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Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

gtfsbook.com

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Re: Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

#31
post #27

I like how you've included an index in the sample chapter. It shows what else is in the book. How did you generate that? What tools did you use to write the book?

Thanks for asking - I wrote the book using LibreOffice and used the Table of Contents, Indexing, and cross-referencing functionality.

In actual fact: - I wrote the first half of the page in Apple pages - I couldn't cross-reference so I moved to Word for Mac - This worked well, but I couldn't export the PDF with internal links - I converted to LibreOffice - This exported with external links

To create the sample, I then opened in Preview, deleted all the internal pages, dragged in the "call to action" page, then saved.

LibreOffice worked well for the most part, although there were a few little funky things that didn't work how I wanted them to (e.g. justified text puts extra spacing between letters as well as words. Also, indexing a word sometimes makes the alignment go all screwy, for some unknown reason)

Re: Show HN: I wrote a very niche ebook about GTFS public transit data

#32

What differentiates your book from the reference? https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/reference

Thanks for asking: it does include the GTFS, but then provides additional discussion over aspects that are not necessarily clear or potentially confusing for newcomers.

It also covers the fact that many agencies interpret the spec differently and explains things to look out for.

The final half of the book shows how to optimize the data from a feed so it will perform more efficiently in an SQL database (for instance, showing how to reduce the number of points in a shape)

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