Thank you Rich. Not only did you give me the detail I needed to make my decision, but you told me what I wanted to hear!
Do you know to whom I should apply for the Elsevier document classes, and whether I want to start using them from day 1 or if I can start my writing independently then use their stuff later? And one last question: what's the right forum, USENET group or email list to look to for help getting spun back up on LaTeX after a 20 year hiatus? Thanks. On Fri, February 5, 2010 12:45 pm, Rich Shepard wrote: > On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Tim Wescott wrote: > >> Probably the smoothest experience I had with this was writing my >> Master's >> thesis, which I did in LaTeX. But that was in 1990, and I don't see as >> many technical books coming out these days with the note "this book >> written and typeset in LaTeX" any more. > > Tim, > > That's because the publishers remove that line. Write in LaTeX, but > take a > look at the LyX GUI front end <http://www.lyx.org/>. I wrote my book with > it > (Springer-Verlag took it camera-ready), and use it for all my writing. > Unless I have to share writing with colleagues or agency staff. > >> The book is intended as a self-study guide and lab manual for learning >> automatic control theory. As such it'll have at least 27 8x10 color >> glossy photographs, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back >> of >> each one, that will be included in the book to illustrate what is being >> done. Lots of graphs, and the occasional flowchart and/or class diagram >> will also make its way into the book. > > Yup. LaTeX/LyX is what you need. > >> I may self-publish the book for a while, but I also intend to sell parts >> of it to Circuit Cellar magazine when I'm done, and when I think it's >> all >> good I'll be hawking it to Elsevier as a companion volume to my control >> theory book. > > Rich van der Lans self-publishes his book, "The SQL Guide to SQLite" > via > Lulu. > >> And that's the first wrench in the works -- when I started that book I >> raised the possibility of doing it in LaTeX, and my editor crossed her >> fingers at me and started reciting biblical passages. She was cool with >> me using OpenOffice, though (perhaps knowing the alternative), but the >> production house that they chose to do the work had some difficulty with >> the job, to the extent that there are a number of drawings that lack >> their >> lowermost horizontal lines, and a number of '1's where there should be >> '-1's. > > Elsevier has document classes for LyX/LaTeX that a number of folks use > so > it may be that the company has come into the 20th century by now. > >> I think the only really decisive "no" that I can come up to for LaTeX is >> if I can't find a decent way to get drawings and graphs into the >> document. > > Feh! Of course you can; .jpg, .png, .eps, .pdf. I like to use PSTricks > for > my vector-graphics and there's never a problem with LyX/LaTeX. > >> So does anyone on the list write long works? What tools do you use? >> How >> do you like them? Is there anyone here with experience getting a LaTeX >> manuscript published? Is it still an accepted thing, or has it become >> Old >> News for technical work? > > See above. Check out my book on amazon.com: "Quantifying Environmental > Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy Logic." > > Rich > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > -- Tim Wescott Control systems and communications consulting http://www.wescottdesign.com Land line: 503.631.7815 Cell: 503.349.8432 _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
