🚀 go-pugleaf

Date: Mon, 4 May 87 10:27:12 pdt
From: inc@tc.fluke.COM (Gary Benson)
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA

I've been reading this group for quite a while now, and figured it had not
much to offer me. Our publishing, which certainly originates at a desktop,
doesn't all happen there. I too am working in a Technical Publications
group, and we have little use for most of the DTP products out. The person
who asked if anyone else works in a MilSpec environment where 10 Megabytes
is about big enough for a section prompted this response.

We are currently wrestling (as we have for the past 5 years or so) over how
best to automate our page makeup process, which we currently are doing by
way of illustrators hand massaging every page. Yes, that is the OLD way, and
yes, it has inefficiencies, but no, putting a Mac on all our writer's desks
will not fix things for us. If anything, it would compound our problems.

We publish about 7,000 pages a year, and for our uses there are not many
contenders. To satisfy our needs, a publishing system needs:

    -A snazzy editor that lets writers go anywhere in a big document
     instantly. (Big is 100 to 500 pages). The editor should be easy to
     learn and use, provide all the utilities writers have come to expect
     (e.g., spellchecker, global search and replace; editable, storable
     macros)

    -A lot of memory. We keep approximately half a million pages in archive,
     with about half of that on line. We need to share files large files
     with meticulous revision control.

    -Full WYSIWYG. No codes visible to the writer ever. When the document is
     code converted, codes should be able to be filtered out so revisions
     and corrections can be made. When they ARE in, codes should be human
     readable.

    -Ability to shove any file through a formatter that creates pages
     according to predefined page specifications.

    -Automatic numbering and reordering of any numbered item: lists,
     illustrations, tables.

    -Auto TOC, auto LOT, auto LOI, auto index.

    -Output to laser for review copies, to typesetter for finals. The
     typesetter should be able to output galley, plates, or film.


In the context of a technical publications environment, damn few systems can
cut the mustard, and micros never will. We are talking databases here,
chums! Large volume production just can't be done by a "desk-top publishing"
system. In fact, I submit that there is no such thing as DTP, or at least
its a misnomer. I believe DTP systems are not really for publishing.
Publication happens when a team consisting of a writer, editor, illustrator,
technical reviewer, and a production staff create a large work for a large
audience.

When a single person sits down to his DTP system and cranks out a newsletter,
no matter how efficiently, that person is not publishing! S/he is just using
the right tool for a publication-like job. The question for me is what is
the right tool for my kind of publishing. Thankfully, a few companies are
meeting the needs of those of us who publish (according to my definition).
Please see the Seybold Report, Vol 16, No 12 of March 2, 1987 for details.

    Xyvision: "layout-driven pagination suitable for areas such as magazine
    publishing".

    Texet: "handling structured documents rather than the broader needs of
    commercial typesetting...oriented almost exclusively toward corporate
    publishing and the milspec/aerospace markets, particularly where long
    documents are composed to a fixed layout.


    Interleaf: "sometimes added to the competition, generally when the
    application requires extensive graphics manipulation and fast
    composition speed, while not requiring sophisticated composition. Also
    has a significant price advantage in most configurations".

Admittedly these are not DTP systems, with the possible exception of
Interleaf. Still, I was glad to see someone else here talk about "real"
publishing.

A typical scenario goes like this: someone sees a new DTP product
(Interleaf, Word 3.0, and Ventura are the latest of these), they like what
it does, and become familiar enough with it to produce a little sheet that
they think looks terrific. In producing it, they have become familiar with
some of the decisions made regularly in "real" publishing, because on a
micro level (*grin*) they have had to deal with them: dynamic running heads,
offset pages for image shifting, figures and tables floating, sinking, or
anchored to a first mention, gutter size, ladders and rivers, and so on. I
disagree with the previous poster, who said they may even wrestle with
ligatures, because I doubt most DTP types would know one if it came up
behind them and smacked them up alongside the head! The favorite program
probably never heard of a ligature either.

Anyway, with this experience tucked under their belt, they feel qualified to
tell me how I ought to get all my writers a <generic micro> with <generic
software> and really start cranking out the pages. But I take a look at the
3 to 12 page pamphlet or whatever, and see that it has of typos since it was
never seen by anyone except the proud parent, it is in a format that was
invented on the fly and looks it, usually has about 14 different fonts and
sizes of type because they were there, and in general looks like a one-man
show. But since they created it, they are absolutely blind to the poor job
they have done!

True publishing involves more than a desktop and a <generic>: it means that
some sort of standards are going to be adhered to. Someone is going to edit
the thing for adherence to those standards, for clear language, technical
accuracy, presentation. There may be anywhere from 1 to a dozen or more
reviewers! The failure of DTP is that in giving full control over publishing
to one person, the person is never aware of the larger issue, in short, will
this publication really meet anyone's needs, or am I the only one who thinks
its beautiful?


-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
 Gary Benson  *  John Fluke Mfg. Co.  *  PO Box C9090  *  Everett WA  *  98206
    MS/232-E  = =               !fluke!inc           = =     (206)356-5367
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-ascii is our god and unix is his profit-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 


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