Posted by: Jonathan Bartlett
on June 18, 2004 01:09 PM
Did you read the article? Bartlett Publishing (my company) uses the DocBook tools _because_ it is faster. It is amazingly simple to come out with a professionally laid-out book using DocBook and its related toolchain.
John Culleton, who was also interviewed (and I know a little bit from publishing mailing lists), uses TeX also because it is faster AND because it produces better results.
So yes, cost DOES make a huuuge difference in this area, because the open-source tools are actually quite a bit ahead of everything else. The only exception is cover design, where proprietary tools still have a bit of a leg-up.
I believe my cover designer uses Macromedia Fireworks. GIMP is great for the post-processing stuff I do with the covers, but for actually making cover art, the proprietary tools win. GIMP is pretty useless beyond about 20 layers, and the vector tools aren't quite up to snuff. But they are getting there.
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Re:Cost discussion incomplete
Posted by: Jonathan Bartlett on June 18, 2004 01:09 PMJohn Culleton, who was also interviewed (and I know a little bit from publishing mailing lists), uses TeX also because it is faster AND because it produces better results.
So yes, cost DOES make a huuuge difference in this area, because the open-source tools are actually quite a bit ahead of everything else. The only exception is cover design, where proprietary tools still have a bit of a leg-up.
I believe my cover designer uses Macromedia Fireworks. GIMP is great for the post-processing stuff I do with the covers, but for actually making cover art, the proprietary tools win. GIMP is pretty useless beyond about 20 layers, and the vector tools aren't quite up to snuff. But they are getting there.
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