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Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal looks at
using Linux, OpenOffice.org, Scribus and The GIMP for getting a book
into publication. "In December of 2004, Clinton Nixon published his
role-playing game, The Shadow of Yesterday. The content of the book was
nothing shocking, nor was the fact that he published the book
himself. Independent authors have been writing role-playing games for as
long as there have been role-playing games. Likewise, self-publication is
not a new phenomenon. The revolutionary thing in Clinton's case is the fact
that only open-source tools were used, from authorship to artwork to page
layout."
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Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 18:05 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] It is amazing that after so many years of LaTeX, this yet another more complex way to use three different kinds of Open Source Tools, including python scripting(!), is touted as the first real possibility to publish entirely using Open Source.
Well, maybe TeX is not Free by way of its license, but surely it is Open Source?
I agree that LaTeX may seem tedious for many, but here we tout python scripting to make a GUI application fully capable?? If that is our offer for people who prefer GUIs over LaTeX (a valid choice in its own right) - well, maybe some LaTeX evangelism remains the better investment, although it may not have the thrill of a New and Shiny app.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 18:20 UTC (Tue) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] I think that for a lot of people the problem with LaTeX is not that it's not capable--far from it, and I am a great admirer of Knuth and Lamport--but that it uses a completely different brainstyle than that which most layout artists use. People that lay out pages in (for example) InDesign will usually run screaming when faced with LaTeX commands and concepts. It's just a different way of working. They like to have direct visual and tactile control over the placement of objects on the page.
I personally love the idea of using Python to script a layout application--I wish very fervently for Python scripting in InDesign...but I guess JavaScript is the closest I'll get. :-(
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 18:38 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] I agree that scripting is nice ... for those who know how to program.
It was my impression that the article touted the Brave New World for Average Aspiring Author. Allegedly, A.A.A. is now finally empowered to publish from start to finish using "Open Source."
Assuming for a moment that LaTeX was never userfriendly enough to be bearable for A.A.A., surely scripting can't be it - or is it really that common to use scripting capabilities in the DTP business?
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 20:11 UTC (Tue) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] Scripting is one of those things you use when nothing else will do--for example, my company's 'corporate identity guidelines' specify a 1mm gap on the bottom row of every table, and 2mm borders on top and bottom but 1mm dividers between each row. I have a JavaScriptlet that I use to do all of those little fiddly bits for each table. It has saved me untold hours of clickety-clickety on menus and dialog boxes. And the author of the article apparently used the Python scripting to do something similar by fixing a repetitive problem that would have been a major pain to do manually.
As for knowing how to program, my coworkers have taken to writing little scriptlets like this pretty easily, although they're 'mere artists'... ;-) I'm sure they'd protest at writing a full-blown application, but providing instructions to InDesign doesn't cause them much pain, especially if it saves them tons of time.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 17, 2005 20:40 UTC (Thu) by mp (subscriber, #5615) [Link] Assuming for a moment that LaTeX was never userfriendly enough to be bearable for A.A.A., surely scripting can't be it - or is it really that common to use scripting capabilities in the DTP business? TeX may have a wonderful engine (especially for the uses it was designed for, though it can be bent quite nicely), but as a language it is, I would say, rather esoteric. The likes of Python are IMHO somewhat more likely to appeal to AAAs, and not only to them (me too). Still, I know of at least one fiction (sci-fi/fantasy) publisher here in Poland that (at least used to, but I think it's still true) uses TeX for some of its books. So it's not only the scientific community that uses TeX.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 22:15 UTC (Tue) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] It probably doesn't change the overall situation, but TeXmacs is a nice program for people that want LaTeX functionality in a free (both senses), simple to use authoring package that provides something close to WYSIWYG.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 18:47 UTC (Tue) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] Well, maybe TeX is not Free by way of its license From the FSF: "As far as it goes, it [the LaTeX Project Public License] is a free software license, but incompatible with the GPL because it has many requirements that are not in the GPL." The math section of your local library should provide tons of examples of books that have been written entirely with TeX and other free tools. --Bruce Fields
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 18:49 UTC (Tue) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] The math section of your local library (Minor correction: make that your local university library. I don't know what's commonly used for popular mathematics or grade school textbooks, for example, but graduate school textbooks, research papers, etc., are all more likely than not to be done in TeX.) --Bruce Fields
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 22:44 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Unfortunately, as a frequent reviewer of technical papers I've seen decreased use of TeX and increased use of Microsoft Word in recent years, and some journals declaring Word as their first choice, with TeX available as an option for authors who insist.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 17:53 UTC (Wed) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] Unfortunately, as a frequent reviewer of technical papers I've seen decreased use of TeX and increased use of Microsoft Word in recent years Has Word's equation editor improved? Last I saw, its output was really terrible compared to TeX. For mathematics, or any other subject with heavy use of notation, it would be unacceptable. But maybe it's gotten better....
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 12:38 UTC (Wed) by gowen (guest, #23914) [Link] My father wrote a study-aid book for Maths GCSE (exam taken in the UK by 16 year olds). Much book was typeset in a specialist DTP program, but the publisher specifically asked if the equations could be sent to them in TeX format.
I know, because I had to do all the conversion... and did I get paid, did I hell :(
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 22:57 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] TeX is quite a different approach to publishing from most other tools. Most tools enable the designer to get the desired layout. TeX generates a better layout than most designers are able to do. A skilled designer will get frustrated with TeX, because it isn't really a tool for a designer. It's a tool for letting an author and a publisher skip the designer. This is why it's so popular in academia: a professor writing a book or a paper doesn't want to pay someone to format the thing by hand, and doesn't want to risk getting scooped while waiting for someone to make it a bit prettier.
