[SLL] Book Publishing

[Jeremy C. Reed]

On Wed, 9 May 2007, Phil Hughes wrote:

> I recently did an ebook (Living Like a Nica) using Scribus. The best summary 
> of my experience is that I long for the GEM version Ventura Publisher running 
> under MS-DOS. And, no, that isn't something you would normally expect me to 
> say.

I haved used Scribus a lot to create brochures and fliers. I also have 
newspaper experience with Quark Express. And I have used Microsoft's 
Publisher, Serif Page Plus, and others.

> I am going to try to offer some useful info and then, the punchline is a 
> question. Well, the obvious one--what is the right tool for the job?

I have used LyX to layout thousands of pages: about five books[1] ranging 
from 150 to 700 pages and around 15 different coursewares ranging from 25 
pages to 200 pages.

(That includes one 180 page book[2] where the official source is in 
DocBook and I track my version in LyX instead.)

I am also currently working on a book[3] in LaTeX (using vi) for a book of 
around 650 pages. I should have done it with LyX as the graphical 
interface makes some things easier/quicker.

In addition, I am working on a book[4] in Markdown that is currently 
around 200 pages long, plus I have scripts to convert the Markdown over to 
LaTeX.

> The book is 140 pages with lots of photos and maps. (Actually, you can grab 
> the TOC and first chapter for free at http://www.lulu.com/content/809138.) It 
> was originally to be published by another company but, well, they are jerks.

LyX (and LaTeX) can handle images.

But if your book is mostly images then maybe another tool can do it 
better. It seems like I have heard of some, but can't remember all of 
them. Maybe using passepartout (which has renewed development) would be 
more appropriate. Or laidout (http://www.laidout.org/) might be useful 
(but it is for layout and not text entry).

Or create a little datafile containing a list of images, your captions, 
desired content and write a script that consistently created your document 
direct to LaTeX or other. (That might work if every page is identical 
format.)

> So, armed with "Word" documents done the way they wanted them (before they 
> changed their mind) I decided to use Scribus to do the layout.  I started 
> with version 1.2.4 and quickly moved to 1.3.x--mostly to get around crashes. 
> It was less than fun. Images would vanish, pages would get displayed wrong 
> and need a small change to cause the layout to "correct itself". One 
> well-defined problem was if the last part of a linked page was an image, the 
> text flow would get messed up.

One problem I have with Scribus is performance. It is too sluggish on my 
machines. (And I haven't even got to many pages like you.)

I know what you mean with "Word" documents. When I co-authored for Wiley, 
they required Word. They told me I could use OpenOffice.org but their Word 
docs/macros/whatever wasn't compatible. It was near impossible to do. 
Something about the Word doc made it so I my typed input was on a 
different line that what showed on the display :) My editors frequently 
complained that I lost all their formatting and lost their revision 
history :( Finally one editor said she'd accept whatever I gave her and 
she'd reformat it when done. (On that tangent ... a book author makes very 
little in that traditional publishing model since others are doing so more 
work too -- nothing compared to real writing though.)

> So, scratch Scribus from being the right tool. The other two semi-obvious 
> options are OpenOffice and KWord. OpenOffice appears more powerful (and 
> produces PDFs directly) but a word process is just not a layout program. That 
> means dealing with different page layouts (such as chapter first pages) 
> through some kludge.

I have heard good things about using OpenOffice.org for creating books. 
But my experience (including what I mention above) keeps me from trying 
again -- especially since LyX works good for me.

> This seems easier in KWord as it is frame-oriented. My initial playing 
> indicates that it is easier to work with images as well--partly just because 
> there are less choices. But, on the other hand, no table of contents. I also 
> need PDFs but CUPS provides that facility including the ability to alter 
> graphics resolutions and convert color images (if I wish) to gray scale.

I have used KWord a lot too, but not for a long time for anything serious. 
Scribus works better for regular layout. And LyX works better for me for 
books.

> For me, the ideal tool would be something that can:
>  * Read some kind of markup for headings, bold, ... I could care less what 
> that is and actually would probably prefer XML or (I don't mean to scare you 
> here) troff markup so I could use a real editor (vi) rather than a GUI mess 
> to enter the text.

I hear some still used troff today for books.

>  * Give me a decent way to scale and position graphics
>  * Give me PDF output with reasonable control
>  * Produce a table of contents
>  * Produce an index (based on me telling it what to index)
> 
> So, what's the "right" answer?

I'd try LyX. It can scale graphics (but the positioning is difficult). 
PDFs are good. Table of Contents easy. Index is easy but it doesn't tell 
you (indexing is an art :) And it can generated list of figures too.

I am not sure how you can export your Scribus book to it though. It can 
export to plain text and you can do all your formatting and reinsert 
images again.

LyX doesn't show you well what the end product looks like, But it provides 
a GUI to edit and write a document, insert images, scale images, etc.
It generates LaTeX.

The "latex" engine does the hard work of creating the PDF (or DVI or 
whatever). Other tools can generate to HTML or other formats too.

  Jeremy C. Reed

[1] Here's one done with LyX: 
http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?pid=0979034205&ad=FGLBKS

[2] This book also done in LyX is 99% read to go .. some selected pages: 
http://reedmedia.net/~reed/tmp-yc498gdfheyt/bind-dns-book-example-pages-20070509.pdf

[3] Done in LaTeX: http://www.reedmedia.net/books/freebsd-basics/

[4] Collaboration of authors using Markdown ... converted to LaTeX ... 
http://bsdwiki.reedmedia.net/PDF/