I got all excited about writing and laying out the instruction booklet for my Tau Zero, but then I lost steam. I've been trying to get myself "undistracted" for the last month and get re-focused on the project. This is turning out to be even worse that my earlier attempts at drawing the TZ's decals.

Then Craig sends Carl an MS Publisher (which I *don't* have) file for his Stryker design, which I'm sure is all nicely laid out.

My problem is I discovered that my old-school analog "cut and paste" method is leaving some HUGE white spaces on the pages, which is apparently the source of my mild depression.

At any rate, i just need to buckle down and Git-R-Done.


Thanks for letting me vent,

__________________
Jay Goemmer
"Centuri Guy"/"Tau Zero"
YORF Member 28
Semroc SAM #0029
NAR 86131


"I think about organizing things all the time. Never seems to happen. I find something that piques my interest and I'm off on a quest. Or a Centuri. "

--Bill Eichelberger, 02/22/2022


“Centuri fret buzz in an updated form.”
Bill “Wallyum” Eichelberger re: Estes Flutter-By
03 Sept 2014

December is a hard month to get "undistracted"...



Keep in mind, the Stryker already had a PDF posted on BARCLONE since about three years ago. The MSPub file borrows a lot from that earlier work...



You'll get there, Jay. It took me a while to get comfortable with Pub, which I'm not fully, yet. I had the advantage with using OpenOffice for so long and being able to instantly convert those pages to PDF. Learning Pub was thus just a sideways movement compared to having to learn it raw.

Try working the sequence backwards, from the last page forward. Add all the stuff you can "lift" from other instruction booklets, like images; then fill in the text gaps with what is specific to your model.

__________________
Craig McGraw

BARCLONE Rocketry -- http://barclone.rocketshoppe.com
BARCLONE Blogsite -- http://barclone.wordpress.com
BARCLONE Forum -- BARCLONE Forum

BARs helping BARs

SAM 0044
AMA 352635

What about Pagemaker or something of that ilk? Sometimes good software makes all the difference in the world.

Carl uses MS Publisher for creating the SEMROC instruction booklets. We're trying to match our output to what he needs to work with. Pub is not really that hard to work with, but like any similar program, it has a learning curve. We're just new at it...

__________________
Craig McGraw

BARCLONE Rocketry -- http://barclone.rocketshoppe.com
BARCLONE Blogsite -- http://barclone.wordpress.com
BARCLONE Forum -- BARCLONE Forum

BARs helping BARs

SAM 0044
AMA 352635

Gotcha. I used to used publishe but sort of fell into PageMaker and the Adobe C2 suite for my stuff office work.

Well if nothing else they come out real nice with whatever you use. They are really easy to follow.

My suite of tools are MS Publisher, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and RockSim. Carl uses Corel Paint Shop Pro and Autodesk 3D Studio Max for his graphics. I've tried to figure out Blender for 3D work, but that program has a stiff learning curve. Being free doesn't equate to being easy-to-learn...

__________________
Craig McGraw

BARCLONE Rocketry -- http://barclone.rocketshoppe.com
BARCLONE Blogsite -- http://barclone.wordpress.com
BARCLONE Forum -- BARCLONE Forum

BARs helping BARs

SAM 0044
AMA 352635

Jay,

Don't get bogged down in the MSPublisher mechanics. Once I have a 3D model entered, I can generate all the illustrations in about 10-15 minutes each. All 50+ illustrations for the Mars Lander only took about two days and they are far more complex.

The toughest, most consuming part of kit instructions is page 2 and page 3, the history and background info. Craig did a good job on that; much better than I would have done. The other part we really need work on is the last pages about prepping and flying.

__________________
Carl McLawhorn
NAR#4717 L2
semroc.com

Mine, Jay's, or both?

__________________
Craig McGraw

BARCLONE Rocketry -- http://barclone.rocketshoppe.com
BARCLONE Blogsite -- http://barclone.wordpress.com
BARCLONE Forum -- BARCLONE Forum

BARs helping BARs

SAM 0044
AMA 352635

OURS! (Semroc's)

__________________
Carl McLawhorn
NAR#4717 L2
semroc.com

I have found the creation of a kit's instructions to be the most demanding and time consuming part of any model's development.

Thoughts about the writing of AeroTech Astrobee-D kit instructions will cause me to brain-lock.

Bob