Thanks Paul, I again had the serious impression that some industry snobbery (er, self-interest) might be generating that phrase "serious publishing". Hopefully most of you can remember the days before Linux or other FOSS was used: to make a blockbuster movie to run a mainstream cellphone or handheld in the firmware of many embedded devices ...and so forth. So, to be clear, the phrase or intent of the word serious in particular (in pejorative context) indicates impending extinction of the speaker, or their attitude anyway, if we're aware of free market competition and also believe that there will be a tomorrow.
Harold, I thought you wrote that... still good info, and currently still true if you want to bring a project into *most* commercial print shops (or else you'd be paying them to convert it from your format since that's prolly all they know how to handle directly very well). Hope I'm not butting in too much on this topic, I am personally more interested in typesetting as it relates to CNC; print is dead. Mwa haw haw... :) Ben On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 9:31 PM, marbux <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 2:46 PM, Harald Sundt <[email protected]> wrote: > > Rules I learned by asking about Cross-Platform Font Use - THANK FOLKS! > > > • You can't do serious publishing with Open Office or Neo-Office - you > need > > Quark or InDesign (you'll get a bunch of Open Type fonts if you buy > InDesign > > anyway; I'm not sure about Quark). You can get away with Illustrator > and/or > > Photoshop. > > I was a typographer for some 20 years before switching careers to > practice law. Never lost my interest. In choosing publishing software, > much depends on the kind and quality of publications you're aimed at > presenting. Regardless of the software chosen, there's a learning > curve. > > Some more alternatives you might check. > > -- WordPerfect X4. Much better typesetting quality than OOo or Word, > although still not as powerful for typography as a full blown DTP > system. But comes with an excellent collection of ~ 1,000 high quality > fonts, both in Type I and TTF. Windows only. Can be obtained on eBay > for around $35. More than worth it it for the fonts alone. Generally > makes an excellent text input program for a DTP. > > -- Scribus. The premier free DTP for Linux/Unix. Not yet in the class > of Adobe and Quark's high end offerings, but rather startlingly > powerful. <http://www.scribus.net/>. And if you've got the need for > the high end proprietary offerings, you've got the money to hire 20 > people to run the software. Should be in MacPorts and there is a > Windows port as well. > > -- LaTeX. Desktop typesetting systems don't come more powerful than > TeX and LaTex is its most popular incarnation. > <http://www.latex-project.org/>. Excellent for journal articles, > technical reports, books, and slide presentations, particularly > because you can wrestle with the typography at the markup level. Old > and mature. Requires PostScript fonts. Free, supported on > Linux/Unix/OS X/Windows. > > -- The Gimp (Gnu Image Manipulation Program). Professional grade open > source image manipulation tools. <http://www.gimp.org/>. Free, > supported on Linux/Unix/OS X/Windows. > > -- Inkscape. Excellent SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) editor. > <http://www.inkscape.org/>. SVG images are quickly becoming > mission-critical in web publishing because of the mobile device > onslaught and the need to scale images for a wider variety of screen > resolutions and sizes. Free, supported on Linux/Unix/OS X/Windows. > > -- ImageMagick. Professional-grade raster (bitmap) image editor. > <http://www.imagemagick.org/>. Notably, can output more than 100 > raster formats. Command line tools, but GUIs for them are available. > Free, supported on Linux/Unix/OS X/Windows. > > There are still more related open source projects. Bottom line though: > If you want to walk into someone else's shop and work for them, you'll > probably need to be competent with the Adobe or Quark DTP offerings. > But if you are setting up your own shop, I'd take a very hard look at > what the free and open source software community has to offer. > > The proprietary software industry depends on forcing you to upgrade > periodically. That's inevitable with revenues derived from license > sales. Adobe and Quark's software is very expensive and not just for > the initial purchase. It's an ongoing expense, not only for the > license acquisition cost but also for the productivity hit in the > learning curve for upgraded versions. > > It's been many years since I dropped my partnership in a couple of > print shops and switched careers. But if I were setting up a > typesetting service today, it would take a real show-stopper to > persuade me to go the proprietary software route. > > YMMV. > > Best regards, > > Paul > > > -- > Universal Interoperability Council > <http:www.universal-interop-council.org> > _______________________________________________ > EUGLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug >
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