Re: Using Mathematica to typeset books
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg125383] Re: Using Mathematica to typeset books
- From: Armand Tamzarian <mike.honeychurch at gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 04:06:03 -0500 (EST)
- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
- References: <jj9ut7$duf$1@smc.vnet.net>
On Mar 8, 8:41 pm, m... at necomp.us wrote: > 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. Mike it is certainly possible. I have typeset a book and 12 issues of Mathematica in Education and Research. The problem for users at the moment is that Wolfram have failed to continue to update AuthorTools. This was a handy suite of tools for creating tables of contents, indexes and so on. These tools are still bundled with Mathematica but haven't been updated for a few versions and do not all work as seemlessly as they once did. So this has resulted in the process of typesetting a book being more difficult now that it used to be. There are work arounds but the Wolfram have iincreased the degree of difficulty by not updating AuthorTools -- thus creating a disincentive for many users to use Mathematica for typesetting. Hopefully Wolfram will get serious about supporting (physical) publishing of books and re-introduce an updated version of these tools in the next release. To typeset a book in Mathematica for your publisher you need to talk to your publisher about their styling requirements and then create a stylesheet based on those requirements. You can also create other stylesheets to support electronic version of the text. Without more information it is a bit difficult to add much more. Mike