Word processor for writing long docs/books ...

[DMS]

Someone said there are a couple of professional non-Microsoft word
processing softwares used in book publishing that don't suffer from the long
doc frailty that MS Word does. Can anyone tell me the names of any such
software?

(I'm not referring to page layout programs like Pagemaker or Quark.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Possibly FrameMaker?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Baeowulf]

OpenOffice uses XML for their files, which is an industry standard (though I
believe WordXP uses XML now too, so...). It's a full fledged office suite
supported by the open source community. www.openoffice.org

 

[Waldo]

Adobe FrameMaker is used for large, structured documents.

I wouldn't recommend Pagemaker or InDesign for such projects (don't know
about Quark).

Waldo

 

[B. Smalbro]

If Non Microsoft means Mac, I'd give Ragtime a chance. It is free and runs
on both Windows and Mac.
If Non Microsoft merely means not-Word or Publisher I'd suggest either
FrameMaker or Ventura Publisher. The latter is cheap but will do almost
anything

Kind regards
Bjørn

 

[Klaus Linke]

Someone said there are a couple of professional non-Microsoft
word processing softwares used in book publishing that don't
suffer from the long doc frailty that MS Word does.
Can anyone tell me the names of any such software?

(I'm not referring to page layout programs like Pagemaker or Quark.)

Hi DMS,

Don't want to discourage you from trying other software, but there is no
"long doc frailty" in Word AFAIK.
Word's stability seems to be more dependent on the complexity of the
document (many embedded objects? tables? sections?) than raw length. As
long as you keep it simple, you won't have problems with many hundred
pages.

Regards,
Klaus

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi DMS,

Don't want to discourage you from trying other software, but there is no
"long doc frailty" in Word AFAIK.
Word's stability seems to be more dependent on the complexity of the
document (many embedded objects? tables? sections?) than raw length. As
long as you keep it simple, you won't have problems with many hundred
pages.

Regards,
Klaus

Perhaps by frailty he means things like Word's Master Documents, which ought
to simplify the book manuscript task but don't.

Hearsay: There is a PC program called NotaBene which advertises for the
academic market and thus ought to be designed to produce multi-section
documents with complex features, though I don't have experience with it.
Some people say WordPerfect handles master document type features without a
problem.

Myself, I'd really like to know what software produces features such as a
running header that says "Notes to pages 60-80," "Notes to pages 80-100" for
an endnotes section....

DM

 

[Klaus Linke]

Myself, I'd really like to know what software produces features

such as a running header that says "Notes to pages 60-80,"
"Notes to pages 80-100" for an endnotes section....

Hi Dayo,

I do this kind of stuff daily with our typesetting program (... I'm a
typesetter).

It's fully programmable, and if a feature is missing, you can just add it
yourself.
It's also a bit more expensive than, say, Word or Quark...

;-) Klaus

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi DMS,

Someone said there are a couple of professional non-Microsoft word
processing softwares used in book publishing that don't suffer from
the long doc frailty that MS Word does. Can anyone tell me the
names of any such software?

LaTeX ...

Have fun!
..bob
...Word-MVP

 

[J C]

Myself, I'd really like to know what software produces features such as a
running header that says "Notes to pages 60-80," "Notes to pages 80-100" for
an endnotes section....

DM

You want that feature for manuscript preparation?

As a publisher all I can say is that the more complex authors make
their manuscripts -- no matter what program they use -- the more of a
pain in the butt working with the manuscript becomes when trying to
copyedit and then set it up in a layout application.

Since any publisher worth submitting a manuscript to (i.e., not a
vanity press) will have that manuscript professionally copy edited.
Usually that will be done by taking a style template and pasting the
author's manuscript into that template. Copyediting and the coding of
styles will be done based on that template. Since that template will
likely have a different font and margins, there will not be a
one-to-one correspondence between the author's manuscript and the
copyedited version. So those running heads you refer to would not seem
to be that helpful.

Authors should:
-- Create separate word processor files for all chapters.
-- Footnotes that are supposed to appear on pages of the text should
be numbered as superscripts in the text and their footnote typed
directly after the paragraph to which they apply (the publisher will
move that in layout and likely insert the correct symbol for the
footnote)
-- End notes (AKA reference lists, bibliographies, should be placed at
the end of the manuscript
-- Tables should be numbered, placed at the end of the manuscript and
in the text of the article should be cited ... Table 1, etc.
-- No figures should be embedded in the word processor document. All
figures should be numbered and they should be cited in the text of the
article. Legends for the figures should be at the end of the chapter
manuscript. The actual figures should be sent as separate prints or
graphics files.

Authors should NOT use any automatical numbering of end notes and
footnotes


-- JC

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi JC,

I hope you won't get too angry... but I disagree on a few of your points.

You want that feature for manuscript preparation?

As a publisher all I can say is that the more complex authors
make their manuscripts -- no matter what program they use --
the more of a pain in the butt working with the manuscript
becomes when trying to copyedit and then set it up in a layout
application.

Agree whole-heartedly.

Since any publisher worth submitting a manuscript to (i.e.,
not a vanity press) will have that manuscript professionally
copy edited. Usually that will be done by taking a style template
and pasting the author's manuscript into that template.
Copyediting and the coding of styles will be done based on
that template. Since that template will likely have a different
font and margins, there will not be a one-to-one correspondence
between the author's manuscript and the copyedited version.

Full ACK.

So those running heads you refer to would not seem to be that
helpful.

I agree that it wouldn't be helpful to fudge them in Word.
Even if you should be able to do it with fields, it won't help the
typesetter.

Authors should:
-- Create separate word processor files for all chapters.

Differ strongly ;-)
In my experience, authors have a hard time to keep the formatting
consistent if they split a book into chapters.
I prefer a single file any time.

