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I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

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Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#61

Post by dustin1114 »

meonkeys wrote: post #58

I enjoyed using Asciidoctor to write a book. It necessitates using a text editor instead of a word processor so it doesn't fit DJ's use case, but it really is quite nice. I'm also fascinated by the build for Ada & Zangemann, a FOSS illustrated full-color children's book. It looks rather complex, but it handles translations, beautiful typesetting, and was remarkably fast when I tried running the build locally.

Asciidoctor was in the running months ago. I like the idea of a single set of files, but yes, word processors are my weakness.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#62

Post by genewitch »

https://standardebooks.org/contribute/producing-an-ebook-ste...

as linked in the article, looks like a nightmare. i was hyped that i could recommend something to author friends, but, i can hear it now, "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"

oh well, they'll have to pay someone that understands all of that, because i don't.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#63

Post by somat »

BrenBarn wrote: post #12
helterskelter wrote: post #5

My only problem using git and a text editor is deciding whether I want hard or soft wraps. Vim handles hard wraps better IMO and you can change the git diff engine to something like difft, which makes it much more bearable than the default for hard wrap prose. But softwrap definitely has its advantages: no hard line breaks makes copying the text into other mediums easier, git diffs show only which paragraphs you edit…

The annoyances of using "soft wraps" with various kinds of tools is one of the maddening irritations of our software landscape. Inserting non-semantic newlines in content just to make things fit the screen is insane.

It is not just to fit the screen, it also fits our line orientated version control better.

I don't know if this is suitable for large works(books), but for technical documentation I have my plain text source with one line per sentence, actually I go further than than and usually have one line per punctuation. The raw source reads a little hard but the version control diffs are much cleaner and editing is is easier. Most formats(html, troff, tex) ignore manual line returns anyway.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#64

Post by cryo32 »

raddan wrote: post #16
Exoristos wrote: post #7

As someone who worked for years in commercial print, before most manufacturing moved overseas, I recall the workflows the article discusses as being more automate-able than the author seems to understand. For example, "Making the slightest change became a chore. [1.] Update the 'master' DOCX. [2.] Update the InDesign file ..." --the appropriate way to use an external document as master in InDesign is to use the Place…

> Overall, as a technical writeup I enjoyed the article; however, I would caution that the author seems to approach publishing from an amateur perspective. I also worked at a publishing company (for ~6 years) in the early 2000s. While you are right that the pros have some tricks to make the process easier, the fact remains that the process is not easy at all. Unlike in academic publishing, where nothing stands betwee…

Would just like to add that academic publishers have to deal with a lot of rubbish too.

Trying getting the psychology department to use anything other than O365. We have our own typesetting contractors who deal with the muck they produce.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#66

Post by huijzer »

dustin1114 wrote: post #60
huijzer wrote: post #22

Uhm why not Typst? I published my thesis and another book in it and it worked great. They are also working on HTML output which should make it easier to create EPUBs. Until then Pandoc should work I think

typst is great. I experimented with it, it I simply didn't have the fine-tuning and maturity LaTeX. For example, window/orphan control is a binary on/off, while LaTeX calculates by penalties at a much lower level. Pandoc is also great (I used it often for unrelated workflows), but it can't map custom styles from ODT files (not sure about Word).

Seems it’s currently a percentage: https://forum.typst.app/t/how-to-leave-a-single-line-of-para...

On Pandoc I agree. Word custom styles is possible I believe but it will be a mess (as usual with Word).

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#67

Post by voidUpdate »

> "I would love if the XHTML and TeX were artifacts rather than code"

What's an "artifact"? I don't come from a writing background, so it may be obvious to some people, but I only know that word in a historical-ish context, as something old and important, which doesn't seem to make sense in this context

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#68

Post by donalhunt »

voidUpdate wrote: post #67

> "I would love if the XHTML and TeX were artifacts rather than code" What's an "artifact"? I don't come from a writing background, so it may be obvious to some people, but I only know that word in a historical-ish context, as something old and important, which doesn't seem to make sense in this context

In software development, an artifact is a deployable file produced during the build process, such as a .jar, .zip, .exe, or Docker image.

In the publishing world, an artifact is something that is a product of processing code. e.g. the OP wants their code to generate files in various formats.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#69

Post by theknarf »

You'll get pretty far if you start off with Obsidian + Markdown + a makefile with Pandoc. You can even combine Markdown and Latex files together with Pandoc. This gives you an easy workflow with all the power you need using Latex as an escape hatch. And Obsidian have enough plugins to do whatever you want (or swap it for any other Markdown or code editor of your choice).

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#70

Post by theknarf »

voidUpdate wrote: post #67

> "I would love if the XHTML and TeX were artifacts rather than code" What's an "artifact"? I don't come from a writing background, so it may be obvious to some people, but I only know that word in a historical-ish context, as something old and important, which doesn't seem to make sense in this context

An artifact is the output of an automated process that take some input and outputs artifacts. Its a generic term that can mean all kinds of things depending on the process and type of output. For example if you have a program that take an Open Office document in and produce a pdf and an epub file out then "pdf" and "ebup" would be the artifacts.
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