Anyone good with Microsoft Word ? Or know any 'create your own book' websites ?

[Paul-London]

I do love stats/records , i've always wanted to compile the first 10 seasons of the FWL into a proper stats book !!

I've had a look around and cafepress.com seem to be the best bet to actually create your own book, does anyone else have any ideas or links ?

What i might do is just create it in Word and then get it pdf'ed and then print it out and put a binder down the side of it as that'll be easier and cheaper.

However is anyone any good at Microsoft word ?  I need some basic pages created, eg on one page half of it is split into a 'table' so i can put the standings like they have in the official Superbowl program.

Its a ton of work but with my typing etc i should get it done after a while !

I want to compile the first 10 seasons of the FWL, have a weekly report for the games, standings (just like they have in the back of the Superbowl program) for every one of the first 10 seasons.  Have a chapter dedicated to top players where i'll get a screen print of the player in the software, add his career stats and add the writeups i've done over at alltime.htm

I'll either do it like the Superbowl prog, eg a writeup of the weeks games plus the standings or like the NFL record book where they have each game, the scoring/stats and then a small writeup.  Also a chapter near the back having the stats of nearly all the FWL players ever which i can get from Andrews stats so its a 'whos who of the FWL' with their personal stats.

Its an idea i've had for a while, what with other things (job/side job/dog/marriage !) it'll be something i do a bit at a time but if anyone can provide some 'template pages' which i can copy and use to start this up it'll be great.

[Andrew-Neutral]

Hi Paul,

Just a few random thoughts on this - first of all, Nice Idea!!

I'm going to add a feature to the on-line database whereby game reports can be added - and any registered user can add to the report, like in Wikipedia.

I can produce all the outputs from the FWL stats database in XML. I'm currently learning about XML, but have a bit of experience in generating it. If a GameBook (i.e. scoring summary, team stats and individual stats) is dumped out in XML, it is relatively straight-forward to convert it to a, for example, a text file (e.g. in TEI format). A TEI reader then takes this file and converts it to a nicely formatted document ready to print or include in another document.

Another approach would be to set up some templates in Word or OpenOffice Writer, then use the database to write the stats and reports directly into the templates. This will cut out all the typing.

Alternatively, PHP can write PDF files directly. This might be more trouble, as you have to specify exactly where on each page each bit of text has to go.

[Paul-London]

Sounds good !  Like i say i'm torn between doing a game report for each game (Like the NFL Records book) or do a summary of the week (Like the Superbowl program)

Would love to get this done, season reviews and stats etc and compile a lot of stuff already on the FWL site.  Like i say would take a ton of time but i would love to have Volume 1 (Seasons 1-10) and then Volume 2 at some point (obviously Seasons 11-20)

If someone can create some templates in Word that'll be great.  If i do the weekly summary all i need to do is put the standings on the right hand side of the second page, eg Birmingham 2-0 (forget all the Home/Away/Conference stuff)

I might give it a quick go, torn whether to do it for each game or just do it every week.

If i do it weekly (probably best bet) that'll be 2 pages per week so 28 pages for the regular season and another 3 or 4 for the playoffs.  So about 32, times that by 10 seasons and thats 300 pages !   Plus add season stats, player profiles, history and other stuff and it'll probably be about 400 pages !

Yeah i might try and start that at some stage.  The summaries wouldnt be huge and like i say would be similar to the ones found in the official Superbowl programme where its just a wrapup.

[Paul-London]

Andrew do you know of any places where you can get 'books' printed off ?

I've done a few picturebooks at snapfish.co.uk which are good, the picture books are good but you cant easily add tons of text to a page so its not really good for a FWL book.

If not if i had a 300 page Word document i'll just take it to a printers and get it printed out, actually its not 300 pages, as it'll be printed back/front it'll be 150.

With a nice binder and colour cover etc it would be a great stats book ! 

[Andrew-Neutral]

Any high street printers would take a Word file (or PDF) and print it for you, then collate and bind it. Works out at about 2p per page, plus about 50p for binding. I got some recipe books done at Staples - they only had 16 pages each and worked out at about 60p each to produce (we had 50 made). We sold them for £1 and made our fortune and retired to the South of France. Some of that is not true.

A

[Paul-London]

Any high street printers would take a Word file (or PDF) and print it for you, then collate and bind it. Works out at about 2p per page, plus about 50p for binding. I got some recipe books done at Staples - they only had 16 pages each and worked out at about 60p each to produce (we had 50 made). We sold them for £1 and made our fortune and retired to the South of France. Some of that is not true.A

So the binding wasnt 50p it was more like 75p ?

[Paul-London]

Seriously though good idea

If you have time could you try to mock up something in word ?

All i want is for the first page to just be normal with a large heading for the Week number, then the second page is the one 'split into two' as the right hand side will be the one where it has a table and i update the standings (just like the SB program)

Sorry to ask but is that easy for you to do  ?  I dont know or use Word at all you see, just want to have some blank templates to copy/paste in my weekly review and tables

[Andrew-Neutral]

I'll dig out an old Super Bowl program and attempt to copy that. I prefer OpenOffice to Word, but can use Word if you want!

Rather than pasting in data, standings etc, these can be dumped straight out the database with a little work -  I'll drop you a email explaining in more detail!

[Paul-London]

Thanks for that sounds great.  Like i say for the standings i just want their W-L record not points or anything else (just like the SB program)

Thanks for doing it in Word, got that on my machine so just easier etc as i know it a bit.

If i had tons of time i would love to do an NFL Record and Fact book type of thing with a description of each game but i wont have the time, i'll do season 1 and see how quick/slow that goes.  Got lots of ideas for it and it should be good.  Shame i'll only have to create 18 copies probably of it but i dont mind, i'll love looking at it, love the FWL stats !