Adobe @Quarkxpress
As a seasoned Book designer, I cannot believe that 30 years plus since the DTP revolution publishing Designers are still served so poorly by Software Vendors! To date there is still no solution from the likes of Adobe and Quark that saves designers are artworks time when changing spines, in fact, the only really easy solution “CoverBuilder” available through the Creative Cloud Assets tab, causes real headaches for printers as the file should be on one page, this system uses the variable page size feature to build a book via 3 pages, back spine front, where the spine changes to suit. The only product out there that I have found to be reliable is my the wonderful Dan Rodney https://www.danrodney.com/scripts/makebookjacket.html This product should be sold with every CC subscription in future by way of apology! If anyone from either company reads this contact me and I would be happy to explain the exact nature of the problem, and for instance how the CS6 version of Indesign actually broke complete work flows! It’s about time this relatively simple problem was solved once and for all! Adobe need to add some sort of Cover spine functionality into Photoshop! Think about how much productivity is lost world wide to publishing, on average publishers probably publish 300 books a year, in my experience, it’s very rare to get any more than 25% of spines accurate at artwork and proofing stage. So that leaves at least 225 covers a year that need a spine change, on average each spine takes an hour to change so that is 225 hours per publisher lost each year! On top of that, there are reprints which often have spine changes due to lighter paper being used, this can add a further 100 artworks a year! That’s over 40 days per publisher per year that’s an appalling number of days lost to software that simply doesn't provide a simple way to adjust spines!
So this is a cry out to every publishing house, start complaining, people like me can only do so much! These software houses will never listen to me, I am happy to help them, it would make everybody’s life easier! Including mine!
