Anybody currently on/was on the school yearbook staff?

[maestro55]

So here is a good question. I know we have a lot of high schoolers here, aswell as college students. Are any of your currently on the yearbook staff? We just switched to computers at my school to design the yearbook, and sadly we are using the Dells, because the Business teacher teaches business computing and her lab is the PC lab. Our yearbook representative that is getting us set-up with the software is also a PC person. However, that is besides the point. We are using Adobe InDesign CS2, and it is a nice program. I am certainly looking forward to working on my pages on the computer, rather than having to draw everything out that I did last year.

This is my second year on the staff, and this year I am the Business Manager for the yearbook staff. I kind of wanted to be an editor, but really last year I did a lot of the stuff that the Business Manager does, and so I got that position. I am really passionate about the yearbook staff, and I have even considered getting a degree in journalism rather than going into computer networking, but I always find a reason why I would enjoy networking more.

So for those currently on a yearbook staff. Do you do the yearbook on a computer? What software do you use? What computer platform do you run the software on? For those who used to be on the staff, was it recent enough to use computers? What software did you run? What computer platform did you use?

 

[2nyRiggz]

nope i was an outsider in school....they forced me to take a photo for the book.

Bless

 

[Laser47]

im not on the yearbook staff at my school, but i know they use emacs. The rest of the school is dells, except for this one teacher who keeps all the macs the school wanted to throw away in his room to save them(g3 imacs, the origninal macintosh, performas, quadras, centris's....Too bad I dont know the teacher.

 

[semicharmed]

I edited my HS yearbook. Three year old Compaq and the "extended demo" version of Photoshop 7 and then CS.
We didn't have a dedicated computer lab or setup. A bunch of sections were laid out by hand and pages done by other people were done on everything from PrintShop to MS Word.

 

[maestro55]

nope i was an outsider in school....they forced me to take a photo for the book.

Bless

Generally I used to fit this description, except for band and UIL (Academics) I didn't do anything else, but last year I got on the yearbook staff. I did this because the advisor and I had become good friends the previous year, and I had spent a lot of time helping her with her computers, I really enjoyed visiting with her. The following year I got on the staff. It was a very very fun year. She retired after over 20 years of faitful service to our school, and we now have a new advisor, and have switched to computers. Anyhow, compared to some others at my school, I am an outsider.

I edited my HS yearbook. Three year old Compaq and the "extended demo" version of Photoshop 7 and then CS.
We didn't have a dedicated computer lab or setup. A bunch of sections were laid out by hand and pages done by other people were done on everything from PrintShop to MS Word.

It is fortunate that the yearbook advisor is also the business teacher, she has two classrooms. One classroom is used for her accounting class, and when we need room to work. Also the way the tables are in there we can have roundtable discussions on yearbook business. It is just nice to be able to have two rooms and spread out. The computer room is used for most of the stuff, and that is where she has her business computer classes. So we get a lot of work done.

 

[joker2]

I was on two different yearbook staffs my last two years in HS ('93-'95) and in each case we had a few dedicated machines (that were shared with the Newspaper or Literary magazine staffs).

'93-'94 I went into an established operation (an LC, 2 SEs and 2 SE/30s with a LaserWriter Plus and LaserWriter IIg) that was using (then Aldus, which was bought by Adobe, IIRC) Pagemaker 4.2 and (Aldus, later bought by Macromedia?) Freehand 3.1. I was 2nd of 3 "Computer Staff" and would have been "Computer Editor" the next year had my dad not been transferred halfway across the country... (and yes, we had a few nearly all-nighters, but were never over deadline!) The computer room was a former office, which opened up into what could only be called a former shop classroom that then housed some desks and large tables where we could spread out proofs. The writers used the business lab down the hall and submitted their text files on floppies. I hear a couple years after I left, the computers were updated and the writers got the old ones put out in the main room with the large tables. The advisor was the journalism teacher, and there was a regular classroom that attached to the proof room as well, so that was used for our meetings when class started. (Last period of the day, and we generally worked well into the afternoon)

I had learned the methods of doing things by hand as well as on the computers during that first year with my old school, which was fortunate, as the school I was going to was transitioning to computers that year ('94-'95). The publishing reps were originally resigned to having a hybrid book until I showed up that summer... We got first one, then a second LC575 (all-in-one) with Pagemaker 5.0 (and a current LaserWriter, I forget which model) both on rolling carts that were stored away when the yearbook/magazine staff was not working on them -- we used regular classrooms. I was bequeathed the title "Computer Guru" A few late-night deadlines later (and we weren't over-deadline either!) I had also trained the next two classes' worth of people (the future editors) how to make the program jump through hoops for them.

We had the means to actually place the pictures in the program in both schools, but each of the publishers (Walsworth & Jostens) wanted to put those in themselves from the prints/negatives, so we sent in the marked crops instead of scanning them in and placing on the page itself. I don't know if this has changed, and frankly it worked alright as it was. Had a couple of picture swaps that we didn't catch when the proofs came back, but other than that, it was a great set of experiences, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Each yearbook won some awards in their respective regional competitions!

 

[jdechko]

I was on the yearbook staff one year when I was in HS. It was really neat because there were so few people in the class (yes, yearbook was an elective), so everyone got to do a little bit of everything. We had to all take pictures as well as put pages together. We used Adobe Pagemaker for our yearbook. Most people just played the Descent 2 Demo when they finished with their pages, but I was put in charge of the orders, which meant that I had to keep track of all of the payments, etc. to make sure that we ordered enough yearbooks. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

 

[maestro55]

All in all, it was a lot of fun.

That is such a true statement. Putting together the yearbook has been the greatest experience I have ever had in my near 13 years of school. I have learned a lot and gotten the chance to work with a lot of very very neat people over the past year and half on the yearbook staff. Too bad some of the girls have attitudes this year about using the computer, since they don't know to use it and have no desire to learn. Some say they are getting off the yearbook staff soon, so be it. The yearbook will be complete.

Neat to see the amount of people here who have worked on the yearbook staff. So let me throw something else into the mix, for those who have worked on a yearbook staff, who is doing jounalism for a living now.

 

[4409723]

I started out helping the teacher who managed the yearbook last year but ended up becoming the co-editor because they needed my help so much. I used my powermac at home, and ibooks, imacs and g5's at school to set up it. I used photoshop for most stuff although most of the people felt the need to use Word to design their pages .

 

[StealthRider]

Yeah...we use a few POS Dells (rebuilt by some no-name company), Photoshop 6, and PageMaker. Plus my PowerBook and CS2...and they wonder why I get more done than everyone else...amazing what Expose, decent software, and quick fingers can do.

 

[maestro55]

Yeah...we use a few POS Dells (rebuilt by some no-name company), Photoshop 6, and PageMaker. Plus my PowerBook and CS2...and they wonder why I get more done than everyone else...amazing what Expose, decent software, and quick fingers can do.

Yeah, I would like to get a Powerbook to do yearbook stuff; however, there is no way I could afford CS2. I am still undecided how I will get the money for a Powerbook. On the verge of selling some radio gear I have for a used Powerbook (G3 or G4 Ti, or 12inch G4 Aluminum). So there is no way I could get CS2 for the mac, and even if our school had the mac version it would be agains the law/horrible ethics to copy it.

Did you buy your copy at full price or educational? Would yearbook stuff be considered educational, since it would be used for our yearbook? Can students get education discounts, or just staff?