Hello George,<br><br>> This leaves out the workflow. What steps are needed to go from the<br>> author's files to the press-ready files? Will there be resources to make<br>> corrections to crummy artwork, check bibliographic references, redo<br>
> crummy tables, etc? Are you working with an existing university press?<br>> Do they have experience with TeX and mathematics?<br><br>The collection will be based initially on Ma and PhD monographs from the last five years. It is expected that, at the very least, a LaTeX (AMS compliant) source is still available.<br>
Artwork is prone to be redone. (See e.g. this one real-life case: <a href="http://i41.tinypic.com/rw2lx0.jpg">http://i41.tinypic.com/rw2lx0.jpg</a>)<br>I will be dealing with an existing university press, but one with almost no experience with LaTeX.<br>
<br>I will surely be supervising directly the first numbers in the collection---and perhaps, if time allows, I will be producing them myself. <br>As for the new monographs, I will provide an author guide, dealing with basic graphics and typesetting requirements. That ought not to be an issue.<br>
<br>I do not expect to deal with fancy Unicode typography. But I do wish to use semibold weight faces, real small caps, and the like. <br><br>What do you gather?<br>Best wishes,<br><br>Nicolas<br><br><br>On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 7:17 AM, George N. White III <<a href="mailto:gnwiii@gmail.com">gnwiii@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:34 AM, Nicolas Vaughan<<a href="mailto:nivaca@gmail.com">nivaca@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>><br>> > Hello,<br>> > I have been commissioned by a university to design a collection of<br>
> > monographs on mathematics. I should be providing a class file, a user manual<br>> > and a typeset example.<br>><br>> This leaves out the workflow. What steps are needed to go from the<br>> author's files to the press-ready files? Will there be resources to make<br>
> corrections to crummy artwork, check bibliographic references, redo<br>> crummy tables, etc? Are you working with an existing university press?<br>> Do they have experience with TeX and mathematics?<br>><br>
> > At the outset, I decided to work in XeLaTeX, since this is the system I have<br>> > been working with lately, and with which I feel quite comfortable.<br>> > However, some folks have told me that, since I know not what the precise<br>
> > content of the monographs will be (apart from the usual LaTeX packages and<br>> > AMS commands and environments), there is a risk there might be a clash<br>> > between XeLaTeX and the content (e.g., with commutative diagrams, perhaps?).<br>
> > What do you suggest? Should I stick to plain old LaTeX, or should I go all<br>> > the way through with XeLaTeX?<br>><br>> Others have provided good advice, but it would help to know more about the<br>
> background. If you expect authors to provide source documents you should<br>> consider what they are doing now, e.g., publishing in English language journals<br>> using LaTeX with eps figures and try to stay close to their existing workflows.<br>
><br>> In an environment were the source documents are mainly unicode (e.g., Word<br>> and not using English) and no legacy LaTeX workflow, XeLaTeX might be easier<br>> for the authors.<br>><br>> Ross Moore mentioned problems with author-generated figures. Do you have<br>
> any control over how figures are created? Many publishers still want "EPS",<br>> by which they mean Adobe Illustrator files. I find that older authors have some<br>> experience with EPS, but that it is a mystery to those who have only used<br>
> MS Office. PDF is much more accessible (everyone has a PDF viewer)<br>> so you should be prepared to consider a PDF workflow if EPS is not<br>> something your authors have experienced.<br>><br>> --<br>
> George N. White III <<a href="mailto:aa056@chebucto.ns.ca">aa056@chebucto.ns.ca</a>><br>
> Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia<br><br>