On Tuesday 24 March 2009 08:52:32 Charles de Miramon wrote: > stefano franchi wrote: > > On the other hand: > > > > * LyX produces glorious output--through LaTex---but that's not that > > important to me, because no one in my field would accept a LaTex file. In > > fact I doubt they would even know what it is. And they would not accept a > > camera-ready file either. Almost everything is retyped or, most likely, > > imported from Word into a DTP program. I personally enjoy looking at the > > beautifully formatted output produced by LaTex, but it is a purely > > narcissistic pleasure. No added benefit there. I believe this to be > > pretty much the norm in the humanities (after you graduate: your > > dissertation may be the last piece of writing you control from beginning > > to end). > > From my point of view (working in the humanities in France) is that copy > editors and typographical work are quickly disappearing in Academic Press > in Europe. Nobody is making any money selling books in humanities and even > serious book publishers are transforming in a simple book printers. > > My experience is that you give a word file that is crudely imported in a > DTP program by a secretary with little knowledge. Anything complex (tables, > figures, index) will be hopelessly botched. Somme publishers like > L'Harmattan in France or Peter Lang in Germany don't even bother anymore > with DTP, they will just xerox the MsWord printout. > > LyX and LaTeX make it possible to create with well documented and open > source tools quality books. Even if the use in a MsWrod workflow can be > today limited it is path to the future. > > Cheers, > Charles
Hi Charles, you're right, the situation is changing in Europe, although in different ways in different countries. In Italy (my home country, and where I publish from time to time), we have reached a two tier system (for academic publishing, I mean): a handful of publishing houses still use professional typesetters, while lower tier houses hand out very detailed typesetting instructions for microsoft word. I must say that a devoted and competent editor can actually do a reasonable job even with word---provided no complex objects are involved. I recently co-edited a collection in Italian and my co-editor slaved away for a month with Word until he managed to produce a more than decent-looking output. The two examples you have chosen are at the very bottom of the spectrum, typography-wise. L'Harmattan in particular published some horrendous looking books. (Although they do publish very good books, content-wise). But I am digressing. Your point is well-taken, though: my remarks apply mostly to the environments I know first hand: the North-American situation and New Zeland. Cheers, S. ______________________________________________________________ Stefano Franchi Department of Philosophy Ph: (979) 862-2211 Texas A&M University Fax: (979) 845-0458 305B Bolton Hall fran...@philosophy.tamu.edu College Station, TX 77843-4237