I have been in the book printing world for a long time, and have edited a lot of books myself. I have tried Latex. I have tried Docbook.
Ever tried something as simple as choosing a particular OpenType font, changing your margins, setting up tables, working in Unicode, or embedding EPS files in any of the above? It's a nightmare. If you want to spend many hours learning the underlying languages so thoroughly that you can write a layout that actually functions, good for you. I have far more productive things to do with my time.
Docbook and Latex are great for a very specific scholarly audience (like scientists and mathematicians), or if you like being forced into someone else's formatting mold. But if you need the ability to easily make broad formatting changes give me a decent page layout program, like InDesign 4 any day. (Don't even try to talk to me about Scribus.)
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Book Publishers seldom use Latex, Docbook, etc.
Posted by: Teilo on January 31, 2006 05:34 AMEver tried something as simple as choosing a particular OpenType font, changing your margins, setting up tables, working in Unicode, or embedding EPS files in any of the above? It's a nightmare. If you want to spend many hours learning the underlying languages so thoroughly that you can write a layout that actually functions, good for you. I have far more productive things to do with my time.
Docbook and Latex are great for a very specific scholarly audience (like scientists and mathematicians), or if you like being forced into someone else's formatting mold. But if you need the ability to easily make broad formatting changes give me a decent page layout program, like InDesign 4 any day. (Don't even try to talk to me about Scribus.)
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