Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Helge Hafting]

Pavel Sanda wrote:

Rich Shepard wrote:

It can take an amateur like me
almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like


just an idea - couldn't be this a bit automatized? something like export to
plain text, sort  uniq all words by alphabet, manually delete the boring words
(shouldn't be too much in tech documentation) and then run some script mapping
it back into the text.

this would probably cause some problems for multiple-word entries and languages
with too many word inflections and so on, but only experiment probably tells...


There is also the problem that you often don't want to index every case 
of an otherwise interesting word. Some types of litterature demands 
this, and then automating it helps. (Advanced search  replace might
also help - e.g. replace concept with concept+indexentry[concept] 
and then hit replace all.)


However, this is often not what you want. Students seeing an index
like concept: 1, 3, 5 ,7 ,9-11, 15-22, 34, 86-99, 101 despair. Testing 
shows that they only look up the first few entries. In such cases, you 
index the 2-3 most important occurences. Such as the definition, an 
explanation, and perhaps an interesting example. Too much choice is not 
good. A word may be mentioned in a footnote somewhere, without  this 
being an interesting place to look for said word.



Helge Hafting

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Helge Hafting]

Pavel Sanda wrote:

Rich Shepard wrote:

It can take an amateur like me
almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like


just an idea - couldn't be this a bit automatized? something like export to
plain text, sort  uniq all words by alphabet, manually delete the boring words
(shouldn't be too much in tech documentation) and then run some script mapping
it back into the text.

this would probably cause some problems for multiple-word entries and languages
with too many word inflections and so on, but only experiment probably tells...


There is also the problem that you often don't want to index every case 
of an otherwise interesting word. Some types of litterature demands 
this, and then automating it helps. (Advanced search  replace might
also help - e.g. replace concept with concept+indexentry[concept] 
and then hit replace all.)


However, this is often not what you want. Students seeing an index
like concept: 1, 3, 5 ,7 ,9-11, 15-22, 34, 86-99, 101 despair. Testing 
shows that they only look up the first few entries. In such cases, you 
index the 2-3 most important occurences. Such as the definition, an 
explanation, and perhaps an interesting example. Too much choice is not 
good. A word may be mentioned in a footnote somewhere, without  this 
being an interesting place to look for said word.



Helge Hafting

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Helge Hafting]

Pavel Sanda wrote:

Rich Shepard wrote:

It can take an amateur like me
almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like


just an idea - couldn't be this a bit automatized? something like export to
plain text, sort & uniq all words by alphabet, manually delete the boring words
(shouldn't be too much in tech documentation) and then run some script mapping
it back into the text.

this would probably cause some problems for multiple-word entries and languages
with too many word inflections and so on, but only experiment probably tells...


There is also the problem that you often don't want to index every case 
of an otherwise interesting word. Some types of litterature demands 
this, and then automating it helps. (Advanced search & replace might
also help - e.g. replace "concept" with "concept+indexentry[concept]" 
and then hit "replace all".)


However, this is often not what you want. Students seeing an index
like "concept: 1, 3, 5 ,7 ,9-11, 15-22, 34, 86-99, 101" despair. Testing 
shows that they only look up the first few entries. In such cases, you 
index the 2-3 most important occurences. Such as the definition, an 
explanation, and perhaps an interesting example. Too much choice is not 
good. A word may be mentioned in a footnote somewhere, without  this 
being an interesting place to look for said word.



Helge Hafting

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Pavel Sanda]

Rich Shepard wrote:
 pages, and publication/copywrite page. I'd save those as separate .pdf
 files, then assemble the entire book using pdftk. Horses for courses as the

are you aware of insert-external material-pdfpages?
pavel

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

On Thursday 16 July 2009 06:15:28 am Pavel Sanda wrote:
 Rich Shepard wrote:
  It can take an amateur like me
  almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like

 just an idea - couldn't be this a bit automatized? something like export to
 plain text, sort  uniq all words by alphabet, manually delete the boring
 words (shouldn't be too much in tech documentation) and then run some
 script mapping it back into the text.

