One of the most important elements involved in producing a publication of any kind is acquiring content. Photos, articles, reviews, illustrations, stories — they are all critical to the success of each issue. We need you to share with us, and this is how to do it.

First, separate your content. Do not place (or embed) your images within your text for submission to any publication as each publication has its own formatting. Chances are, whatever formatting work you do to make your submission “look professional” will have to be undone before it can be used. Save everyone — including yourself — work by simply doing a good job with the content.

Keep all of your text together in one plain text file. It can be a SimpleText, RTF (generic) text, AppleWorks or Microsoft Word text file. Do everyone a favor and use that useful tool called a spell-checker. After your text passes that hurdle, put the text away for a day. Come back to it with a fresh outlook, re-read it, and make any adjustments. (Note: For short items like announcements, your text can be included in an email. Just use an extra line space to allow simple “copy and paste” for the editor, with plain text.)

Lose the formatting. That means no drop caps, no paragraph indenting (insert an extra line-return between paragraphs), single spaces throughout the text (magazines routinely only use a single space after punctuation), and NEVER type your text with the Caps-Lock active. Use normal capitalization, please! Use fonts that are common and easy to read, set to probably 12 point size.

For your illustrations, remember to include them! While you may have a dazzling way with words, everything reads easier with pictures. Sometimes pictures simplify those mundane technical explanations enough to make your article even more useful and understandable. Often, the artwork accompanying an article is what draws the reader to actually read the text!

Photos and illustrations should be saved as either JPEG or GIF formats. Use JPEG formatting for all photographs and images with continuous tones. Save JPEGs as either RGB color or grayscale, with medium to high quality compression (at least “6” with “10” being no compression at all), resolution set to 72 ppi or higher, and a physical size of at least 800 pixels or six inches wide. (The height is variable, depending upon the image.)

Please note that bigger is better, and your supplied image files will be reduced and optimized by the editor or art director to the standards used by the publication. Again, do not try to do their work for them. Instead, offer them the best material for them to incorporate into the publication.

To place your images within the appropriate section of text, use two line returns after a paragraph. Now insert a line of text like this:

(insert image01.jpg)
(caption: insert the text for the caption of the image here.)

Now use another pair of line returns before continuing with your text. Remember to name your files so they are web-compatible. As a rule, everything in lower case (no capital letters), no spaces, no characters other than alpha-numeric (this means, no hyphens, underscores, commas, periods, etc.) The file name must always include the correct file extension like “.jpg” or “.gif” — the only instance of a period appearing in the file name.

When everything is done, simply put it all in one folder, use a compression utility (like Aladdin Stuffit) to compress the folder into a single archive and email it off to the editor. For the SDMUG’s web edition, that is to webeditor@sdmug.org. Make sure that you include the attachment in your email, refer to the attachment in your email text, and use a subject line that explains your email is a submission to the SDMUG’s web edition. Please include all your contact information in the email so later communication is simplified.

Everyone appreciates the effort you make to ensure the membership has a quality publication. This results from the work of a lot of people, but it starts with you. We need your help, your input and suggestions, and your contributions. If you have any questions or need any assistance in doing this, please send an email to webeditor@sdmug.org.

Thank you!