> Rather than using a WYSIWYG word processor, for a /book/ > I would suggest learning to use a "markup language" such > as LaTeX
Seconded! Last year I started laying out a book using OpenOffice and ran into an insurmountable gaggle of "little problems". None were really killers and most had workarounds of varying tediousness, but it became painfully obvious that OO really wasn't intended (or debugged) for long documents, regardless of what the bullet items in the feature list might lead you to believe. Basically, OO comes heartbreakingly close to working for long, complex documents. The Master Document thing is almost there, except for figure placement, caption numbering, and other undocumented gotchas. Ditto for TOC and Index functions: they look like they should work, but their interaction with Master Documents is, um, problematic. The fact that OO's doc writers managed to produce the OO manuals using OO is more a testament to their ability to work around problems than to OO's suitability. A tip o' the hat in their direction for a job well done. In short, I gave up and shelved the project until I had time to figure out LaTeX or its ilk. Back in the day, I actually did write a book using FrameMaker, right up through sending the PDFs to the printer, all by myself (with some proofreading assistance and a publisher to handle the distribution). Worked like a champ: FM was designed for that specific task. Despite that, I pretty nearly suffered from premature baldness by the time it was all finished. If somebody else will do the book's layout & editing, then don't duplicate that effort; just pour flat text into chapters and heave it over the transom. If you're going to it all yourself, then I -highly- recommend not applying a word processor to a book-sized problem. Been there, done that, won't make that mistake again! FWIW, when you're evaluating book preparation software, remember that tech books have much different requirements than coffee-table books. The latter have complex layout and styling requirements, but tend to be light on cross references and indexing. Scribus, for example, can do coffee-table books just fine, but isn't so hot for tech books. At least as of the last time I looked, anyway. Keep typin'... -- Ed _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Feb 6 - DBUS Mar 5 - Setting up a platform-independent home/small office network using Linux