This is exactly what I do, except I even automatically delete all words less 
than 4 letters.

I then delete the boring words out of the remaining concordance, which then 
serves as a reminder of what concepts need indexing. It's still by far the 
most distasteful aspect of writing a book.

 this would probably cause some problems for multiple-word entries

As you go through the concordance, you imagine what multi-word phrases might 
be included, and write them into the concordance. Stuff probably falls 
through the cracks, but I'm not willing to pay a professional indexer, so 
small flaws must be expected.

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009, Pavel Sanda wrote:


are you aware of insert-external material-pdfpages?


pavel,

  Now I am. However, I make heavy use of pdftk for a wide range of purposes
so I'm quite familiar with this tool.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Pavel Sanda]

Rich Shepard wrote:
 pages, and publication/copywrite page. I'd save those as separate .pdf
 files, then assemble the entire book using pdftk. Horses for courses as the

are you aware of insert-external material-pdfpages?
pavel

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

On Thursday 16 July 2009 06:15:28 am Pavel Sanda wrote:
 Rich Shepard wrote:
  It can take an amateur like me
  almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like

 just an idea - couldn't be this a bit automatized? something like export to
 plain text, sort  uniq all words by alphabet, manually delete the boring
 words (shouldn't be too much in tech documentation) and then run some
 script mapping it back into the text.

This is exactly what I do, except I even automatically delete all words less 
than 4 letters.

I then delete the boring words out of the remaining concordance, which then 
serves as a reminder of what concepts need indexing. It's still by far the 
most distasteful aspect of writing a book.

 this would probably cause some problems for multiple-word entries

As you go through the concordance, you imagine what multi-word phrases might 
be included, and write them into the concordance. Stuff probably falls 
through the cracks, but I'm not willing to pay a professional indexer, so 
small flaws must be expected.

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009, Pavel Sanda wrote:


are you aware of insert-external material-pdfpages?


pavel,

  Now I am. However, I make heavy use of pdftk for a wide range of purposes
so I'm quite familiar with this tool.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Pavel Sanda]

Rich Shepard wrote:
> pages, and publication/copywrite page. I'd save those as separate .pdf
> files, then assemble the entire book using pdftk. Horses for courses as the

are you aware of insert->external material->pdfpages?
pavel

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

On Thursday 16 July 2009 06:15:28 am Pavel Sanda wrote:
> Rich Shepard wrote:
> > It can take an amateur like me
> > almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like
>
> just an idea - couldn't be this a bit automatized? something like export to
> plain text, sort & uniq all words by alphabet, manually delete the boring
> words (shouldn't be too much in tech documentation) and then run some
> script mapping it back into the text.

This is exactly what I do, except I even automatically delete all words less 
than 4 letters.

I then delete the boring words out of the remaining concordance, which then 
serves as a reminder of what concepts need indexing. It's still by far the 
most distasteful aspect of writing a book.

> this would probably cause some problems for multiple-word entries

As you go through the concordance, you imagine what multi-word phrases might 
be included, and write them into the concordance. Stuff probably falls 
through the cracks, but I'm not willing to pay a professional indexer, so 
small flaws must be expected.

SteveT
 
Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009, Pavel Sanda wrote:


are you aware of insert->external material->pdfpages?


pavel,

  Now I am. However, I make heavy use of pdftk for a wide range of purposes
so I'm quite familiar with this tool.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

It's time for me to put the front matter in my new book. This work is time 
consuming and frustrating, second only to indexing, which I equate with 
working in a sceptic tank.

I have to put my cover art on the front, with a list of my other books 
following, followed by the title page, followed of course by the copyright 
pages, followed by dedications, acknowledgements, a few words from the 
author, and a table of contents. What a pain in the butt. Nothing works 
without extensive tweaking!

:-) And with all that, LyX is still by far the best alternative. You can use 
it to produce a professionally typeset book, and except for frontmatter, 
style creation and indexing, it's a snap. LyX is also very respectful of a 
touch typists time, and I REALLY appreciate that.

