RE: Requiring use of DocBook; LinuxDoc

[Martin WHEELER <mwheeler@startext.co.uk>]

On Sun, 25 Jun 2000, Gregory Leblanc wrote:

> ... I'll ask "Do authors get a say in exactly what gets
> published?"

Aah -- the puir wee innocent lamb! <SOB>

GLM has already given a very comprehensive reply to this, so I'll just
add the following from one of my own experiences (as a writer) with a
household name publisher, and one of their editors with a first-class
degree in English from Oxford.
(Sounds good, eh?  Now read on.)

My text was available on PC-formatted disk, in ASCII, already half 
marked-up in an SGML DTD.  Neither the publisher nor the editor could
cope with this -- never mind the SGML, they couldn't even accept text
on disk (we're talking London, 1991). So what in effect happened was
that the editor spent the next eighteen months re-typing my text from a
printout to a TYPESCRIPT, editing along the way  =o)
This was then sent to a typesetter, who set a high-speed typist to
transcribe it to disk.

OK so far?  You can imagine the literals and typos that have been
introduced to date.  (I was gobsmacked -- stunned beyond belief. When I
received the first galleys, I produced an _exact_ typeset copy, from my
own disks, in under 10 days.  _Including_ all the crap now introduced
into my text.)

The very worst thing for me was the fact that in the text, references to
pre-decimal UK currency (L.s.d. : Libri, solidi, dinari : pounds,
shillings and pence) -- such as "1/2d" [one shilling and tuppence] -- 
had been typographically re-assigned the incorrect value of
"1/2d" [a ha'penny] -- where my original text had been clearly marked up
to differentiate between the solidus [shilling mark] and the fraction
bar.  (And the font chosen by the book designer was also capable of the
same differentiation.)  The incorrectly typeset version was nevertheless
sent for printing. 

Nit-picking?

No.  Academic purist highly aware of the need for technical accuracy.
And able to implement it.


Authors of the LDP -- give thanks that you can control your own markup.

msw
-- 
Martin Wheeler         -         StarTEXT - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
[1] mwheeler@startext.co.uk                      http://www.startext.co.uk/
[2] mwheeler@startext.f9.co.uk

  --  "When I first encountered Cora, I thought the Space Age had
       arrived.  These days I just use a Mac."
        John Barker [the master printer who taught me typography] 


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