Is Free Software Ready For E-publishing? 221
johanneswilm writes "Over more than 3 years I have been writing my PhD thesis on the politics of Nicaragua. Being the most professional system for PDF generation, I went with LaTeX, and, to make the text accessible for the editors, I used the LyX editor. Now that the publication date comes near, I found I had to spend considerable time creating a script to convert the manuscript to formats such as Epub as none of the available tools were quite ready to do it automatically. Is LaTeX only good for writers in the natural sciences? Is the open source community boycotting ebook formats, as Richard Stallman has proposed? Are there better tools to do the same?"
RE: Stallman link (Score:3, Interesting)
Stallman complains about DRM and a lack of anonymity with eBooks. It seems to me that this story relates very closely to legally acquired music. While it is still difficult to legally acquire digital music anonymously, it is easy to get it without DRM. I suspect books will follow this same path if consumers value it as a feature. In practice there is in fact little anonymity in the purchase of real books as everyone wants you to swipe your "club" card and use your debit card to make the purchase but his point is well taken. The option to buy an unpopular book in secret is nice.
With time and interest from consumers we will have DRM free books.
Anonymity is dead and gone and I didn't even get an invitation to the funeral. We should all mourn it's passing.
Pandoc (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:through HTML (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some things LyX is better at than pure LaTeX code.
I can see the current version of my figures, not just rely on the file name.
I can add references from a list instead of trying to remember what labels I have used.
I can search bib items and add / order citations easily.
I can make complex tables without forgetting some damn }
I can generate and view a new version of my document in a single keypress.
I can see my equations without having to mentally render them, while still using most of my TeX knowledge (\alpha _12 in LyX is the same as \alpha_{12})
Students can make the transition from Word a little more readily. Remember, LyX is not WYSIWYG, it is WYSIWYM (what you mean) so the on screen representation is close to the final but not exact.
Plus you have access to tons of menu options that you may not be aware of. I learn more about LaTeX by using and exploring LyX. And you can always use pure code if you want, for any fancy stuff.