1. Keep your formatting minimal
I need to know basic things: what text should be a heading, a footnote, a caption; what text should be italicized; what data should be presented as a table. Any other formatting (changing fonts, spacing etc) will be removed when I apply the Bulletin formats. So make it easier for both of us, and keep your formatting as simple as possible.
2. Don’t use extra spaces, tabs or line-breaks to format your text
One of the first things I do as editor is remove all empty lines, tabs, and extra spaces. This is important for consistent type-setting.
3. Provide your images as separate files with informative names
Images embedded in pdf or doc files are tricky to work with, and often end up with degraded quality. It is much easier for me to process separate files. If you want an image placed at a particular place in the text, indicate this with a tag (e.g., “— figure 1 here —”). Even better, actually refer to the image in your text (e.g. “as shown in Figure 1 …”).
It’s also helpful if the files have descriptive names. “Fig1-stigma.jpg” is easier to keep track of than “DSC-00137.jpg”.
4. Use standard image formats, and send the highest quality image you have
jpg, tif and svg files are the easiest for me to work with. gif and png are also good. pdf is ok if no other alternatives are available. Powerpoint (i.e., ppt) slides are not acceptable – they will not look the same on my computer as they do on yours, and the image quality is too low for clear reproduction.
Send the largest/highest quality version of your images. I can scale them down if necessary. Images below 300 dpi will not reproduce well, and images less than 125 dpi are unusable.
Submissions or Questions
Send your submissions, or your questions, to the CBA Bulletin Executive Editor:
Dr. Erin Zimmerman
cba.abc.bulletin@gmail.com