Small books: was KOMAscript book workaround?

[Steve Litt]

On Fri, 22 Jul 2016 22:39:38 +0530
Swami Atmarupananda  wrote:

> The book I'm doing (2nd ed) is meant to be pocket-sized, so it is
> A6-formatted, about 100 pages long, which means I have to maximize the
> usage of space, beyond what is - from a purely aesthetic standpoint -
> ideal.


Hi Swami,

We gotta talk!

I'm putting the finishing touches and indexing on the second edition of
"Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting." The first edition was
8.5x11 print book, created before mobile devices were a thing. Because
the second edition is composed about 80% of the first edition, the
first edition was in LyX, and LyX has no realistic way to make high
quality ePubs, I changed the paper size of the second edition to custom
3"x5" (3 wide, 5 high), with 12 point Tex Guire Schula print. My
margins are maybe 1/20 inch. For people with 20/20 vision or slightly
worse, this can be read on a fairly small device. For those with worse
vision, it can be read on a computer and blown up, read on a larger
device and blown up, or, if the device and the PDF reader support
rotation, the device can be rotated to landscape with the book still
portrait, so the letters are larger but you need to scroll down once to
get to the bottom of each page.

I've put this thing on my Kindle, which is about 3.5x5. I have nowhere
near as good as 20/20 vision, but I can read it on my Kindle, although
not for long (eye strain). Most people could read it on my Kindle all
day long.

In some ways, when sold to readers with 20/20 vision, this "mini-pdf"
format is actually better than ePub. I can retain things like
footnotes, numerical references, etc. My index can list a page range,
and that actually makes sense. I can continue to watermark my books.

Of course, I haven't sold any yet. People might turn out to hate
viewing PDFs on mobile devices. But so far, things seem auspicious.

When you mention that, to make a small book, you need to use your screen
real estate in ways that might not be aesthetically ideal, I completely
understand and came to the same conclusion. I'll be interested to hear
how your small book progresses.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
 of the Successful Technologist
http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques

Re: KOMAscript book workaround?

[Swami Atmarupananda]

 Thanks to el and to SteveT for their comments. I will certainly look into
the standard book class for future needs. I've always gone for the
specialized classes, thinking them to be more polished, as of course they
are; but I hadn't thought of the downside.

Just to bring the topic to a close from my side, Marcus Kohm was very
helpful, as el had said promised.

The book I'm doing (2nd ed) is meant to be pocket-sized, so it is
A6-formatted, about 100 pages long, which means I have to maximize the
usage of space, beyond what is - from a purely aesthetic standpoint -
ideal. The 1st problem Marcus K. discovered from my MWE was the unusually
long subtitle (six lines, in Sanskrit, mandated by the publisher). When I
shortened it to 3, the publication matter popped onto the backside of the
title page without problem. (Even with the 6 lines there was physically
enough room, respecting margins, which is why I didn't see it as a source
of the problem, but Komascript didn't like it.) Secondly, he showed me how
to keep the 6-line subtitle and still get the publication matter on the
reverse side, by pushing the publisher info further down on the title page
thus:

\publishers{%
  \enlargethispage{2\baselineskip}%
   संस्कृताध्ययनविभागः\\
   रामकृष्णमिशन्-विवेकानन्द-विश्वविद्यालयः}

Then \uppertitleback{xyz...} comes after that, with several paragraphs of
formatted publication info. Thus the problem was solved without telling the
publisher that I had to reduce the subtitle.

Swami, from a remote corner of the Himalayas.

