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Outsourcing for DK

Outsourcer Procedures and Workflows

Last modified: November 29, 2024

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This guideline is intended to help our out-of-house designers, editors and illustrators, be technically prepared  to work on DK titles and to ensure accuracy and compatibility of our files.

Technical requirements

Please note that all DK books, covers, endpapers, etc. should be laid out using Adobe InDesign.
To understand how DK books are set up, please read these instructions and ask your DK contact if you have any questions.

The following outlines the system requirements and software version you will need in order to work on DK projects:

  • An Apple Mac running system OS X 11 or above to be able to run the latest Creative Suite. Please go to this website for more information:  https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/indesign/system-requirements.html
  • CC 2024 –  Please ensure that you work with the same version of Creative Cloud  as DK (InDesign 19.x, Photoshop 25.x, Illustrator 28.x) as we cannot accept previous or newer versions of Creative Suite.
  • Designers are likely to need the whole Creative Suite (i.e. InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator).
  • Editors only need to subscribe to InDesign unless they have to do extensive editorial work in our Illustrator files (i.e. for maps). Please see the Adobe website for the different price options available to you. https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/plans.html?promoid=KSPCN
  • Illustrators working in Illustrator will only need to subscribe to Illustrator unless they are asked to also work in InDesign. Please see the Adobe website for the options that might suit you better as downloading all apps may be cheaper. https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/plans.html?promoid=KSPCN
    Please also ensure you follow the instructions from this link when working in Illustrator and download the available DK templates: https://www.dkhandbook.com/?p=278. These templates contain layers crucial to our workflow and if you use a different version of Illustrator to the one DK uses, you could lose those layers. Fixing this would incur extra work and potentially jeopardise our printing schedule.
  • Fuse – This tool which is an integral part of our workflow is available from DK’s Creative Technical Support (CTS) department, who will also provide instructions on how to install it. Fuse gives you access to automation tools to ensure your files are compatible with the preferences and settings used at DK, as well as saving you time. See below for more details; to request Fuse, please email us at fuse@uk.dk.com.
  • Fonts – As a freelancer or packager, DK should be able to set you up with access to our font system. The in-house creative team will organise access to the fonts for you via our font department  Should you have problems accessing or loading fonts, please contact fonts@uk.dk.com directly. Also please ensure that you read our Font usage and best practice guidelines.
  • DK Handbook –  DK Handbook contains detailed guidelines on how DK projects are created:  https://www.dkhandbook.com

When to use our Fuse tools

When you have downloaded our Fuse app as mentioned above, it will work in the background to launch the correct preferences and settings.  You may also need it to perform other tasks such as the ones below:

  • If you have been asked to create presentation work or a template, please run Font Checker to ensure that all the fonts selected are fully licensed.
  • If you have been asked by the in-house creative team to run SourceReport on our files, please ensure you have had training from your creative contact prior to doing so.
  • If you have been asked to PDF our files for print or other, please ensure you ask your Production Editor or CTS contact how to use Exporter, our batch PDFing tool.
  • When working on a title which contains fractions that will need to be converted for americanisation, please make sure you use the Fractionizer tool from the Fuse menu and not the glyphs.
  • If you have been asked by the in-house team to do a word count, please ensure you use the Word Count tool available in Fuse so that the word count is consistent with the way it is done at DK. This link will also help you select the correct options when running Word Count.

There are many other tools within Fuse which may be useful to you: https://www.dkhandbook.com/?p=1359
Before using them and if you are unsure whether they are relevant to any part of your project, please seek advice from your Production Editor or CTS contact.

Please note that Fuse and its associated tools are intended only for DK projects and will only work on Apple Macs. 

Dos and don’ts of working with DK files

As our files will be re-used by our co-edition partners and by ourselves for re-issues, special sales, etc., we need to make sure that they are as technically accurate as possible. Here are a few recommendations to ensure this:

  • As mentioned above, please ensure you are working in the correct version of the software at all times.
  • Please do not ignore error messages when opening DK files, such as colour mismatch, fonts missing etc. If you get an error message, it may be that you are missing something which could result in saving the files with errors.
  • Please make sure your InDesign colour settings are set up correctly for your particular project (i.e. PRH_Colour_Settings_Coated39_PDFx-4 for coated books and PRH_Colour_Settings_Uncoated47_PDFx-4 for uncoated books. https://www.dkhandbook.com/?p=57
  • Please do not substitute fonts within InDesign if you get a “missing font” message and you think you have the correct fonts. It may be that you are using a different version than ours and we will need to address this at the beginning of the project.
  • Do not edit if your fonts are not loaded as you are likely to create overset text which will need to be tidied up later.
  • Please ensure you always use the Paragraph, Character and Object styles supplied with the template/files. Nothing should be modified outside our style sheets (except for tracking but you should check with your designer what is the tracking limit you can use). If you need a particular style which has not been created, please ask the designer to create one (i.e. italics, bolds, etc. should have already been set up as a character style, they should not be manually applied via the InDesign font list).
  • Please use Parent pages (masters) and libraries as supplied with the template when creating your spreads.
  • Do not manually change page numbers. Pagination should be done through the Numbering and Section Options menu in InDesign.
  • As most of our titles are co-editionable, please always ensure you leave enough room for translation.

If you are unsure about any of the above or have any questions, please ask either your DK creative, Production Editor or CTS contact.