How do you build your page?

[Bill Wambeke]

Quick question for everybody. When you start building your page, regardless of section, when you place a photo box and cutline, do you have the two grouped together in your library and pull them on the page or do you draw a photo box then draw a cutline box? I prefer grouped, eliminates a step.

[Brady James Jones]

Ours come over out of Saxo together, but they're not 'grouped.' I usually move and size the photo and then move and adjust the cutline box accordingly.

[Tim Frank]

It really depends on how your editorial system works. In general, I'd just ask why make anything two steps that could be one?

[Bill Wambeke]

That's my line of thinking. I changed our Quark libraries a bit ago and grouped together our local and AP cutline boxes with photo boxes and it wasn't well received, nor do I think is even used now. I just want to see what others think.

[James Royal]

People are creatures of habit. It's something that has to be determined by editorial system and your paper's culture. Here, everything has to come from libraries to work right with our system (if it isn't properly tagged, it can't be edited by copy editors). We group our stuff together to make it easier for the most part. They shapes are in the library together but aren't grouped so that they're easier to work with on the page.

[Mohammed Yahaya]

sometimes to be sure of what you are planning with...

[Elizabeth M. Smith]

Since we work in CCI using Layout Champ, it depends on what is in the library. We have photos with cutlines and credits as a shape and just an image shape with no cutline or credit line. I work across newsrooms in McClatchy (Columbia and Myrtle Beach, SC) and each paper is a little different. It all depends on how the shape libraries are created. As far as preference, I like to have a choice of a image box with cutline, an  image box with just a credit line and an image box with nothing. I'm just anal that way. :)

[Stacey Wysong McCray]

Ours come grouped via our Baseview system. I prefer it this way, but many of my colleagues would prefer to lay in their own cutlines separately.

[Bill Wambeke]

Thank you all for your replies. All your responses make me want to ditch Quark quickly. I got to use Indesign at a previous job and long to get back to it or something better so long as it doesn't have a Q in its name.

[Misty S. Brown]

I draw my photo box and pull in the formatted cutline from the library. (InDesign)

[Mohammed Yahaya]

Yeah, but atimes its more assuring following it step-by-step...

[George Treviranus]

I never really cared to group the two. But I'll usually place the photo then create the cutline. Either way it's the same number of steps.

>place photo box + cutline together
>re-place photo inside photo box

vs.

>place photo

>write cutline

Makes no difference to me.