Can Publisher create professional books?

[telicalbook]

Hi,

I've been told that Publisher can't really format professional
books and to try a Tex variation.

Wondering about opinions on this. I don't want people to be able
to distinguish any difference between a book I publish and
any other book in a bookstore.

Also, what version of Publisher is recomended for this? I am
using one for Win95 and it can't suppress headers on final pages,
which makes for stupid looking end pages. Do later versions have
significant improvements for the book publisher and what are they?

Thanks for your help.

Robert

--

 

[Ed Bennett]

I've been told that Publisher can't really format professional
books and to try a Tex variation.

You could certainly use Publisher for this. Like with all things, there are
pros and cons.
Publisher is very easy to pick up. However, it doesn't include any standard
templates for books like those you would find in a bookstore, and so you
would have to create everything manually. It would probably be more
difficult to get a uniform format. LaTeX or LyX would make getting a
uniform format far easier, but you lose out on precise layout control, plus
it's much harder to learn. Another alternative would be to use a
professional-level DTP application such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress.
The disadvantage of this is the pricing and the steep learning curve.
To single-handedly create a professional-looking book that is
indistinguishable from the "genuine" article in any application is something
that takes experience and practise.

Also, what version of Publisher is recomended for this? I am
using one for Win95 and it can't suppress headers on final pages,
which makes for stupid looking end pages. Do later versions have
significant improvements for the book publisher and what are they?

Publisher 2003 includes substantial improvements in the area of preparing
your file to go to a commercial printer. However, it doesn't specifically
include much special functionality geared towards long documents.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Long documents are best created in Word. Word has all the tools you need for your
project.

 

[JoAnn Paules [MSFT MVP]]

Ed and Mary have already responded but I have to add something.

You could have the most expensive, top-of-the-line program ever developed
and still produce a crappy book. Where is it written that a less expensive
program can't produce a nice looking book?? It all boils down to the skill
of the designer as well as the amount of time you are willing to put into a
project.

(I just had to get that out of my system.)

 

[jem01354]

"Here, here!"

Ed and Mary have already responded but I have to add something.

You could have the most expensive, top-of-the-line program ever developed
and still produce a crappy book. Where is it written that a less expensive
program can't produce a nice looking book?? It all boils down to the skill
of the designer as well as the amount of time you are willing to put into a
project.

(I just had to get that out of my system.)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

Hi,

I've been told that Publisher can't really format professional
books and to try a Tex variation.

Wondering about opinions on this. I don't want people to be able
to distinguish any difference between a book I publish and
any other book in a bookstore.

Also, what version of Publisher is recomended for this? I am
using one for Win95 and it can't suppress headers on final pages,
which makes for stupid looking end pages. Do later versions have
significant improvements for the book publisher and what are they?

Thanks for your help.

Robert

--
--
Robert Pearson
ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net
Creative Virtue Press/Telical Books/Regenerative Music
http://www.rspearson.com

 

[telicalbook]

Hi,

Not sure that Word can create formatted book documents.

Word can do book format setups in landscape format?
Can it suppress headers on pages you don't want them?
Can it make this all in one file for the ease of a printer?

Just curious, is there a suppress header function in Publisher 2003?
That seems to be one of the major problems now as going from file
to a print-out at a printer is the best way to go, and not sure that
they can
make alterations that are impossible within the software itself.

 

[Mary Sauer]

So You Want to Write a Book with MS Word
http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm

 

[Ed Bennett]

Just curious, is there a suppress header function in Publisher 2003?
That seems to be one of the major problems now as going from file
to a print-out at a printer is the best way to go, and not sure that
they can
make alterations that are impossible within the software itself.

a) Most older versions of Publisher Help state that you can cover up the
header with a white text box (this doesn't apply as much if you have a
picture behind the header text).
b) Publisher 2003 has multiple master pages, and so can have pages with and
without headers, and different headers in different parts of the
publication.
c) Printers can modify PDF files you supply to them, but it's normally best
if they don't.

 

[anon]

Hi,

I've been told that Publisher can't really format professional
books and to try a Tex variation.

Wondering about opinions on this. I don't want people to be able
to distinguish any difference between a book I publish and
any other book in a bookstore.

Also, what version of Publisher is recomended for this? I am
using one for Win95 and it can't suppress headers on final pages,
which makes for stupid looking end pages. Do later versions have
significant improvements for the book publisher and what are they?