So, as I'm cursing the fact that my cover art doesn't show up at all, let me 
take time to thank all of you for creating LyX and forming a community to 
continually improve it. LyX is nothing less than a major component of my 
business. Keep up the good work, in spite of my cursing that stupid cover 
art :-)

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


... second only to indexing, which I equate with working in a sceptic
tank.


Steve,

  Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would never
occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a long time
and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success of the book.

  I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser and
reader. If I want the reader to think well of my and my published effort
then I need to make the information accessible for everyone. So, if I was
writing a book about using a desktop computer I'd probably have two entries
for the optical media drive: cdrom/dvd drive and cup holder.

  There's a very useful book on SQLite that has the worst index I've ever
seen in a technical reference. I ended up buying the PDF version of the book
because I can search that within xpdf for information that's not in the
index. The author did not write the index so he's not to blame.


I have to put my cover art on the front, with a list of my other books
following, followed by the title page, followed of course by the copyright
pages, followed by dedications, acknowledgements, a few words from the
author, and a table of contents. What a pain in the butt. Nothing works
without extensive tweaking!


  I think that's because you like to tweak. I had absolutely no problems
with the dedication, acknowledgements, ToC, ToF, ToT, or preface. Springer
did the cover, title page, half-title page, publication/copyright page and a
few others. I started the frontmatter with page number 'iv' and it all
worked just fine.

  If I self-published I'd use Scribus to prepare the cover, title/half-title
pages, and publication/copywrite page. I'd save those as separate .pdf
files, then assemble the entire book using pdftk. Horses for courses as the
British say.


:-) And with all that, LyX is still by far the best alternative. You can use
it to produce a professionally typeset book, and except for frontmatter,
style creation and indexing, it's a snap. LyX is also very respectful of a
touch typists time, and I REALLY appreciate that.


  If you want to see how easy it is to do customized chapter headings,
headers, footers, etc. look at Herbert Voss's books on PSTricks and
Mathematical typesetting with LaTeX. Using the KOMA-Script book class (works
better for me than does the Memoir class), you can quickly and easily set up
the appearance you want.


... in spite of my cursing that stupid cover art :-)


  Artist or his tool? Either can be selected to do what's needed.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Dotan Cohen]

  Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
 Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
 made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
 that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
 worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
 several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
 myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would never
 occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a long time
 and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success of the book.

  I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser and
 reader. If I want the reader to think well of my and my published effort
 then I need to make the information accessible for everyone. So, if I was
 writing a book about using a desktop computer I'd probably have two entries
 for the optical media drive: cdrom/dvd drive and cup holder.

  There's a very useful book on SQLite that has the worst index I've ever
 seen in a technical reference. I ended up buying the PDF version of the book
 because I can search that within xpdf for information that's not in the
 index. The author did not write the index so he's not to blame.


Please excuse my completely OT post, but that was very insightful. I
love to read, especially coursework (yes, I am a nerd) and I never
realized how much effort must go into the index. I simply never
thought about that. Thank you for the insight into that technical bit
that I've appreciated and cursed at times over the years, without ever
really understanding the effort behind it until now.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

On Tuesday 14 July 2009 01:26:24 pm Rich Shepard wrote:
 On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
  ... second only to indexing, which I equate with working in a sceptic
  tank.

 Steve,

Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
 Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
 made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
 that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
 worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
 several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
 myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would
 never occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a
 long time and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success
 of the book.

I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser
 and reader. 

Yes, I didn't want to imply otherwise. What I was trying to get across is that 
it's as DISTASTEFUL as working in a sceptic tank. And, as you bring up, it's 
also as NECESSARY to do well as it is necessary to fix a sceptic tank well.

StevET

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Dotan Cohen wrote:


Please excuse my completely OT post, but that was very insightful. I love
to read, especially coursework (yes, I am a nerd) and I never realized how
much effort must go into the index. I simply never thought about that.
Thank you for the insight into that technical bit that I've appreciated
and cursed at times over the years, without ever really understanding the
effort behind it until now.


Dotan,

  We tend to take a useful index for granted. It can take an amateur like me
almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like
conventions and trade shows that run smoothly, we don't appreciate the
effort that it took to make it so.

