ARK Volume 3 :O
So while chatting with a friend who is currently reading through my blog from Post 1 onwards, I realised that I actually have enough ARK (Encyclopaedia of Absolute and Relative Knowledge) posts to compile Volume 3!!! :D Excited much? To date I have 2 completed volumes of digital books (PDF), 1 of which I have fully written out in a Moleskine. Volume 2 has been partly written on Moleskine but it’s on hiatus until holidays when I have time to write.
Volume 1 included articles 001~170 (In The Beginning -> Toxoplasmosis), Volume 2 included articles 171~318 (Failure -> Identity) and Volume 3 will include articles 319~464 (Thirty-Six Stratagems -> Child Prodigy). Go check them out! *nudge*
I thought I’d might share the (arduous but fun) process I go through to produce a volume of ARK. Totally because it’s a part of my life; not at all because I’m procrastinating from study… Anyway, after I’ve written the posts:
(click for full resolution image!)
Step 1: Select a group of posts that will roughly fit in a Moleskine. From Volumes 1 and 2, I know that this is roughly 300kb worth of text files.
Step 2: After I copy those articles into a folder, I rename the titles by taking the numbers out, making a neat, alphabetised list.
Step 3: Make the Word document template. After Volume 1, I just copied the Word file for Volume 1, deleted the contents and changed some details. But when I was making Volume 1, I had to fiddle around with the fine tuning a LOT to get the format right. Made a cool title page, had to choose a font/word spacing/font size that was approximately close to my handwriting… Anyway, after that I start pasting in the articles and underline the titles and stuff. Note the alphabetised chapters :O
Step 4: After all the text has been pasted in, titles underlined, chapters labelled and an index has been made, I start pasting some pictures in! I try to put in an image per 2~4 pages. The images either serve as “eye candy” or visual aids to the posts :)
Step 5: Once all the content is on the Word document (about 240 pages), I start formatting with my super OCD senses… I make sure to minimise blank spaces, rearrange pictures, resize spaces to optimise paragraphing… Oh god, so much OCD!
Once it’s completely formatted and I am happy with it, I save it as a PDF and voila! A new volume of the Encyclopaedia is born~! :D