Thanks for your help.

Robert

I used Publisher 95 to produce a book which was sold by a
mainstream publisher. The book was in landscape format with
double columns of text, on account of it containing loads of
tables. The tables were generated automatically by VB programs
which incorporated "<T>" tags between the values in each row.
These were copied and pasted into Publisher and the tags
substituted with tabs using "^t". Using tabs, left, right, centre,
decimal, (set within styles) in Publisher has to be the easiest
way of laying out tables ever. Far easier than the inbuilt table
editors in Publisher or Pagemaker IMO.

Each chapter formed a separate file and all were written to the
default imagesetter as Postcript EPS (IIRR) files. All these files
were then proofed to a S/H Laserjet IIIP with a Postscript cartridge
using DOS COPY. They were then sent direct to the printer and all
printed perfectly.

There are workarounds for most problems in Publisher, with master pages
and other features - as has been pointed out white boxes can be used to
obscure unwanted headers. The only real deficiency in Publisher 95
at least as compared with Pagemaker which I found, was the inability
to apply fine adjustments to the width of the type - tracking - with
just the one or two options "squeeze together" etc. and the leading.
Which would have been useful in order to maintain a consistent page
length on facing pages, given the preponderance of tables. While the
auto-hyphenation and word breaks also needed watching.
And clearly Publisher 95 isn't as adept at handling ligatures
and suchlike - which don't even show up in the index. But even then
having too much scope for fine tuning and fiddling, unless the
intention is to produce cutting-edge typographical masterpieces,
can be a handicap in itself.

The fonts used were the old Type 1 standbyes of Bookman for the
body text, and helvetica variants for the tables.


anon

 

[Jim]

"Here, here!"

I think you'll find that the correct spelling is "Hear, hear!"

Blessed be, for sure...

 

[JoAnn Paules [MSFT MVP]]

Here..hear............doesn't matter to me. I knew what Jem meant. (At it
was nice to know that at least one other person feels the way I do. Skill,
creativity, and time are better tools than any software program can
provide.)

 

[jem01354]

Thanks JoAnn, and Hear, hear!!! yet again.

PS Thanks, Jim, I learn something new every day.

Here..hear............doesn't matter to me. I knew what Jem meant. (At it
was nice to know that at least one other person feels the way I do. Skill,
creativity, and time are better tools than any software program can
provide.)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

I think you'll find that the correct spelling is "Hear, hear!"


Blessed be, for sure...

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

Hear here!


| Here..hear............doesn't matter to me. I knew what Jem meant. (At it
| was nice to know that at least one other person feels the way I do. Skill,
| creativity, and time are better tools than any software program can
| provide.)
|
| --
|
| JoAnn Paules
| MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
|
|
|
| | > On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 19:09:03 -0700, "jem01354"
| >
| >>"Here, here!"
| >>
| > I think you'll find that the correct spelling is "Hear, hear!"
| >
| >>>
| >>> | >>> > Hi,
| >>> >
| >>> > I've been told that Publisher can't really format professional
| >>> > books and to try a Tex variation.
| >>> >
| >>> > Wondering about opinions on this. I don't want people to be able
| >>> > to distinguish any difference between a book I publish and
| >>> > any other book in a bookstore.
| >>> >
| >>> > Also, what version of Publisher is recomended for this? I am
| >>> > using one for Win95 and it can't suppress headers on final pages,
| >>> > which makes for stupid looking end pages. Do later versions have
| >>> > significant improvements for the book publisher and what are they?
| >>> >
| >>> > Thanks for your help.
| >>> >
| >>> > Robert
| >>> >
| >>> > --
| >>> > --
| >>> > Robert Pearson
| >>> > ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net
| >>> > Creative Virtue Press/Telical Books/Regenerative Music
| >>> > http://www.rspearson.com
| >>> >
| >>>
| >>>
| >>>
| >
| > Blessed be, for sure...
|
|

 

[telicalbook]

Not sure how this is going to appear as a new message to be read and
replied to, since the thread is several weeks old. I realize this is
the Publisher group, but since Word was brought up here thought I would
try to get a reply from it.

I am most concerned with the lack of page numbers on my title and
contents pages, and starting with page one on page one. In browsing
through the link:

So You Want to Write a Book with MS Word
http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm

it wasn't that clean that this could be done. In fact, it seemed to
cover almost every area other than this.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Ins and outs of page numbering in Word
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011165141033.aspx