  And I apologize for the two typos; I did not see them and the are
legitimate words so the spelling checker didn't flag them.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[John Coppens]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:33:44 -0400
Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:

 Yes, I didn't want to imply otherwise. What I was trying to get across
 is that it's as DISTASTEFUL as working in a sceptic tank. And, as you
 bring up, it's also as NECESSARY to do well as it is necessary to fix a
 sceptic tank well.

I've never worked in a sceptic tank. I didn't know there were tanks to
contains sceptics, distasteful or not ;-)

I guess the spellchecker didn't catch the difference between sceptic and
septic...

John

LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

It's time for me to put the front matter in my new book. This work is time 
consuming and frustrating, second only to indexing, which I equate with 
working in a sceptic tank.

I have to put my cover art on the front, with a list of my other books 
following, followed by the title page, followed of course by the copyright 
pages, followed by dedications, acknowledgements, a few words from the 
author, and a table of contents. What a pain in the butt. Nothing works 
without extensive tweaking!

:-) And with all that, LyX is still by far the best alternative. You can use 
it to produce a professionally typeset book, and except for frontmatter, 
style creation and indexing, it's a snap. LyX is also very respectful of a 
touch typists time, and I REALLY appreciate that.

So, as I'm cursing the fact that my cover art doesn't show up at all, let me 
take time to thank all of you for creating LyX and forming a community to 
continually improve it. LyX is nothing less than a major component of my 
business. Keep up the good work, in spite of my cursing that stupid cover 
art :-)

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


... second only to indexing, which I equate with working in a sceptic
tank.


Steve,

  Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would never
occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a long time
and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success of the book.

  I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser and
reader. If I want the reader to think well of my and my published effort
then I need to make the information accessible for everyone. So, if I was
writing a book about using a desktop computer I'd probably have two entries
for the optical media drive: cdrom/dvd drive and cup holder.

  There's a very useful book on SQLite that has the worst index I've ever
seen in a technical reference. I ended up buying the PDF version of the book
because I can search that within xpdf for information that's not in the
index. The author did not write the index so he's not to blame.


I have to put my cover art on the front, with a list of my other books
following, followed by the title page, followed of course by the copyright
pages, followed by dedications, acknowledgements, a few words from the
author, and a table of contents. What a pain in the butt. Nothing works
without extensive tweaking!


  I think that's because you like to tweak. I had absolutely no problems
with the dedication, acknowledgements, ToC, ToF, ToT, or preface. Springer
did the cover, title page, half-title page, publication/copyright page and a
few others. I started the frontmatter with page number 'iv' and it all
worked just fine.

  If I self-published I'd use Scribus to prepare the cover, title/half-title
pages, and publication/copywrite page. I'd save those as separate .pdf
files, then assemble the entire book using pdftk. Horses for courses as the
British say.


:-) And with all that, LyX is still by far the best alternative. You can use
it to produce a professionally typeset book, and except for frontmatter,
style creation and indexing, it's a snap. LyX is also very respectful of a
touch typists time, and I REALLY appreciate that.


  If you want to see how easy it is to do customized chapter headings,
headers, footers, etc. look at Herbert Voss's books on PSTricks and
Mathematical typesetting with LaTeX. Using the KOMA-Script book class (works
better for me than does the Memoir class), you can quickly and easily set up
the appearance you want.


... in spite of my cursing that stupid cover art :-)


  Artist or his tool? Either can be selected to do what's needed.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Dotan Cohen]

  Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
 Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
 made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
 that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
 worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
 several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
 myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would never
 occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a long time
 and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success of the book.

  I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser and
 reader. If I want the reader to think well of my and my published effort
 then I need to make the information accessible for everyone. So, if I was
 writing a book about using a desktop computer I'd probably have two entries
 for the optical media drive: cdrom/dvd drive and cup holder.

  There's a very useful book on SQLite that has the worst index I've ever
 seen in a technical reference. I ended up buying the PDF version of the book
 because I can search that within xpdf for information that's not in the
 index. The author did not write the index so he's not to blame.


