a word that’s not in my list, it would put up the “misspelled” squiggle. Then I could think of another way to say what I want to say and so make less trouble for the reader.

There are many software packages around to support controlled English. Each costs many thousands of dollars. Yes, thousands. Yes, many. Unfortunately I am not an airline or a defense contractor.

The Basic English Institute has produced dictionary and thesaurus plug-ins for OpenOffice. But the thought of having another office application on my computer makes me cry. I may have no choice.