Re: Software For Book Writing
On 06 Nov 2008, TW wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm going to be writing a political book soon and I'm not
> sure what software to use to write it.
>
> I want to use something like Vim to write it, but, I want
> to be able to convert it to OpenOffice/MicrosoftWord, etc. format(s).
> The reason that I want to use something like Vim is because I'd be
> able to make a more censored version of the book on the fly for
> certain people to download (underagers, for instance). I thought
> that latex would be what I needed, but I'm not sure. I thought
> DocBook, but isn't that for documentation? I need something that
> goes the whole nine yards, The Little Brown Handbook style (footnotes,
> etc.). Thanks for the help.
>
> By the way, you guys get first dibs on the book (it'll be
> free, free as in "free beer"). I'm planning on writing a section
> on free software.
>
> --
I've published 3 books now and am working on a fourth, using POD via
Lulu. I use vim for all my writing. Once the text is in order I then
process it via LyX, which is a frontend to Latex. Have a look at this;
it is described as a text processor (not a word processor) and produces
publishable files. It is supposed to use kerning to make the spacing
look better. Footnotes are particularly easy to do. There is an active
mailing list.
I'm quite happy to use plain Latex for shorter things, including
letters, but for longer texts like books LuX makes life much easier.
Anthony
--
Anthony Campbell - ac@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
and sceptical articles)
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