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Swami Atmarupananda <
atmarupana...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Many thanks. I have contacted him, got a reply, and sent him an MWE.
> Swami
>
> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse 
> wrote:
>
>> Komascript issue.
>>
>> Contact the author of the package, who is very helpful.
>>
>> el
>>
>> On 2016-07-19 12:18, Swami Atmarupananda wrote:
>> > Greetings.
>> > I'm redoing through lyx a book whose 1st edition I wrote in latex. All
>> > has worked excellently well -- much quicker than the original latex --
>> > except one problem. I'm using KOMA scrbook, which forces a blank page
>> > after the title page. (The first edition used memoir which doesn't have
>> > the problem.) But I need to put publication info on the backside (verso)
>> > of the title page, and can't figure out how to override the forced blank
>> > page. (Other forced blank pages after part and chapter headings are not
>> > an issue.)
>> >
>> > I see provision for the environments "uppertitleback" and
>> > "lowertitleback" under scrbook, which promise to do most of what I want
>> > (maybe all), but I can't get them to work. The manual says that the
>> > matter within the environment must be put before the \maketitle command.
>> > I'm not sure where LyX puts that command, but in latex it comes just
>> > after the titlepage information (title, author, date, publisher) is
>> > entered. So I put the matter with environment just after \frontmatter
>> > (i.e. immediately above the titlepage matter), but it still appears on
>> > the next righthand (recto) page after the titlepage; and I also tried
>> > putting it in the middle of the titlepage matter, and at the end, but it
>> > still comes on the next recto page. Same with matter in the
>> > lowertitleback environment. I've tried it by typing in the matter in lyx
>> > and selecting the environment from the dropdown menu, and I've tried it
>> > by entering latex code. Same thing.
>> >
>> > So, to state it simply, I want to put a page-worth of material on the
>> > backside of the title page, where scrbook forces a blank page. Anything
>> > that works is fine -- the simpler the better. The one workaround
>> > mentioned above may not be sufficient even if I could get it to work,
>> > which I can't, because uppertitleback and lowertitleback seem to be
>> > designed for a single paragraph each, and I have several worth of
>> > publication data.
>> >
>> > Using LyX 2.1.4 under Ubuntu 16.04.
>> >
>> > Many thanks for any help.
>> > Swami
>>
>>
>

Re: KOMAscript book workaround?

[Steve Litt]

On Tue, 19 Jul 2016 16:48:18 +0530
Swami Atmarupananda  wrote:

> Greetings.
> I'm redoing through lyx a book whose 1st edition I wrote in latex.
> All has worked excellently well -- much quicker than the original
> latex -- except one problem. I'm using KOMA scrbook, which forces a
> blank page after the title page. (The first edition used memoir which
> doesn't have the problem.) But I need to put publication info on the
> backside (verso) of the title page, and can't figure out how to
> override the forced blank page. (Other forced blank pages after part
> and chapter headings are not an issue.)

Others are answering your exact question: I just have a comment that's
not responsive to your question but may or may not be helpful...

I've used LyX to write books since 2001. I think I'm selling about 8
LyX-authored books. Early on, in one case I used Koma and in one case I
used Memoir. I soon viewed both as mistakes: They conflicted with
normal stuff (one of them conflicted horribly with href). They put me
in a minority, with less available knowledge and documentation.

From then on, I started with the Book document class and added what I
needed. That way I wasn't choosing a whole new document class to get
two or three needed features.

Everyone's mileage varies: I just thought I'd present this viewpoint.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
July 2016 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
 of the Successful Technologist
http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques

Re: KOMAscript book workaround?

[Swami Atmarupananda]

Many thanks. I have contacted him, got a reply, and sent him an MWE.
Swami

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse  wrote:

> Komascript issue.
>
> Contact the author of the package, who is very helpful.
>
> el
>
> On 2016-07-19 12:18, Swami Atmarupananda wrote:
> > Greetings.
> > I'm redoing through lyx a book whose 1st edition I wrote in latex. All
> > has worked excellently well -- much quicker than the original latex --
> > except one problem. I'm using KOMA scrbook, which forces a blank page
> > after the title page. (The first edition used memoir which doesn't have
> > the problem.) But I need to put publication info on the backside (verso)
> > of the title page, and can't figure out how to override the forced blank
> > page. (Other forced blank pages after part and chapter headings are not
> > an issue.)
> >
> > I see provision for the environments "uppertitleback" and
> > "lowertitleback" under scrbook, which promise to do most of what I want
> > (maybe all), but I can't get them to work. The manual says that the
> > matter within the environment must be put before the \maketitle command.
> > I'm not sure where LyX puts that command, but in latex it comes just
> > after the titlepage information (title, author, date, publisher) is
> > entered. So I put the matter with environment just after \frontmatter
> > (i.e. immediately above the titlepage matter), but it still appears on
> > the next righthand (recto) page after the titlepage; and I also tried
> > putting it in the middle of the titlepage matter, and at the end, but it
> > still comes on the next recto page. Same with matter in the
> > lowertitleback environment. I've tried it by typing in the matter in lyx
> > and selecting the environment from the dropdown menu, and I've tried it
> > by entering latex code. Same thing.
> >
> > So, to state it simply, I want to put a page-worth of material on the
> > backside of the title page, where scrbook forces a blank page. Anything
> > that works is fine -- the simpler the better. The one workaround
> > mentioned above may not be sufficient even if I could get it to work,
> > which I can't, because uppertitleback and lowertitleback seem to be
> > designed for a single paragraph each, and I have several worth of
> > publication data.
> >
> > Using LyX 2.1.4 under Ubuntu 16.04.
> >
> > Many thanks for any help.
> > Swami
>
>

