OT: publishers accepting .tex files (was Re: Exceedingly OT - Re: [OS X TeX] tex, pdf, and doc)

[Simon Spiegel]

On 05.09.2006, at 13:29, William Adams wrote:

> On Sep 4, 2006, at 5:46 PM, Alex Hamann wrote:
>
>> I guess my question is: has anybody had any problems with
>> publishers not accepting tex-processed files? I am a little afraid
>> of writing my thesis with Tex and then discovering that the word-
>> lovers have taken over even the publishers....
>
> This varies by publisher. It's rare for a publisher to turn down a
> manuscript they really want though, and worst case is they have the
> entire book re-keyed in Word to produce in Quark XPress, alternately
> they may take the .tex files, dump them into Word, have a technical
> copy editor whack at them, then typeset from that.

Just wanted to post my (very fresh) experience here: I'm the first at  
our institute (film studies that is) who wrote his thesis in LaTeX.  
Exchange with my professor wasn't a problem, I just send her PDFs  
which she printed and commented (since she would do this on paper  
anyway, it didn't matter what I used).

I was a bit afraid when it came to publication. All thesis at our  
institute are published in the same series which has sort of a  
corporate design layout. Normally people would send Word files to the  
publisher who would put them in their system (no idea what they use).  
It soon turned out that they couldn't handle tex files. So I asked  
whether they could handle a PDF if I could get the layout right.  
Thanks to komascript and the fact they only use Palantino and  
Frutiger, I was able to re-construct the complete layout. So what  
we'll end up is me doing the complete book and just send them a PDF.  
Although it means more work for me it also means lower publication  
costs, and above diligence, since I'm sure I care much more about the  
layout of my book than anyone else ever will.

simon
--
Simon Spiegel
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8002 Zürich

Telephon: ++41 44 451 5334
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