🚀 go-pugleaf

I posted an article to the net asking for information on how to publish
a book.  I asked...

} A friend of mine is planning to publish a book which is mostly completed.
} He is currently writing it on Wordperfect 5.1.  The book is aimed at a
} general population (i.e. not student level) but is a form of study book.
} So the layout will be fairly non-standard.  Are there suggestions as to
} the best way to approach this kind of publication.  I have access to
} TeX, Pagemaker, and Ami-pro (I think that's what it's called), but am
} unsure as to what would be best for a publisher.  Suggestions please...
} 
} Dave
} 
} PS Couldn't GN2 in the FAQ be expanded a little to cover this kind of thing?

I got two replies by E-mail, the essence of which were:-


From: "John R. Levine"

} For self-publishing the programs of choice seem to be Ventura on PCs and
} Frame on workstations.  PageMaker is OK but seems not to be all that good
} at handling 100 page documents.


From: "Chet A. Creider"

} I note that in UK quite a few books are indicated as having been
} originally written on the Macintosh, and AmiPro gives similar
} capabilities on a PC.  Over here, FrameMaker seems to be popular
} as well.  However, in all of the cases I have seen, if the author
} has been involved in the typesetting, the results are not very
} pleasing.  My advice is to stay with WordPerfect and let the
} publishers do the final layout in whatever they use.  If your
} colleague is desperate to do the typesetting, then I suggest he
} use LaTeX and not something like PageMaker, Ventura or AmiPro
} where he is almost certain to mess things up aesthetically.

Thanks for the help on this one.  It looks like we will either stick
with WordPerfect 5.1 or go for TeX/LaTeX as the publisher would rather
have camera ready copy.

Dave.