Excellent Typesetting
January 26, 2005 – 12:00 pmI just finished typesetting another book in Microsoft Word. Even though I used my WordSetter program, I’m convinced there’s got to be an easier way. Why would I want to typeset a book in Word? Automatic footnotes, that’s why.
QuarkXPress and InDesign don’t do automatic footnotes. That leaves FrameMaker, which won’t split notes over multiple pages, and Ventura, which doesn’t do ligatures and won’t run on a Macintosh. Isn’t *anybody* interested in making a program that handles all of the above? (There’s also Broadvision Quicksilver–formerly Interleaf–that I could evaluate more thoroughly if I could get past the corporate gobbledygook.)
If you know of a good, not-too-difficult solution, I’d really like to hear from you:
mailto:editor [at symbol] editorium.com
In the meantime, I’ve pieced together the following process that just might work.
First, install the following free programs:
For PC:
OpenOffice.org, the Writer module in particular
Java Runtime Environment
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html
Writer2LaTeX
http://www.hj-gym.dk/~hj/writer2latex/
LyX
Other programs needed by LyX
http://wiki.lyx.org/pmwiki.php/LyX/WindowsSetup
Ghostscript and GSView
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
For Macintosh:
OpenOffice.org, the Writer module in particular
Writer2LaTeX (a Java program that, therefore, should run on Macintosh OS X or Unix as well as Windows; if you know how to run Java programs on a Mac, please let me know so I can share your knowledge with other readers)
http://www.hj-gym.dk/~hj/writer2latex/
LyX
Other programs needed by LyX
http://wiki.lyx.org/pmwiki.php/LyX/Mac
Ghostscript and MacGSView
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
After installing the software, follow these steps:
1. Edit the book in Microsoft Word, setting margins as needed, inserting headers and folios, and applying styles (formatted to your liking) to specify text levels. And using Editor’s ToolKit, of course:
http://www.editorium.com/14842.htm
http://www.editorium.com/14857.htm
2. Open the edited document in the OpenOffice.org Writer program.
3. Export as a LaTeX document using Writer2LaTex.
4. Open the LaTeX file in LyX and create the typeset Postscript file.
5. Use GSView or MacGSView to view the file and convert it (via Ghostscript) to PDF.
6. View and print the PDF file using Acrobat Reader:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Of course, this sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. But theoretically, this should produce excellent typography on any platform with almost no user intervention–and with automatic footnotes, ligatures, the works. I’ll keep you posted.
You can learn more about WordSetter here:
http://www.editorium.com/14000.htm
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READERS WRITE
After reading last week’s article on italicizing a whole word (which required turning on Tools > Options > Edit > “When selecting, automatically select entire word”), expert word whacker Hilary Powers wrote:
Learn something every day!
I started out to write, “That’s a cure worse than the disease, as far as I’m concerned, at least for an editor. . . .” Then I double-checked the actual operation of the option, and discovered that it doesn’t do what I thought it did at all. It doesn’t force selection of whole words the way its name indicates; Shift-Arrow selects partial words just like it always did–so you can change, say, “raged” to “raging” by selecting the “ed” and typing over it.
Is that also a change? I have a vivid memory of watching the screen select whole words willy-nilly instead of parts in earlier versions of the program.
I responded:
That’s exactly what I was thinking, but it doesn’t seem to be the case in Word 95, 97, 2000, 2002, or 2003. I checked before posting the newsletter, but now that you bring it up, it probably merits further investigation.
The Help file says:
————————
When selecting, automatically select entire word:
Selects an entire word and the following space when you select part of a word.
————————
But really, I see no difference whether the “feature” is turned off or on.
Hilary replied:
Have you really tried selecting a few letters out of a word in all the earlier versions? Or just looked to see if the italics thang worked as advertised? [Answer: Yes, I tried selecting a few letters out of a word.] What we seem to have here is an undocumented change in function–the feature flat out does not do what the Help file says it does. And, as I said, I do think of it as operating as promised. Which is why I’ve always kept it turned off, as the alleged function is a disaster for an editor.
What it does now is select the entire word–but NOT the following space (or any internal punctuation, as with a URL)–when Word is left to make its own selection based on commands like Ctrl-I and Ctrl-B, and that’s dead useful–especially when you move an italicized word to the style sheet and then want to kill the italics there. When you make your own selection, it leaves you alone as a civilized piece of software should.
Many thanks to Hilary for her comments.
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RESOURCES
O’Reilly has recently published a book titled Word Hacks: Tips and Tools for Taming Your Text. The book has a wealth of advanced information about using Microsoft Word–and two of the chapters (29 and 30) are by yours truly!
You can learn more about the book and download sample hacks and tips here:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wordhks/index.html
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THE FINE PRINT
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