Re: Subject: Re: Cocoa Book / ok, ok.
Re: Subject: Re: Cocoa Book / ok, ok.
- Subject: Re: Subject: Re: Cocoa Book / ok, ok.
- From: Chuck Toporek <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 13:59:24 -0500
On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 01:21 PM, Brian E. Howard wrote:
On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 12:35 PM, Chuck Toporek wrote:
When an author is working in Word, XML, or DocBook SGML to produce
their book, those files get converted to Frame when when the book
comes into production. "Conversion" is part voodoo, in that things
can happen, like double hyphens being converted to em-dashes, and
missing slashes from HTML/XML tags in code examples (e.g., <barf\>)
suddenly disappear. After a book gets converted, we typically have a
few days to review the conversion and find problems. We have to be
really careful to look for and catch these things, but they can
sometimes slip through.
It's worth noting that Word does a lot of nasty things to text as
it's entered, one of which is auto-converting double hyphens to
em-dashes and messing around with single and curly quotes, as well as
doing some odd things with backticks. To get around this, you need to
turn off all the automatic stuff by doing the following:
1. Go to Format --> AutoFormat
2. Click on the Options button
3. AutoCorrect tab
--> uncheck "Replace text as you type"
4. AutoFormat As You Type tab
--> uncheck everything in the "Replace as you type" section
5. AutoText tab
--> uncheck "Show AutoComplete tip for AutoText, Contacts, and
dates"
6. AutoFormat tab
--> uncheck everything in the "Replace" section
Then you should be safe for working on a tech book or documentation,
because Word (foolishly) assumes we're all typing business letters.
The real problem, as I said in my last post, is that you "Publishers"
are _NOT_ typesetting your books! You are farting around with crap
like M$ Word, and page layout programs that are designed to produce
pamphlets, not books. Real typesetting means TeX in todays world; all
else is forth rate at best, as there is no second or third rate! I
own several of your books, and the typography in every one of them is
horrible.
The additional problem there is that most printers today don't like TeX
or troff, or even PostScript. Publishers tend to be bound by a format
their printers can accept and print from, and also by what their staff
can work with.
In regard to typography, as the editor, I have no control over the
choice of fonts in our books, but I can pass your comments along. (I
don't even have a choice or say on the cover animal.) That's all
handled by production and design.
On a positive note, the second edition of "Learning Cocoa--With
Objective-C" is a big improvement over the original embarrassment.
kudos to you and the author for that.
Thanks, that (the kudos part) means a lot coming from you.
Chuck
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.