The Yearbook Team's File Chaos

The problems are not primarily technical; they are the absence of agreed conventions.

• Naming: 'final', 'final2' and 'FINAL_use this' encode no information about content, owner, version or date, so nobody can tell which is current. The capitalisation adds confusion rather than clarity.
• Versioning: two editors saving over one master file means the last save wins and earlier work is lost. This is the same failure as concurrent editing in any shared document.
• Storage: full-resolution camera files in a shared folder that is nearly full will cause saves to fail, which produces more 'final2' files as people work around it.
• Conversion by screenshot: this discards resolution and colour information and cannot meet a print specification.

Proposed convention:

• Folders by stage: 01_originals, 02_working, 03_print, 04_archive.
• File names as section_page_description_vNN_editor, for example sport_p12_teamphoto_v03_ana.
• One owner per file at a time, recorded in a simple shared list, so the master document is never edited by two people at once.
• Originals are read-only; all edits happen on copies in 02_working.

This makes the current version identifiable from the name alone and makes overwriting visible rather than silent.

A screenshot captures whatever is displayed on screen at the screen's resolution and colour handling. It is not a copy of the image data.

Why it fails:

• Resolution: screen captures are typically far below the pixels needed for print at the required size, so images will look soft or pixelated on paper.
• Colour: the screen shows an approximation in the display's colour space, not the print colour mode the printer specifies. Colours can shift noticeably.
• Metadata and format: a screenshot loses the original file's embedded profile and is saved in a screen-oriented format rather than a print-ready one.
• Repeatability: each screenshot may differ slightly, so the book is inconsistent page to page.

Correct workflow: keep originals untouched in 01_originals; use an image editor's batch resize and convert function to set the required resolution and colour mode; export to the specified format; place the converted copy in 03_print; and check a proof page before committing all 64 pages. Batch processing also saves the team time, which matters with three weeks left. The rule to teach is: convert the file, never photograph the screen.

Structure the remaining time around a single integration point rather than eight independent efforts.

• Roles: appoint one production lead who owns the master document and is the only person who edits it. Others submit completed pages as separate files into 03_print, named to the convention. Two students handle image conversion in batch. One maintains the shared file list and checks names and versions daily.
• Sequence: week 1, lock content and convert all images; week 2, assemble pages and run internal proof checks; week 3, send a full proof to the printer early, fix issues, and keep two days as contingency.
• Quality control: a checklist per page covering resolution, colour mode, correct names, no placeholder text, and page order. A second student checks each page, so no one approves their own work.
• Risk control: keep 01_originals untouched and archive a dated snapshot of the whole project each day, so a bad edit can be reversed.

The judgement is that the deadline risk comes from coordination, not from lack of effort. Concentrating edit rights and enforcing a naming and checking routine will do more for quality in three weeks than any software change.