Re: Please answer a book design opinion question (was Re: [lojban] CLL 1.1/ CLL 2.0. What is your opinion in the current situation?)

Yes, I have 1.1 and 2.0 confused (surely not alone in this in this conversation). The other questions remain. How many platform-independent typesetting formats are there and how intertranslatable are they? (given the tendency toward proprietary software in some circles, I fear the answers are "many" and "not very"). Pick one, strip back to ASCII (which has the virtue of being everywhere readable) and rebuild. That will be faster than all the fiddling and also give back the control that the other systems seem to have problems with. But what do I know?

From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2012 11:08 AM
Subject: Re: Please answer a book design opinion question (was Re: [lojban] CLL 1.1/ CLL 2.0. What is your opinion in the current situation?)

John E Clifford wrote:
> Where is this book? How valid is it? Why can't it be published (is it
> in some exotic format that can't be converted -- if so, why? Come to
> that, why was it formatted at all before consideration was given to its
> eventual use?)?

I think you've lost some context, pc. They are referring to Cowan's red book CLL, which of course *has* already been published once. The original was formatted and indexed in Microsoft Word for Windows of a pre-1997 version, which I then with considerable difficulty converted to a PDF format compatible with the printer's typesetting equipment (it kept changing the page breaks when I changed output devices, so I could not prepare my own galleys).

To revise this book, the first stage is to correct all the typos and minor errors that people have identified over the years. That will make version 1.1. But no one is working in antediluvian Word, but rather in more modern formats that are platform independent - I think they are using some form of HTML or XML. (And that formatting was done independently of any publication plans, because a major purpose was to have an online version of the text).

The format change means that all the existing indexing is probably unrecoverable, since it is encoded in Word's internal format. So the main issue of *this* thread is what kind of index they want the new version to have, with side issues of exactly what format and tools will be used to prepare the publication. That CAN be decided after the text is done, but there is no harm in people trying various approaches before then, so that we don't have the year and a half lag that John and I went through between the time he was essentially done with the book, and when we finally got boxes of books for shipment. (It took a LONG time to format and index the original).

To whatever extent that the formatting can be done independently of the writing, it allows the job to be farmed out to more people of differing skills, and therefore gets a published version out sooner. So formatting can and should take place before the text is in final form.

The question of indexing is of course almost entirely independent of the text preparation itself, and is dependent on the formatting or indexing tool that is used.

There are people who want to be able to get a copy of 1.1, even though it really is only a temporary document. Robin is also planning/coordinating a more thorough revision (version 2.0) which will incorporate all of the byfy decisions. Ideally, much of the formatting and indexing that they do for 1.1 will be recoverable for 2.0, but that is possible only if they choose tools and methods that allow for this.

lojbab

-- Bob LeChevalier lojbab@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

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