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List:       lyx-users
Subject:    Re: Help for paper about LaTeX/LyX and the meaning of life
From:       Charles de Miramon <cmiramon () kde-france ! org>
Date:       2009-03-24 13:52:32
Message-ID: gqaoj0$asn$1 () ger ! gmane ! org
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stefano franchi wrote:
> On the other hand:
> 
> * LyX produces glorious output--through LaTex---but that's not that
> important to me, because no one in my field would accept a LaTex file. In
> fact I doubt they would even know what it is. And they would not accept a
> camera-ready file either. Almost everything is retyped or, most likely,
> imported from Word into a DTP program. I personally enjoy looking at the
> beautifully formatted output produced by LaTex, but it is a purely
> narcissistic pleasure. No added benefit there. I believe this to be 
> pretty much the norm in the humanities (after you graduate: your
> dissertation may be the last piece of writing you control from beginning
> to end).
> 


From my point of view (working in the humanities in France) is that copy
editors and typographical work are quickly disappearing in Academic Press
in Europe. Nobody is making any money selling books in humanities and even
serious book publishers  are transforming in a simple book printers. 

My experience is that you give a word file that is crudely imported in a DTP
program by a secretary with little knowledge. Anything complex (tables,
figures, index) will be hopelessly botched. Somme publishers like
L'Harmattan in France or Peter Lang in Germany don't even bother anymore
with DTP, they will just xerox the MsWord printout.

LyX and LaTeX make it possible to create with well documented and open
source tools quality books. Even if the use in a MsWrod workflow can be
today limited it is path to the future.

Cheers,
Charles


  
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http://www.kde-france.org

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