I just submitted the final manuscript of my 8th book (3rd written with
LyX). My previous books were with trade publishers (Random House,
HarperCollins, St. Martins, etc.), and I assumed that the University
of Wisconsin Press would be friendlier to LyX. I was wrong. Like
most trade publisher contracts, the UW contract requires electronic
submission in "Microsoft Word for Windows."
My submission cd includes the complete manuscript (~400 pages) in
.dvi, .ps, and .pdf formats, and a directory with the files produced
by LyX -> Export -> Latex. To meet their submission requirements
half-way, I included a separate directory of latex files produced by
putting a small block of ERT at the end of each chapter to produce
endnotes with each chapter, even though the finished book (like my
beautifully LyX-formatted manuscript) will have notes at the end.
And, since I can almost guarantee they will say that they have never
heard of LaTeX or LyX, I chose to spare myself future pain by also
including a directory of .rtf files, which presumably their design and
layout software can read. Latex2rtf was quick, but failed at
1) tables (any chapter with tables hard-crashed OpenOffice);
2) various characters with overscores and underdots that are used to
transliterate Arabic and Hebrew;
3) endnotes; and
4) double-spaced output.
Cleaning up the .rtf files took the better part of a day, left me
close to carpal tunnel syndrome, almost wore out the mouse, made a
dent in a bottle of aspirin, and ultimately produced ugly output that
is missing many special characters, has crude ascii approximations of
tables, and footnotes they will have to convert to endnotes.
I doubt publishers will change their attitudes or recognize the
simplicity and excellence of LaTeX and/or LyX. But I'll keep using
LyX. Why? Because I like the WYSIWYM concept, the beautiful output
for letters and manuscript drafts, and the LyX developers.
Still, I dread the next book submission ...
--
Ronald Florence ron.18james.com