-- Footnotes that are supposed to appear on pages of the text
should be numbered as superscripts in the text and their footnote
typed directly after the paragraph to which they apply (the publisher
will move that in layout and likely insert the correct symbol for
the footnote)

Depends on the book.

-- End notes (AKA reference lists, bibliographies, should be placed at
the end of the manuscript

Depends on the book.

-- Tables should be numbered, placed at the end of the manuscript
and in the text of the article should be cited ... Table 1, etc.

Depends on the book.
(I don't see a reason for a hard and fast "rule" in any of these cases.
Books with tables interspersed in the text are very common, for example)

-- No figures should be embedded in the word processor
document. All figures should be numbered and they should
be cited in the text of the article. Legends for the figures
should be at the end of the chapter manuscript. The actual
figures should be sent as separate prints or graphics files.

Again, this seems a rule that is required by your workflow, and not a
general rule.
I much prefer figures to appear where they appear in the book, and don't
see a reason to number them if they aren't numbered in the book.

Authors should NOT use any automatical numbering of
end notes and footnotes

Strongly disagree. For me, automatic footnotes/endnotes are far more simple
to re-use.

As we see, the requirements depend heavily on the DTP/typesetting
application you are targetting.
It's always best to contact your publisher early on, or, when possible,
even the typesetter, for requirements and tips.

Regards,
Klaus

 

[Matthew Taylor]

Hi DMS,


LaTeX ...

He said word processing, not page layout / presentation

AFAIK LaTex is precisely no help at this.

I've tended to write long documents as tagged text in Emacs for import into
other software.
As a base app it isn't the most suited, but you can customise it as much as
you want, & it is completely cross platform.
The big benefit is that it lets you focus on what you are writing, not how
it looks (I just have the different tags highlighting as different colours,
but that is about it.)
It is fast, & is very easy to navigate & search through long documents.

OTOH, many people hate the program.

Matthew

 

[Stephan Eggermont]

Authors should:

- use Framemaker for long documents, or LaTeX.
- use linked figures.
- use paragraph styles and autonumbering.

Stephan

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi all,

Klaus Linke wrote:
[..]

Agree whole-heartedly.

I agree, IF the deal between publisher and author is such that the
publishing house is setting the whole thing; if you supply camera-ready
PostScript or PDF, there is no more afterwork in the traditional sense.

Full ACK.

See above: We've published books almost 1000 pages strong, with CRCPress
in the States and Springer in Germany. Camera-ready supply of paper
(like 7 years ago) has been replaced with PS and then PDF.


[..]

Again, this seems a rule that is required by your workflow, and not
a general rule.
I much prefer figures to appear where they appear in the book, and
don't see a reason to number them if they aren't numbered in the
book.

For figures, everything depends on whether you print in color or not. If
you do not print in black/white or more than one "Schmuckfarbe" (Klaus,
if you have a translation for that, dict.leo.org would like to know it
), then you are out of the market with Word IMHO (you may still do
the text work there, but not the final preparation).

2cents
..bob
...Word-MVP

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

You want that feature for manuscript preparation?

No, I don't actually, I was just curious about such a sophisticated
technique, and the OP referred to programs used by book publishers.... (and
cross-posted to two very different audiences)

However, writing a dissertation is one situation in which one is
home-producing a document, but would like it to look as professional and
book-like as possible (and my thesis czars mostly only regulate margins).
In academic writing, as well, there is generally a *long* process of editing
and review before acceptance for publication, and I could see such running
headers being helpful (if unnecessary) in distributing documents to
strangers for evaluation. But I am not at all suggesting that such a
specialized feature would be worth adding to any kind of mass market word
processing software.

As a publisher all I can say is that the more complex authors make
their manuscripts -- no matter what program they use -- the more of a
pain in the butt working with the manuscript becomes when trying to
copyedit and then set it up in a layout application.

Authors should NOT use any automatical numbering of end notes and
footnotes

But presumably book publishing software has some mechanical way to convert
the automatic numbering? I hope there aren't people out there slaving away
at manually converting every footnote....

DM

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi Dayo,

I do this kind of stuff daily with our typesetting program (... I'm a
typesetter).

It's fully programmable, and if a feature is missing, you can just add it
yourself.
It's also a bit more expensive than, say, Word or Quark...

;-) Klaus

Hi Klaus,

I figured it was highly professional and expensive, my comment was just
curiosity talking... Sounds awfully complicated to use, though.

Dayo

 

[Tim Vanhoof]

Hi Dayo,

I do this kind of stuff daily with our typesetting program (... I'm a
typesetter).

It's fully programmable, and if a feature is missing, you can just add it
yourself.
It's also a bit more expensive than, say, Word or Quark...

You are talking about 3B2, and I claim my five pounds.

 

[Klaus Linke]

[...] "Schmuckfarbe" (Klaus, if you have a translation for

that, dict.leo.org would like to know it ), [...]

Spot color?
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Schmuckfarbe+spot&as_oq=color+colour

Klaus

 

[Klaus Linke]

It's fully programmable, and if a feature is missing, you can just add
it

You are talking about 3B2, and I claim my five pounds.

Hi Tim,

Sorry, close, but only a virtual cigar ;-)
It's "TypoScript" from a German company.
From what I've seen from 3B2, both are rather similar in principle (though
TypoScript is a bit more "old school", still using lots of Linotype 300
instructions).

Regards,
Klaus

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

[...] "Schmuckfarbe" (Klaus, if you have a translation for
that, dict.leo.org would like to know it ), [...]

Spot color?
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Schmuckfarbe+spot&as_oq=color+colour

let's see how long it takes for leo to get that one online, tx!
..bob
...Word-MVP