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Re: Using Mathematica to typeset books

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg125360] Re: Using Mathematica to typeset books
  • From: "djmpark" <djmpark at comcast.net>
  • Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 06:09:17 -0500 (EST)
  • Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
  • References: <12645594.89812.1331200006431.JavaMail.root@m06>

Why play around? Why not give the readers real value?

Why not publish full-fledged Mathematica Applications that contain a book,
packages, full documentation, tutorials and example notebooks with
application of the subject matter?

Such Applications have huge advantages over any half-way approaches.

1) The purchaser has active code that she can use for explorations and
calculations.

2) The product is active, dynamic and open ended. It can use much clearer
and convincing methods to present proofs and derivations.

3) The product has much higher integrity because the material can be
actively tested and this provides a great deal of automatic proof reading. 

4) The book can also be published separately. This provides a publishing
record independent of Mathematica and satisfies those who also want a
printed book.  The book can be shorter and more formal in its approach
because the burden of many examples and extended exploration can be put in
the Application.

It's a fantastic new medium and it's available now for those who want to
take advantage of it.

But the reader/user must have a working Mathematica. Is this asking too
much? Student and Home Editions are not all that expensive these days.
Technical professionals should have the necessary tools and be willing to
pay for them.

Will Mathematica be around long enough to make this an inviting publication
method? It's been around since 1988 and has been significantly and
continuously improved over time. WRI is always exploring new ideas and
capabilities. I'm not sure that everything works out but the product is
definitely "alive" and gives every sign of being around for a while.


David Park
djmpark at comcast.net 
http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/index.html 



From: mike at necomp.us [mailto:mike at necomp.us] 
I'm a newbie to Mathematica. I work with a publisher that is looking to use
Mathematica to typeset its books. Is it possible to do this and what are
some books that may be of interest. A lot of the books are now set using
LaTex but the publisher is looking to set up some with Mathematica and then
using CDF for some website tutorials.




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