Please excuse my completely OT post, but that was very insightful. I
love to read, especially coursework (yes, I am a nerd) and I never
realized how much effort must go into the index. I simply never
thought about that. Thank you for the insight into that technical bit
that I've appreciated and cursed at times over the years, without ever
really understanding the effort behind it until now.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

On Tuesday 14 July 2009 01:26:24 pm Rich Shepard wrote:
 On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
  ... second only to indexing, which I equate with working in a sceptic
  tank.

 Steve,

Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
 Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
 made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
 that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
 worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
 several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
 myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would
 never occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a
 long time and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success
 of the book.

I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser
 and reader. 

Yes, I didn't want to imply otherwise. What I was trying to get across is that 
it's as DISTASTEFUL as working in a sceptic tank. And, as you bring up, it's 
also as NECESSARY to do well as it is necessary to fix a sceptic tank well.

StevET

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Dotan Cohen wrote:


Please excuse my completely OT post, but that was very insightful. I love
to read, especially coursework (yes, I am a nerd) and I never realized how
much effort must go into the index. I simply never thought about that.
Thank you for the insight into that technical bit that I've appreciated
and cursed at times over the years, without ever really understanding the
effort behind it until now.


Dotan,

  We tend to take a useful index for granted. It can take an amateur like me
almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like
conventions and trade shows that run smoothly, we don't appreciate the
effort that it took to make it so.

  And I apologize for the two typos; I did not see them and the are
legitimate words so the spelling checker didn't flag them.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[John Coppens]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:33:44 -0400
Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:

 Yes, I didn't want to imply otherwise. What I was trying to get across
 is that it's as DISTASTEFUL as working in a sceptic tank. And, as you
 bring up, it's also as NECESSARY to do well as it is necessary to fix a
 sceptic tank well.

I've never worked in a sceptic tank. I didn't know there were tanks to
contains sceptics, distasteful or not ;-)

I guess the spellchecker didn't catch the difference between sceptic and
septic...

John

LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

It's time for me to put the front matter in my new book. This work is time 
consuming and frustrating, second only to indexing, which I equate with 
working in a sceptic tank.

I have to put my cover art on the front, with a list of my other books 
following, followed by the title page, followed of course by the copyright 
pages, followed by dedications, acknowledgements, a few words from the 
author, and a table of contents. What a pain in the butt. Nothing works 
without extensive tweaking!

:-) And with all that, LyX is still by far the best alternative. You can use 
it to produce a professionally typeset book, and except for frontmatter, 
style creation and indexing, it's a snap. LyX is also very respectful of a 
touch typists time, and I REALLY appreciate that.

So, as I'm cursing the fact that my cover art doesn't show up at all, let me 
take time to thank all of you for creating LyX and forming a community to 
continually improve it. LyX is nothing less than a major component of my 
business. Keep up the good work, in spite of my cursing that stupid cover 
art :-)

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:


... second only to indexing, which I equate with working in a sceptic
tank.


Steve,

  Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would never
occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a long time
and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success of the book.

  I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser and
reader. If I want the reader to think well of my and my published effort
then I need to make the information accessible for everyone. So, if I was
writing a book about using a desktop computer I'd probably have two entries
for the optical media drive: "cdrom/dvd drive" and "cup holder."

  There's a very useful book on SQLite that has the worst index I've ever
seen in a technical reference. I ended up buying the PDF version of the book
because I can search that within xpdf for information that's not in the
index. The author did not write the index so he's not to blame.


I have to put my cover art on the front, with a list of my other books
following, followed by the title page, followed of course by the copyright
pages, followed by dedications, acknowledgements, a few words from the
author, and a table of contents. What a pain in the butt. Nothing works
without extensive tweaking!


  I think that's because you like to tweak. I had absolutely no problems
with the dedication, acknowledgements, ToC, ToF, ToT, or preface. Springer
did the cover, title page, half-title page, publication/copyright page and a
few others. I started the frontmatter with page number 'iv' and it all
worked just fine.

