Re: [O] Org as a publishing framework, where to start?

[Thomas S. Dye]

Aloha Marcelo,


Marcelo de Moraes Serpa <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'd love to use orgmode as my publishing framework for ebooks (mainly PDF).
> I'd like some flexibility on defining the output. The thought of having to
> use OpenOffice / Office or even Adobe Indesign to write text is daunting to
> me. It might work for small reports, but for longer works, I'd rather write
> it in plain text, and org just makes things easier.

It is certainly possible to use Org-mode to produce ebooks, such as
would be read with a mobile device like a Nook or an iPad, or pdf files,
which might be thought of as electronic descriptions of printed books.

The path from Org-mode to ebook is: export to html then convert the html
to an epub format with the open-source software Calibre.  Because the
ebook readers take care of most of the formatting, there is
relatively little of that kind of work to do on the Org-mode end.

>
> I don't know where to start though. I don't have much time, and I'd like to
> design a nice beautiful layout for the book. Where should I start looking?
> What combos work best ? (org + LaTeX, etc) Is there any place I could get
> some ready beautiful LaTeX layouts to study from that could be used from
> org?

Designing a nice beautiful printed book layout is time-consuming and
somewhat of an art.  If you're pressed for time, then the best route
here might be to choose a LaTeX class that already looks good and then
tweak it so that it looks just right.  I've worked with the standard
LaTeX book class, with the memoir class, and with the Koma scrbook
class.  Of these, I prefer the scrbook class.  I like its page layout
algorithm (see the DIV option) and the facilities it provides for
changing the fonts for particular elements of the layout.

There is a LaTeX export tutorial on Worg that will show you how to set
up Org-mode to use scrbook (or any other class).

You might want to spend some time setting up the right font.  This isn't
trivial in the LaTeX world--some fonts lack the faces required by a
book's design, or don't support math, etc.  A good choice if you want
your book to look like a standard science text is the Times setup
illustrated in the LaTeX export tutorial.  If you'd like something a
little different and don't want to spend time hunting for the right
combination of serif, sans-serif, and typewriter fonts, then you might
want to purchase the Lucida fonts from the TeX User's Group.  This is a
very complete set of faces that supports math and will basically do
whatever a book class asks of it.
 
hth,
Tom

>
> Sorry about the ignorance, I might even be using the wrong terms here, the
> issue is that there's way too much information spread around, and I don't
> know where to start.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Marcelo.
> Hi everyone,I&#39;d love to use orgmode as my publishing framework for ebooks 
> (mainly PDF). I&#39;d like some flexibility on defining the output. The 
> thought of having to use OpenOffice / Office or even Adobe Indesign to write 
> text is daunting to me. It might work for small reports, but for longer 
> works, I&#39;d rather write it in plain text, and org just makes things 
> easier.
> I don&#39;t know where to start though. I don&#39;t have much time, and 
> I&#39;d like to design a nice beautiful layout for the book. Where should I 
> start looking? What combos work best ? (org + LaTeX, etc) Is there any place 
> I could get some ready beautiful LaTeX layouts to study from that could be 
> used from org?
> Sorry about the ignorance, I might even be using the wrong terms here, the 
> issue is that there&#39;s way too much information spread around, and I 
> don&#39;t know where to start.
> Thanks,Marcelo.

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
http://www.tsdye.com