[texhax] Re: texhax Digest, Vol 2005, Issue 177

[DW]

Dear William,

Thanks for your quick response!  I will have a look at the resources you
pointed me to.

Regards,
David Wu

>Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:13:57 -0400
>From: "William F. Adams" <wadams at atlis.com>
>Subject: Re: [texhax] help! basic question for book formatting
>To: texhax <texhax at tug.org>
>Message-ID: <b1f41bd67f900d9b7196626e3ba8a1e5 at atlis.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
>On Jun 20, 2005, at 8:07 PM, DW wrote:
>
>>  I'm a beginning user of LaTeX, and am considering using it to write a
>>  textbook.  I've looked around for style files, but most are in the
>>  format of a research-level book.  I'm looking more for the style of an
>>  undergraduate science text: a larger column for text, and a thinner
>>  column in different formatting (fonts etc) for figures, etc., where
>>  the figures can be anchored to particular text.
>>
>>  Can anyone advise whether this is possible/recommended to be done in
>>  LaTeX, as opposed to say something like Adobe InDesign?  If possible
>>  in LaTeX, are there style files that are available that could serve as
>>  templates?
>>
>>  Also, is there a more appropriate forum for this type of question?
>
>Here or comp.text.tex is fine.
>
>I have a brief listing of free texts on TeX which you may find of use.
>
>http://members.aol.com/willadams/books-e-tex.html
>
>Peter Wilson's Memoir class would be a good choice depending on your
>specific needs --- the sort of layout you're discussing is pretty
>typical for LaTeX (the stuff in the secondary column is put there w/
>\marginpar{foo} and there're packages for putting your footnotes there
>too).
>
>Reasons to use LaTeX - long, structured text w/ mathematics for which
>you want the best possible typography and ultimate flexibility and
>control and abilities in setting rules for pagination.
>
>Reasons to use InDesign - shorter, free-form text for which one wishes
>to do situational tweaking w/o an overall structured set of rules and
>specifications.
>
>That said, I've used InDesign for long texts, and LaTeX for short texts
>and either can work, it just depends on one's patience and skill level
>and available time.
>
>http://www.tug.org/texshowcase has some nice samples.
>
>William
>
>--
>William Adams, publishing specialist
>voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708
>www.atlis.com