  If I self-published I'd use Scribus to prepare the cover, title/half-title
pages, and publication/copywrite page. I'd save those as separate .pdf
files, then assemble the entire book using pdftk. Horses for courses as the
British say.


:-) And with all that, LyX is still by far the best alternative. You can use
it to produce a professionally typeset book, and except for frontmatter,
style creation and indexing, it's a snap. LyX is also very respectful of a
touch typists time, and I REALLY appreciate that.


  If you want to see how easy it is to do customized chapter headings,
headers, footers, etc. look at Herbert Voss's books on PSTricks and
Mathematical typesetting with LaTeX. Using the KOMA-Script book class (works
better for me than does the Memoir class), you can quickly and easily set up
the appearance you want.


... in spite of my cursing that stupid cover art :-)


  Artist or his tool? Either can be selected to do what's needed.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Dotan Cohen]

>  Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
> Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
> made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
> that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
> worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
> several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
> myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would never
> occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a long time
> and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success of the book.
>
>  I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser and
> reader. If I want the reader to think well of my and my published effort
> then I need to make the information accessible for everyone. So, if I was
> writing a book about using a desktop computer I'd probably have two entries
> for the optical media drive: "cdrom/dvd drive" and "cup holder."
>
>  There's a very useful book on SQLite that has the worst index I've ever
> seen in a technical reference. I ended up buying the PDF version of the book
> because I can search that within xpdf for information that's not in the
> index. The author did not write the index so he's not to blame.
>

Please excuse my completely OT post, but that was very insightful. I
love to read, especially coursework (yes, I am a nerd) and I never
realized how much effort must go into the index. I simply never
thought about that. Thank you for the insight into that technical bit
that I've appreciated and cursed at times over the years, without ever
really understanding the effort behind it until now.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Steve Litt]

On Tuesday 14 July 2009 01:26:24 pm Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Steve Litt wrote:
> > ... second only to indexing, which I equate with working in a sceptic
> > tank.
>
> Steve,
>
>Perhaps that's a reflection of the book's contents? When I was told that
> Springer would not hire a professional indexer and I had to do it myself, I
> made it my business to quickly learn how and to do the best darn job of it
> that could possibly be done. As far as I'm concerned, a technical book is
> worthless without an outstanding index. After I went through the text
> several times marking index entries, I then did it again very slowly asking
> myself what other word or phrase someone could possibly use that would
> never occur to me (the author and subject matter expert). _That_ took a
> long time and a lot of effort, but I considered it crucial to the success
> of the book.
>
>I think of index creation as a major part of what I own the purchaser
> and reader. 

Yes, I didn't want to imply otherwise. What I was trying to get across is that 
it's as DISTASTEFUL as working in a sceptic tank. And, as you bring up, it's 
also as NECESSARY to do well as it is necessary to fix a sceptic tank well.

StevET

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009, Dotan Cohen wrote:


Please excuse my completely OT post, but that was very insightful. I love
to read, especially coursework (yes, I am a nerd) and I never realized how
much effort must go into the index. I simply never thought about that.
Thank you for the insight into that technical bit that I've appreciated
and cursed at times over the years, without ever really understanding the
effort behind it until now.


Dotan,

  We tend to take a useful index for granted. It can take an amateur like me
almost as long to prepare the index as it does to write the text. Like
conventions and trade shows that run smoothly, we don't appreciate the
effort that it took to make it so.

  And I apologize for the two typos; I did not see them and the are
legitimate words so the spelling checker didn't flag them.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: LyX is a pain in the butt, but it's the easiest among alternatives

[John Coppens]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:33:44 -0400
Steve Litt  wrote:

> Yes, I didn't want to imply otherwise. What I was trying to get across
> is that it's as DISTASTEFUL as working in a sceptic tank. And, as you
> bring up, it's also as NECESSARY to do well as it is necessary to fix a
> sceptic tank well.

I've never worked in a sceptic tank. I didn't know there were tanks to
contains sceptics, distasteful or not ;-)

I guess the spellchecker didn't catch the difference between sceptic and
septic...

John