Re: KOMAscript book workaround?

[Dr Eberhard Lisse]

Komascript issue.

Contact the author of the package, who is very helpful.

el

On 2016-07-19 12:18, Swami Atmarupananda wrote:
> Greetings.
> I'm redoing through lyx a book whose 1st edition I wrote in latex. All
> has worked excellently well -- much quicker than the original latex --
> except one problem. I'm using KOMA scrbook, which forces a blank page
> after the title page. (The first edition used memoir which doesn't have
> the problem.) But I need to put publication info on the backside (verso)
> of the title page, and can't figure out how to override the forced blank
> page. (Other forced blank pages after part and chapter headings are not
> an issue.)
> 
> I see provision for the environments "uppertitleback" and
> "lowertitleback" under scrbook, which promise to do most of what I want
> (maybe all), but I can't get them to work. The manual says that the
> matter within the environment must be put before the \maketitle command.
> I'm not sure where LyX puts that command, but in latex it comes just
> after the titlepage information (title, author, date, publisher) is
> entered. So I put the matter with environment just after \frontmatter
> (i.e. immediately above the titlepage matter), but it still appears on
> the next righthand (recto) page after the titlepage; and I also tried
> putting it in the middle of the titlepage matter, and at the end, but it
> still comes on the next recto page. Same with matter in the
> lowertitleback environment. I've tried it by typing in the matter in lyx
> and selecting the environment from the dropdown menu, and I've tried it
> by entering latex code. Same thing.
> 
> So, to state it simply, I want to put a page-worth of material on the
> backside of the title page, where scrbook forces a blank page. Anything
> that works is fine -- the simpler the better. The one workaround
> mentioned above may not be sufficient even if I could get it to work,
> which I can't, because uppertitleback and lowertitleback seem to be
> designed for a single paragraph each, and I have several worth of
> publication data.
> 
> Using LyX 2.1.4 under Ubuntu 16.04.
> 
> Many thanks for any help.
> Swami

KOMAscript book workaround?

[Swami Atmarupananda]

Greetings.
I'm redoing through lyx a book whose 1st edition I wrote in latex. All has
worked excellently well -- much quicker than the original latex -- except
one problem. I'm using KOMA scrbook, which forces a blank page after the
title page. (The first edition used memoir which doesn't have the problem.)
But I need to put publication info on the backside (verso) of the title
page, and can't figure out how to override the forced blank page. (Other
forced blank pages after part and chapter headings are not an issue.)

I see provision for the environments "uppertitleback" and "lowertitleback"
under scrbook, which promise to do most of what I want (maybe all), but I
can't get them to work. The manual says that the matter within the
environment must be put before the \maketitle command. I'm not sure where
LyX puts that command, but in latex it comes just after the titlepage
information (title, author, date, publisher) is entered. So I put the
matter with environment just after \frontmatter (i.e. immediately above the
titlepage matter), but it still appears on the next righthand (recto) page
after the titlepage; and I also tried putting it in the middle of the
titlepage matter, and at the end, but it still comes on the next recto
page. Same with matter in the lowertitleback environment. I've tried it by
typing in the matter in lyx and selecting the environment from the dropdown
menu, and I've tried it by entering latex code. Same thing.

So, to state it simply, I want to put a page-worth of material on the
backside of the title page, where scrbook forces a blank page. Anything
that works is fine -- the simpler the better. The one workaround mentioned
above may not be sufficient even if I could get it to work, which I can't,
because uppertitleback and lowertitleback seem to be designed for a single
paragraph each, and I have several worth of publication data.

Using LyX 2.1.4 under Ubuntu 16.04.

Many thanks for any help.
Swami