I have spent a lot of hours over the past few days, trying to write out my beret pattern! Talk about work, headaches, and so on. It really is a nuisance – or maybe it’s just me? Not only do I want clear instructions, I want to create a pattern which is pleasant to look at when it is published in a PDF format. What to do? Where to begin?
There are probably”obvious” places to begin…but I expect they vary with each individual. This is the sequence I followed as far as publishing went:
- Create the diagrams of the patterns, the body and the decrease. From there, export them into a PNG format and divide them up into sections.
- Decide on the layout – pictures, text – what to put where. Also decide on a logical sequence.
- Create the pattern in MS Publisher.
- Convert to PDF
Steps 1 to 3 were easy enough, but for whatever reason, Adobe would not convert the Publisher file into a PDF document. Finally, I hit on saving each page in Publisher as a PNG, and combined all 5 pages of the pattern into one PDF file. Whew! Of course, I’ve already discovered a few mistakes in spelling, and design flaws (biggies, IMHO), and thoughts for better instructions. Despite this, the PDF is sent off to the test knitters, and I will need to make corrections – but not tonight, thank you!
Lastly, a friend has the beret, to photograph for me! Certainly the pictures will be better than the ones I took. The ones in the original PDF will be replaced by ones far better than my sad little ones….
Ink, Yarn & Beer 