On Thu, 2 Apr 2009, Denis Heidtmann wrote: > I suspect that there is more than one person on this list who has written > a book or two.
Me. You can buy a copy at Powell's Technical Books. "Quantifying Environmental Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy Logic," published by Springer-Verlag in 2005. ISBN: 0-387-24398-4. (Autographs extra.) > What did/do they use? LyX. It's the GUI front end to LaTeX. It's what I use for almost all writing, including articles, reports, and letters. Not too many folks -- except the serious masochists -- write in TeX. That's like writing a computer application in assembly code rather than a higher level language. > My experience with Word and OO makes me cringe at the thought of trying to > get 100's of pages error-free out of either of them. There's more than that involved. LyX/LaTeX allows the writer to focus strictly on content and leaves typography and page layout decisions to the professionals who have designed the classes. My book used the Springer-Verlag monograph class. Their TeXpert had be globally change all /textellipse instances to /ldots. When I looked at the differences I found they were so subtle that most of us mere mortals would never see them unless we specifically looked. But, /ldots are the European typographic standard, so that's what I used. I cannot stand to write more than a page in OO.o Writer. It's a time consuming hassle. And the differences in the printed output are striking. Write the same page of text in OO.o and in LateX, export both to .pdf and look; you'll immediately see the differences. Word processors use the line as the unit with which they work. TeX uses the paragraph and the page. TeX also adjusts kerning on the fly rather than the word processors' adjustment of inter-word spacing. Many (most?) readers will not be consciously aware of the differences, but the typeset output from TeX makes a subconscious impression of professionalism and quality. I've had people comment on the appearance of a typeset report; that never happened with a word processed document. But, John's correct. It takes someone willing to learn and not just click, drag, and wear out a mouse pointing everywhere. It's not for everyone. Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | Integrity Credibility Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Innovation <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863 _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