It's funny; you can pretty well identify a document set in TeX because a paragraph never starts on the last line of a page or ends on the first line of a page unless it is only one line long. Most non-TeX documents will not have this property unless they're very carefully done, while TeX will do it by default without the user necessarily knowing that it is being done.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 12:34 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] "It's a tool for letting an author and a publisher skip the designer"I won't say "skip". I'd rather say "make it as automatic as possible". I've finished typesetting a book (which the original author gave away under a creative commons license) with LaTeX, together with some other volunteers. Since we wanted to keep the original layout, and improve only where necessary, a standard LaTeX style wouldn't do. But you can teach LaTeX all the necessary tricks. And yes, then it needs someone who's willing to do that job, so there's still a "designer". The only non-free tool we used to create the book was the OCR program to cover the old one (the original data wasn't available). Unfortunately, there's no useful free OCR program.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 17:11 UTC (Wed) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] Good point.
Perhaps the right way to say it is that there are two things that go into LaTeX: the style and the document. A sufficiently abstract-minded designer can do your style without ever seeing your document, and the designer shouldn't need to change your document in any case. So, perhaps, the publisher needs both an author and a designer, but they don't have to interact with each other. And the designer can do a single style for a series of books, rather than making each book conform to the style individually.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 17:56 UTC (Wed) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] TeX is quite a different approach to publishing from most other tools. Most tools enable the designer to get the desired layout. TeX generates a better layout than most designers are able to do. A skilled designer will get frustrated with TeX, because it isn't really a tool for a designer. You may be confusing TeX and LaTeX; the latter separates the design and the content a bit more, the former is a bit closer to the metal. But either one will give you extremely precise control over the output if you really want it. --Bruce Fields
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 18:36 UTC (Tue) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] Scribus is nice (particularly for small, simple projects) but as far as I'm concerned it just isn't ready to compete with, eg, Adobe InDesign yet.
I tried typesetting a relatively simple 40-odd page pamphlet with Scribus and found it an exercise in frustration. From fonts to proper text flow to insertion of typographical symbols it just felt awkward, as if I was forcing Scribus to do things it wasn't designed for. Having to manually set cross-page text flow for every page was particularly tedious.
I keep an instance of Windows XP in VMware just for using InDesign. I will happily switch to Scribus once it meets my needs.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 20:56 UTC (Tue) by havoc (guest, #2261) [Link] I'm very much looking forward to the day Scribus or Inkscape or OpenOffice OR ANYHTING native to Linux (even proprietary software) will replace (for me) Macromedia's FreeHand and Fireworks. I would happily pay for these tools, provided they were of the same quality and not appreciably more expensive than the same/similar tools for windows or mac.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 21:22 UTC (Tue) by TomK32 (guest, #27914) [Link] Hi bk,I've moved for 60+ pages magazin from OpenOffice to Scribus and I'm really happy about that. I've finished the second one today (see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiReader_Digest issue 2005-04 and 2005-03a). The quality is better than with OOo (which didn't two-columns layout that easily) and with the scripting my only work is adding the images (will automate that too) and for some articles add the hyphenation (don't do it if you don't need more space, hyphenation with Scribus sucks!). The only bad thing are the tables, but I'm getting around that in most of the cases.
BTW, you can automate adding new pages and connecting pages with Python.
Disclaimer: I never used InDesign or any other DTP software except Scribus.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 13:28 UTC (Wed) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link] I got annoyed at trying to write a manual in OpenOffice pretty muchright from the start, I downloaded and built my first scribus, spent a weekend with it, and then over a month, output a 162 page users manual for my employer with it. I was nothing less than totally satisfied with the program. I did all my text in emacs, all my illustrations in Gimp and OpenOffice Draw.
I found the font control in Scribus and page layout to be excellent.
Granted, I have done page layout with text blocks rather than
I find Adobe's attitude towards all things Linux to be particularly
As to switching once something meets my needs, I find it to be much
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 17:47 UTC (Wed) by dbreakey (guest, #1381) [Link] It's not a free option, but PageStream is a phenomenal DTP package available for Windows, Linux, Amiga, AmigaPPC, Mac OS X, and MorphOS. I've used it since it earlier, Amiga-only days, and now use it on Linux; it is purportedly as capable, perhaps more so, than Quark Xpress, and is certainly a lot cheaper ($149, vs. over $1000). I can't personally testify whether it is, in fact, more capable—I've never used XPress—but I can say that PageStream is probably the most powerful package I've used. Sorry if this sounds like a sales pitch; it's not, really! I'm just enthusiastic about this particular product. Incidentally, anyone know if it (PageStream) works properly on a 64-bit system? I haven't gotten around to trying it out yet…
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 21:42 UTC (Tue) by dang (guest, #310) [Link] I'm getting a 404 when i hit that link.....
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 15, 2005 21:44 UTC (Tue) by dang (guest, #310) [Link] hrm..if you got to just the linux journal page you get:Linux Journal Is Currently Unavailable Due to a DDoS Attack Sorry for any inconvenience.
lwn-dot effect???
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 13:37 UTC (Wed) by sean.hunter (guest, #7920) [Link] Do the following words ring any bells with anybody here "This book was written typeset using groff and the vi editor"?
Openoffice.org is a toy. A bloated, horrible, awful monstrosity yes, but a toy nonetheless.
Linux as a Publishing Platform (Linux Journal) Posted Feb 16, 2005 15:25 UTC (Wed) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] Well, it seems to be a very useful toy then, more than your average Barbie anyway... ;-)
LyX Posted Feb 26, 2005 12:58 UTC (Sat) by grouch (guest, #27289) [Link] Since I haven't seen LyX mentioned above:
"Description: High Level Word Processor
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